Looking at their catalogue, they seem to swing pretty pulpy based on the covers. They say in their submissions page that they accept pretty much any take on the themes from grimdark to comedic so I imagine it is a pretty mixed bag. Still, an option for those writing on any of those themes.

(I found this originally through Authors Publish, issue 446)

Severed Press is an e-book and print on demand publisher that specializes in sf and horror. They are currently accepting novel-length manuscripts in a number of themes and subgenres.

Submissions | SeveredPress

Here's the list of what they are looking for:

Killer sea creatures or monstrous kaiju fiction: Creature features about monsters that come from the deep, or maybe even somewhere more terrifying. Minimum word count 30k.

Dinosaurs : Lost world adventures featuring terrifying creatures from the past. Minimum word count 30k

Military horror/sci-fi: Like Predator or Aliens, a military unit faces off against an unknown threat from beyond the stars or from another dimension. Minimum word count 40k

Apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic scenarios (including TEOTWAWKI or SHTF): Stories that explore the end of the world or life after it: zombie outbreaks, alien invasions or whatever else may serve as a harbinger of the end times! Minimum word count 60k

LitRPG: Stories where characters are transported or trapped within an online game, usually a MMORPG . LitRPG blends traditional science fiction and fantasy with gaming elements and mechanics. Minimum word count 30k.

LitFPS: Stories that blend fiction with First Person Shooters. Minimum word count 30k.

This was in the latest Author's Publish newsletter. Might be too simple for some, too complex for others but you don't necessarily need to use it "out of box". It could just give ideas.

» The 5 Elements of Plot Outlines (authorspublish.com)

What do you think? Do you do plot outlines (at least for longer works, micro and flash it's almost a waste of time)?

White chocolate pumpkin sounds horrifically decadent. So I will take two.😎

Enjoy the play, Jeff. Nice to see the cats got off easy onnthis no Talia day.

Goooood morning! Getting blustery here again. Going to get my third shot of COVID vaccine. My score will be Pfizer 2 Moderna 1. Otherwise, just a regular Thursday.

Putting on some fresh coffee and there's Scottish Breakfast in the pot. Putting Sara's cookie display (what's left) near the coffee and tea so all can admire it. I'll take the polar bear (heh heh) myself. The big urn is full of hot water for the hot chocolate crowd or other teas.

No writing happening right now but I have good intentions and those count, right? 🙄

4967

Oh, Scrooged. Love that movie.

Skiing or skating?

Quote by AnnaMayZing

I have submitted The Nurses. Probably not happen though. 🙄

No guts, no glory, a wargamer friend used to say.😋

Coffee is on for thems what drinks it. Kettle is boiled and there's English Breakfast in the teapot today. Lots of hot water in the urn for other goodies, too.

Sunny day here, but chilly. Had a frost last night but no snow at present.

Contemplating what to write next for here. I was writing a sequel to The Healer's Secret but it got lost in the big oops and now I am not sure whether to restart it or go with something new.

Cool. I have nothing to submit, but cool.

Got a new newsletter from Authors Publish today and it has this similarly veined article, but these are publishers who are, at present, always open to submissions. Best known on the list is probably Harlequin, the romance publishing titans. Each entry says a little about the publisher, then has a link to the relevant page on the publisher's website.

https://authorspublish.com/20-book-publishers-always-open-to-submissions/

Quote by gillianleeza
It was announced recently that AMC is adapting some of her novels for their platform, starting with Interview with the Vampire. It will be interesting to see a new version, but sad she did not live to see a whole new audience find her works.

She and Christopher have been involved in the development of the project and were supposed to get Executive Producer credits but I have not heard anything about progress on it in a while.

And here they are together with some additional choristers and an orchestra. Conductor is Voces8 counter-tenor and music director Barnaby Smith.

And Apollo5, a sibling group to Voces8, are also in the holiday spirit.

Something a little more subdued. I am a big fan of English choral group Voces8 and here they sing a lovely seasonal Renaissance piece by Jean Mouton.

I read Interview with the Vampire back in the early eighties around the time the second Vampire Chronicle, The Vampire Lestat, came out. I read her pretty religiously for about a decade, maybe more, but eventually kind of burned out on her. Not sure if it was me, but I found her later works lacked the lustre that drew me at the beginning. Kept meaning to go back but never quite got up to it. Can't say she was a big influence on my current fiction, or at least not as influential as some other writers like Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, and Lovecraft, but I imagine it is there if I looked carefully.

Anne Rice, one of the most influential writers of dark fiction, passed away. Best known for her Vampire Chronicles, especially Interview with the Vampire, she also wrote about mummies, witches, and werewolves. Outside horror, she wrote several erotic works under pseudonyms and a duology about Jesus Christ.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6282932

Goooooood morning, Inspirations!

Well, I did not get blown away by the gale-force winds that rolled through Ontario last night but it was sure noisy for a while. Power out in pockets all over the region, but I just had one brownout.

Coffee is in the coffeepot and there's Scottish Breakfast in the teapot (should switch those up someday just for lulz). Hot water is ready for other teas or the hot chocolate brigade. New shipment of mini marshmallows is stowed away, and the supplies for both general consumption and Sara are restocked.

So have a good Sunday, inspirators.

4962, counting here is what we do. Yay, counting.

Oo, Sara's making the coffee. That doesn't happen too often. Took a digital break this morning. No computer or phone. Read a book (you know, those things made of leaves of paper bound together) and went for a walk. Now it is very windy out so glad I took my walk in the morning.

Having tea and a couple randomly selected cookies.

Quote by DenimAngel

Hi peeps

A large iced coffee sounds good.

A beautiful but windy day

This week has been crazy now today is a slow day.

Jeff all those cookies will give you a belly ache

Yay Rump it's good to see you.

Scott stay warm that white stuff IS COLD

Looking in the empty cookie jars.

I have Christmas cookies today ..

Snowmen, santa clause, reindeer, Christmas trees Christmas stockings and gingerbread men

I Christmas cookies so you guys will be getting LOTS .

Giving the adorable critters fresh water and treats

I'm working on a Scamp Christmas Adventure !

it's been awhile since I wrote anything.. definitely need to get back in the habit

STAY SAFE

Yay for Christmas cookies. My late mother did a ton of Christmas baking every year including dozens of cookies both for us and for the cookie exchange the women at our church did.

And yay for a Scamp Christmas story! We are cheering you on to get this one out.

A quintessential Canadian Christmas album, at least IMHO, is Barenaked for the Holidays by Barenaked Ladies. And this track, featuring the wonderful voice of Sarah McLachlan, is my favorite. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen mashed up with We Three Kings sounds weird but in these talented hands, it works.

Quote by Rumple_deWriter
Glad I am to learn he's gonna keep the venerable 'Comps and Calls for Subs' forum going. It was 'Dirty Martini's' forum and I tried to keep it going in memory of Alan.

Had not realized the connection to Dirty Martini but one more reason to keep it going, eh. I posted something in there this week, in fact.

Nice to hear from you, Rump.

Definitely winter-y here, though not bad. Just a cm or so of the white stuff, for starters, and not too cold.

Gingerbread (yum)

White Christmas or Green Christmas?

Quote by verbal
It's No Talia Wednesday, and the cats are clearly nervous. They may have noticed my internet searches involving trebuchets and low earth orbit.

Hey, the Soviets started by launching a dog so .... 😉 But that would have to be one helluva trebuchet.

Good day. Quiet life around here these days. Sorry I'm a bit scarce. Just dealing with life.

Putting on some more coffee and tea (Scottish Breakfast). The hot water urn is full for other hot bevvies.

Later, alligators.

Our good friend Rumple_deWriter used to post these lists from Authors Publish. Rather than pasting the list in a post as he used to, which broke the links, I'll just link to the list on their site. There's quite an assortment of themes in here. I see some I might consider trying. Some include:

Letters I'll Never Send

Aquatic Horror

Future Cats (so s-f about kitties)

Lovecraftian Folk Horror

Queer Weird West

An anthology about Baba Yaga

and more

» 39 Themed Calls for Submissions for December 2021 (authorspublish.com)

Good morning!

Fresh coffee is brewing, there's some Irish Breakfast in the tea pot, and the hot water urn is full to the tippy-top for other hot beverages. Updated our stock of cocoa. Marshmallows are still holding up.

Kind of gray and meh here but we seem to have mostly missed the storm they were saying would hit last night. Just some rain or maybe freezing rain in late evening.

Amazingly, ABBA has only just released their first ever Christmas song and video.

What's coming through your buds and/or speakers this holiday season? Doesn't have to be Christmas, either. Music celebrating Solstice, Hanukkah, and whatever else welcome, too.

Dang it is quiet here today. Anyhow, I put on both coffee and Red Rose tea just in case someone saunters by. There's hot water, too, for other teas and hot beverages.

Made a big oops today. Was doing a project to move my stories to another cloud drive since my Google Drive was getting full due to us storing backups of family videos and photos on it. And while doing so, I accidentally perma-deleted the zip file that I downloaded from Google Drive that had ALL my SS stories in it including some unpublished drafts. 😢

Recovered my old stuff easily enough. I had a zip with everything up to the end of 2020 in it (the text files you could download in batch from the old Stories Space) and figured out how to get copies of the 2021 stories (printed them to PDF using the MS Print to PDF driver).

Doesn't help with my drafts, though. I had already done a hard pruning and only kept two (an idea for another story in the world of The Goddess Dances and the beginnings of a sequel to The Healer's Secret) but the parts that were written were pretty good IMHO.

Did Alan ever do any audiobooks? I suspect he would be great narrator.