Thursday, February 17, 2022

Wicked Sick!

 

WICKED SICK


Wicked Sick will be the 9th anthology from the New England Horror Writers! We’re planning for a release at 2022 Necronomicon-Providence in August or at either the Merrimack Valley Halloween Book Fest or Salem Outdoor Market in October, depending on when it’s ready and the state of events and travel Most likely look for the book Spring 2023. 

The subject of the anthology is sickness, be it physical or mental. What new diseases or contagions strike fear into your heart? What are some horrific existing sicknesses that no one is talking about? What horrific symptoms have not been explored? What effects are there to explore on a person’s psyche? To what extent will one go to protect sick loved ones—from the illness itself, from an abusive system of care, or from consequences of their diseased actions? What happens when society uses illness as a means of control? How does one cope when sickness changes who a person is entirely? What happens when the world calls you sick, but you aren’t suffering? What happens when you’re suffering, but no one believes you’re sick? What are some historical horrors of medicine that haven’t been explored: human test subjects, cruel surgery training, battlefield triage? 

We will be having a special guest editor - Kristi Petersen Schoonover!

What don’t we want? An anthology filled with plague doctor and pandemic stories. This is also not the place for personal and biographical recounting of the Covid-19 experiences.  We also don’t need rehashes of The Stand, Swann Song, The Hot Zone, I Am Legend or V-Wars, and we’ve all seen and read countless disease-that-creates-zombies apocalypse stories, so avoid those. They’ll be a hard sell.

All submissions should be original work. We do not want previously published stories. Also, no multiple submissions—one at a time, and wait until you hear from us before pressing that submit button again. Do not send us chapbooks, novellas or parts of novels.

And though we shouldn’t have to say it, nothing inappropriate with animals or children. No extreme violence. Violence and sex should be for the purpose of moving the plot, and not too graphic. This is not the anthology for extreme horror or gore. Aim for R rated.

Reading period: 2/1/22 to 6/30/22 And 11:59 PM
 
Currently we're set up for BLIND SUBMISSIONS

Please make sure your story is submitted in standard manuscript format. Not familiar with standard manuscript format? Here’s a link: https://www.shunn.net/format/story/1/

Now you know. No excuses.

Word count should be 3K to 6K. Query for longer or shorter works. Payment is a flat rate $70 for short stories, $50 for long form poems, $25 for short form poems, one physical copy of the anthology and an e-book. We’ll be looking for fifteen stories and likely 3 - 5 poems. Payment to be made within 90 days of publication.


Send submissions to our Submittable account! Send QUERIES ONLY to NEHWNEWS@Gmail.com
 
We’re looking for FNASR, first E-book/Audio rights and non-exclusive electronic reprint rights. Yes, we’ll notify you if we intend on reprinting your story in the future and it will ONLY be for promotional purposes.

This anthology is ONLY open to paying members of the NEHW.

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