The Call for Submissions for Fantastic Detectives, our next paid fantasy anthology, just dropped today. It’s a sequel to Fantastic Defenders, and curated by the same editing team, Donna Royston and David Keener. The due date for submissions is the end of the year, with expected publication in March, 2023.
Check out the PDF for more details.
How do we submit?
Nevermind, must remember to read the whole document. 🙂
Thanks. We try to make our Call for Stories as complete as possible, including details on how to submit. 😎
Hello there,
I have a submission for the Fantastic detectives, but the two chapters I would submit are parts of a larger novel. The ending and capture of the murder is not part of the chapters I would be submitting. Is this something that would qualify for this particular project? The story is very unique and fantasy based.
A story needs to have a coherent beginning. middle and end in order to be selected for publication in the anthology. It is possible to extract an excerpt from a novel as a short story or novelette…I’ve seen it done by other authors. It can be challenging, though, so best of luck with it.
Are reprints accepted for the Fantastic Detectives anthology? Or only new material?
No. We have published reprints before, but 1) only from authors I knew personally, and 2) stories that had been published elsewhere but with little to no circulation or visibility. After all, at the end of the day, the goal is to sell as many copies of the anthology as we can.
I am ready to submit a story for your Fantastic Detectives anthology. Are there any special formatting requirements for the file name? For example, should the file contain the title and my name, or just the title? Thanks for your help.
We’re pretty flexible in general, but you should follow the general guidance for submissions. Remember, this is an anthology, not a contest. All of your contact information should be in your submission file.
Submissions for the anthology are now closed. Many thanks to everybody for their submissions.
Hi, I submitted back in November. I’ve queried via the submissions email but have not yet had a reply.
I understand you’ll be busy but could someone give me an update?
I just came along to ask the same question! I know one person who got a reprint acceptance about a month ago but I haven’t heard anything yet.
Yes, we weren’t really looking for reprints, but it was such a good story…and so on point for the theme, that we couldn’t resist it.
Our review of the many, many submissions for our upcoming anthology “Fantastic Detectives” should be complete by the end of March. At that point, submitters should have received either a rejection or a notification that their story has made it into the Final Round.
The stories that make it into the Final Round will then be reviewed and final selections should be complete by mid-April.
In the case of P. D. Blake, your story did make it into the Final Round.
In Nat’s case, I did not find his email address associated with any of our submitters in the Excel spreadsheet we use to track submitters. Nat, did you use a different email for your submission? Or if, somehow, your story went awry, please contact me and we’ll address the situation. There’s still time.
This does point out one thing. We could have handled communications better. This is not our first anthology, but it is the first that we opened up to the wide public for submissions. Frankly, we got a lot more submissions than we expected. We will strive to do communications better going forward.
Hi, thanks so much for the quick and informative reply! I’m honestly not sure which email address is attached to my comment here, but it may well be different from the one I used to submit. I double-checked, and I submitted on December 3rd from natrwebb at gmail dot com, and did get a confirmation email in response.
If you don’t have anything recorded from that email address, I would love the opportunity to resend my submission (or do anything else that might help you track it). Thanks again for digging into this!
Nat, I’ve double-checked our Excel spreadsheet and I definitely don’t have an entry for your story. I then went back and checked our “submissions” email account. We received two stories on 12/1, then there was a gap until 12/6 (and then the big final flurry of submissions started as people rushed to get their stories in before the deadline). I’ve got no submission for you at all. I even checked the Spam and Trash (in case it was accidentally deleted) folders.
I’ve got no idea what happened, but here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to email you directly, and you’re going to re-send me your submission directly. We’ll give it a proper review and you’ll know very soon whether it’s made it into the Final Round.
— Dave Keener —
Thanks for the reply. That’s good to know.
Hello!
I am nervous mine didn’t go through as I didn’t get a confirmation email (totally fine if you don’t send those!) but thought to double check before it’s too late. If you did receive mine no need to respond, thank you so much.
Hi Arwyn,
Yes, we received your story just fine.
— Dave Keener —
Hello,
I submitted a story back at the end of December and received a confirmation email, but haven’t heard received either a rejection or hold notice. Should I have, since March is over?
Just trying to make sure my story didn’t slip through the cracks somehow.
I responded separately. We did not receive your story initially, but we did receive it when you re-sent it. Additionally, after review, you did make it into the Final Round.
Hi Dave, I also just wanted to make a quick query as I saw on you FB page you were aiming to finish replying by 6th April, but I haven’t yet received a response. (no worries if you’re still running through them)
Thanks a lot,
George
George, as of now, all “Not Accepted” and “Final Round” notifications have been sent out. However, we do not have a submission from a “George” in our list. Please see the message later in this thread that addresses this issue, which has affected others besides you.
Hi! Just checking to see if all responses went out on the sixth? I know you all were inundated with subs!
As of now, all “Not Accepted” and “Final Round” notifications have been sent out. However, Katie, we do not have a submission from a “Katie” in our list. Please see the message later in this thread that addresses this issue, which has affected others besides you.
Everybody,
We have determined that Worlds Enough experienced an email issue during the submission time period. During this time, we were forced by our web host’s unexpected closure to move our website and email services. Our “submissions@worldsenough.com” email address was re-directed to a Yahoo email account because of this unexpected move. It looks like Yahoo’s spam filter zapped some of the submissions. Unfortunately, Yahoo also removes spam entries after 30 days, so we can’t go back and determine what was lost.
We’ve identified two people who were impacted, and possibly two or three more from the queries above. There are likely more.
We feel that we put enough pressure on authors when we ask them to write a good story to a specific theme. It’s a bridge too far to also randomly zap them with a spam filter when they’re kind enough to submit their work to us.
Everybody that submitted deserves consideration. Period.
Accordingly, we’re re-opening for submissions. All stories that we have actually received have either been notified of being “Not Accepted” or having made it into the “Final Round.” If you have submitted and not received a notification, then your story got lost. Send it again and we will expedite the review process so that you get the consideration you’re due.
All stories need to be received by April 30, 2022. The same email address will work (this time), submissions@worldsenough.com. We will also provide a manual email response acknowledging that we received your story.
We apologize sincerely for the inconvenience. Given the situation, we feel this is the only way we can deal fairly with this mess and ensure that all submitters receive due consideration for their stories.
— David Keener —
Hi,
I re-submitted my story, and I got what appears to be a automated response (similar to the one I received back in December). Just wanted to make sure you got it this time.
Thanks,
James Blakey
Hi James,
Yes, we received your story. For real, this time.
— Dave —
Hello
I submitted 2 stories to you on 1st and 9th December. I received confirmation but not heard back results either way. Can you confirm your reception?
Many thanks!
Hi James,
We did not actually receive a story from you on either December 1st or 9th. As mentioned previously in this comment chain, and also in a separate blog entry, we apparently suffered an email glitch during the submission period as a result of an emergency situation. Our hosting company closed down and we had less than a week to move the website and email addresses.
As a result, and in an effort to be fair to everyone, we re-opened submissions in April for anybody who hadn’t received a response back. At that time, every story had been either rejected or accepted into the Final Round…and all notifications had been sent. So anybody who hadn’t received an official Final-Round/Not-Accepted email was invited to re-send their stories. We received 6 re-submissions.
You’re welcome to send both of your stories again (the email will work this time). We’ll happily review them. I have to be honest, though. We’re inches away from announcing the final selections. So any story accepted would have to be top-notch.
— Dave —
Hi James,
I checked and you also sent an email to us on May 16th, as well, with the stories attached. We did receive that. We’ll review your stories this week and get back to you.
— Dave —
I was wondering if anyone has an update on this?
Everybody,
All submissions that came in during the re-opened submission period have been reviewed. All notifications related to those additional submissions have also been sent out.
Final selections for the anthology are in the process of being made right now. Four acceptances have already been sent out. We expect to have the final selection process done by this time next week. At this point, we’re projecting that the anthology will be slightly over 100K words with 12 stories.
It may also be of general interest to know that one of the already accepted submissions was a re-submission that occurred because of the email glitch that plagued our initial submission period.
— Dave Keener —
Acceptance emails for “Fantastic Detectives” are going out today. Twelve stories made the final cut, for 101K words of fantasy/mystery content.
— Dave —