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Submissions

Grimalkin Press publishes speculative short story collections and anthologies with a focus on the dark side of the human condition.

Anti-AI Statement

Grimalkin Press does not accept authors who use AI-generative "tools" to write stories or create cover designs or any illustrations. We are a company that focuses on HUMAN stories written by humans for humans.

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Grimalkin Press does not use AI-generative "tools" to create our own words or images.

Anthology General Guidelines

Word count

  • Min 1,000 | Max 5,000

Stories under 1,000 words may be considered, but stories over 5,000 words will not be considered.

File type

  • Files should be a Word Doc — .doc, .docx, .rtf

Please do not send in PDFs or Google Docs or another file type that is not a Word Document.

Format

  • Modern Manuscript Format

Please use Proper Manuscript Format, Modern Edition by William Shunn. You may find the full guidelines to that format here. Stories not in this format will not be considered.

Payment

  • 8 cents per word

  • 1 print copy to US address OR 1 digital copy to non-US address

Authors will be paid 8 cents per word counted after author-signed-off edits by the editor and publisher. Authors with a US address will also receive one print copy. Authors with an address outside of the US will receive one e-book copy.

Misc. 

  • No reprints

  • Simultaneous submissions accepted

  • No exploitative graphic imagery or scenes

While we don't accept reprints, we do accept simultaneous submissions. Please let us know if your submission has been accepted elsewhere. While we publish horror stories, we do not promote the use of graphic and violent imagery or scenes that feel exploitative or feel that the it is glorifying the act.

Upcoming submission

Sweet Screams

Dessert With Berries

A charity anthology

A percentage of sales from this anthology will go to the non-profit SoCo Women in Horror Festival that celebrates women in horror all year long with a multiple-day conference in March. To learn more about the SoCo Women in Horror Festival, please see here.

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This anthology is co-edited by the founder of SoCo Women in Horror Festival, author K.J. Brantley.

What we are looking for

For Sweet Screams, we're looking for horror stories centered around themes of sweetness, baking, cooking, desserts, and the unsettling things that can exist beneath comfort, nostalgia, celebration, or indulgence.

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This can include baked goods, bake sales, bakeries, candies, pastries, recipes, cafés, diners, holiday treats, cooking competitions, trad wife aesthetics (when meaningfully tied to cooking or baking), strange ingredients, hospitality, obsession, family traditions, celebrations, or anything else that fits within the thread of sweetness colliding with horror.

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We're especially interested in stories that approach these themes in creative, unexpected, emotional, unsettling, atmospheric, or deeply human ways. The horror can be literary, psychological, gothic, folk, surreal, quiet, darkly comedic, or grotesque, but this anthology is not a fit for extreme horror, splatterpunk, or stories that rely heavily on exploitative shock value.

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Most of all, think of your story as the dessert itself. Sweet Screams is the bake sale from hell, and we want every story in this anthology to feel like its own terrifyingly irresistible confection; the kind of sweet treat a reader knows they probably shouldn’t touch, but would die to take a bite out of anyway.

 

Submissions for this publication are only open to women and gender diverse people to spotlight the voices of those in these marginalized communities.

Submission details

  • Submissions open June 15, 2026

  • Submissions close August 15, 2026

  • Submit to submissions@grimalkinpress.com

  • Subject line should read: Sweet Screams_[Title of Story]_[Author's Last Name]

  • See above in Anthology General Guidelines for more guidelines

Upcoming submission

Dirty Martini

Fem Horror Noir Anthology
Martini And Garnishes

What we are looking for

Noir has notoriously been a breeding pool for misogyny, so we're looking to even the playing field and flip the script by blending feminist themes with noir's traditional bleak, cynical, and pessimistic tone. Noir core elements should still be present: the antihero, moral ambiguity, and fatalism, but should stray from the stereotypical way women and other minorities have been portrayed. No femme fatales or damsels in distress unless you have a feminist and gut-wrenching twist for their archetypes.

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We're also looking for horror to be present in any capacity (supernatural, psychological, folk, cosmic, etc.). Stories should be centered around the dark side of humanity and the human condition.

 

Submission details

  • Submissions open October 1, 2026

  • Submissions close December 31, 2026

  • Submit to submissions@grimalkinpress.com

  • Subject line should read: Dirty Martini_[Title of Story]_[Author's Last Name]

  • See above in Anthology General Guidelines for more guidelines

Collection General Guidelines

Story and word count

  • 13 to 15 stories

  • 65,000 words max

Collections should contain 13 to 15 stories. Collections with more than 15 stories will not be considered. Collections over 65,000 words will not be considered.

File type

  • Files should be a Word Doc — .doc, .docx, .rtf

Please do not send in PDFs or Google Docs or another file type that is not a Word Document.

Format

  • Modern Manuscript Format

Please use Proper Manuscript Format, Modern Edition by William Shunn. You may find the full guidelines to that format here. Stories not in this format will not be considered.

Payment

  • 8 cents per word

  • 1 print copy to US address OR 1 digital copy to non-US address

Authors will be paid 8 cents per word counted after author-signed-off edits by the editor and publisher. Authors with a US address will also receive one print copy. Authors with an address outside of the US will receive one e-book copy.

Misc. 

  • No reprints

  • Simultaneous submissions accepted

  • No exploitative graphic imagery or scenes

While we don't accept reprints, we do accept simultaneous submissions. Please let us know if your submission has been accepted elsewhere. While we publish horror stories, we do not promote the use of graphic and violent imagery or scenes that feel exploitative or feel that the it is glorifying the act.

Submissions closed

Short Story Collections

Lunar Phases Abstract

What we are looking for

TBD

Submission details

  • TBD

Mission

To inspire awe and understanding through insightful, high-quality dark short ficion.

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