Three paying markets for short fiction, poetry, and art, plus the Caledon Library has three free contests: for short stories, poetry & photography, for both kids & adults

Note: Don't ever miss a post on Quick Brown Fox. Fill in your email in the box to the right under my bio and get each post delivered to your Inbox. Also, if you’re not yet on my newsletter, send me an email, including your locale, to: brianhenry@sympatico.ca ~ Brian

Amethyst Arsenic is an online publisher of poetry, art, and music. Currently seeking material for the spring issue. Pays $10; featured poet receives $50 U.S. 

Deadline: March 31, 2017. Guidelines here.

Orford Parish Books specializes in the unsettling, the weird, the subtly troubling – short fiction, illustrated books for strange children, themed chapbooks, fake newspapers. “We don’t do it for a living; we do it because it’s too hard to start a cult.”

Orford Parish is currently seeking submissions for an anthology of New England Folk Horror. Pays $75 U.S.

Deadline: March 31, 2017. Guidelines here.

The Caledon Public Library is sponsoring Short Story, Poetry, and Photography contests.

Get published & win money, using the theme Celebrating Canada 150.

Short story Contest categories:

Adult 18+ years, maximum word count 1500 words

Teen (Elizabeth Scavetta Memorial Teen Short Story) 13 - 17 years, maximum word count 1500 words

Children 9 -12 years, maximum word count 750 words

Children 6 - 8 years, maximum word count 500 words

Prizes: 1st place $100, 2nd place $75, 3rd place $50

Deadline: March 31, 2017

Poetry Contest categories:

Adult 18+ years

Teen 13 - 17 years

Prizes: 1st place $100, 2nd place $75, 3rd place $50

Deadline: April 20, 2107

Photography Contest categories:

 Adult 18+ years

Teen 13 - 17 years

Children 6 - 12 years

Prizes: 1st place $100, 2nd place $75, 3rd place $50

Deadline: September 2, 2017

Guidelines for all three contests here.

Hi, Brian.

You're hearing it here first. I'll be editing a new speculative anthology for Exile Editions. I'm attaching the guidelines for Alice Unbound. Submissions open Feb 1. Feel free to spread the word.
Colleen Anderson

Alice Unbound

Lewis Carroll explored childlike wonder and the bewildering realm of adult rules and status, which clashed in bizarre ways. Many characters in his tales are anthropomorphic, whether talking cards, crying mock turtles or saucy Tiger Lilies. Over 150 years later, people still recognize characters from Carroll's works. Who doesn’t know of vorpel blades and mimbly borogroves? There is the same madcap imagination in the fantastic that has allowed fairy tales to endure through centuries. These characters resonate in a primal part of the human psyche, harkening to the mysticism and mystery of the ancient world, when it was unclear how the rain fell, or the seasons changed, or whether a person was separate from an animal or could become one.

Centuries passed and myth became fairy tales, evolving to resonate with each era, showing the triumphs of the common man, the humble and generous woman who outsmarts tempters, jailers, and evil stepmothers, or the trials and tribulations of seeking the unknown. Carroll's characters took a jump forward, not just following the regular metamorphosis of an age-old fairy tale, but leaping off the cliff of the familiar into something altogether new, different and endearing. We might not truly want to live in the world of Alice or have to deal with mad queens and bandersnatches, but what if that Wonderland ceased to exist and melded with our modern world? How would these characters fit in, and what would they bring or change? Are we ready to accept Alice Unbound into our hearts and let the Jabberwock in the back door?

Alice in Wonderland was Carroll’s (Dodson’s) most famous work but there are other stories and poems, such as the Jabberwock, the Walrus and the Carpenter, or the Snark. For Alice Unbound, I don’t want to see rehashings of Carroll’s tales but characters in a modern or slightly futuristic world. I've seen many of the Alice movies and shows and don’t want a retelling of those scripts. These stories should go farther than the rabbit hole. I will consider a few very select poems, but they will need to have a storyline and not just an observation or an image.

These are examples only but not requirements:

·         The Red Queen pops through; what happens to her and those in her environment in Winnipeg when she decides to lobby for a longer hunting season?

·          The caterpillar is the owner of a medical marijuana store and he refuses to give an ailing person medication.

·         Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum have a falling out because one wants to get fit and stop dressing like a twin.

·         The Jabberwock was once a friendly sort. What caused him to go bad?

·         The mock turtle campaigns for animal rights by doing stand-up comedy.

Whether Alice, the mock turtle or Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, use these elements and characters to show more worlds and characters through the looking glass. Stories must have a conflict and should fall under the speculative umbrella, such as dark, fabulist, weird, fantasty, SF, steampunk. QUILTBAG and people of colour as characters are encouraged as well as stories from any Canadian. Alice doesn’t have to be white and blonde. Go beyond Alice in every way.

Pays 5 cents /word

Length: 2,000-5,000 words. Minimum 1,000 words.

Submission window: Feb. 1 to May 31. Full guidelines here.

See Brian Henry’s schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Algonquin Park, Bolton, Barrie, Brampton, Burlington, Caledon, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, Kitchener, London, Midland, Mississauga, Newmarket, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, St. John, NB, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Windsor, Woodstock, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, Simcoe, York Region, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.

Navigating tip: For more paying markets, go to the Labels for this posting listed below and click on Paying Markets, or Best Paying Markets. In the list of Labels, you’ll also find a links to various other collections of postings.