Midnight Echo Issue 8, edited by Amanda J Spedding, Mark Farrugia, and Marty Young, is open to submissions from March 1 to June 30, 2012.
Below are the guidelines:
The theme of Midnight Echo Issue 8 is knock our socks off with a damn good horror story! What do we mean by that? Well, we’re looking for stories that we might have trouble digesting. Stories that leave us feeling scared and excited about what’s in store … Scare us, shock us, freak us out, get up-close and personal with your imagination and startle us with the end result. We’re open to everything, but only the best will survive.
Marty: “I want people to really stretch their imaginations. Take us into space, into hell, or into beyond—and leave us there if you need to, but don’t take us into wacky, weird, gonzo style stories. If you need to be explicit to do this, then fine, but there’s nothing wrong with the old quiet school of horror, where what you don’t see is what does the damage.”
Mark: “I want to publish stories that challenge the way I think about traditional values — faith, love, desire, religion — stories that blur the line between right and wrong, fantasy and fact. Stories intertwined with emotion. Content is not an issue with me but the more adult the theme, the better the writing has to be. Don’t be frightened to sub the ol’ tropes (vampire, zombie, werewolf) but make it something special. Surprise me. Shock me. Entertain. I am not adverse to poetry but it has to engage me in some way, the things I have highlighted above would be a good place for poets to start.”
Amanda: ”Scare us. I’m looking for character-driven stories that push the limits of horror versus hope — I want to see the internal and external battle between predator and prey. Delve into the darkness of the mind, or the formless abyss where monsters live and inflict your worst, but make it war. I’m after content and combat in context, though, so any splatter-porn should be backed up by a damn fine story.”
About the editors:
Marty Young is a Bram Stoker nominated editor and writer and sometimes ghost hunter. He was the founding President of the Australian Horror Writers Association (AHWA) from 2005-2010, and one of the creative minds behind the internationally acclaimed Midnight Echo magazine.
His horror fiction has been reprinted in Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror (‘the best of 2008’), repeatedly included in Ellen Datlow’s year’s best recommended reading list, and nominated for both the Australian Shadows and Ditmar awards. Marty’s essays on horror literature have been published in journals and university textbooks in Australia and India, and he is also co-editor of the Australian Shadows Award-winning Macabre; a Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears, a landmark anthology showcasing some of the best Australian horror stories from 1836 to 2010.
As of October 2011, he is the Executive Editor of Midnight Echo magazine (again), and is also the Associate Editor of the HWA’s Dark Whispers blog. Marty can be contacted at [email protected].
Amanda J Spedding’s stories explore the darkness of the human soul. Her fiction has been published in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (ASIM), Shades of Sentience, Award Winning Australian Writing, Tasmaniac Publications and Pill Hill Press, and she has a post-apocalyptic short due out early this year with Dark Prints Press. Amanda’s dark fantasy story, “The Whims of my Enemy,” received an honourable mention in Ellen Datlow’s Best of Horror Volume 3, and made Horrorscope’s 2010 Recommended Reads.
She is a freelance editor, proofreader and copywriter, Committee Member for the Australian Horror Writers Association (AHWA), and Field Correspondent for Innsmouth Free Press. Amanda lives in Sydney with her gorgeous husband and two very cool kids.
Mark Farrugia is the author of the vampire comic series Allure of the Ancients: The Key to His Kingdom (to be published in Midnight Echo volumes 7-10) and the short story series Seeds, set in a dystopian version of Melbourne. Mark’s other writing credits include the blood n’guts dragon fantasy A Bag Full of Arrows, (honorably mentioned by Ellen Datlow) and the horror short story “Single Mother of None.” His fiction has appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (ASIM), Midnight Echo, Borderlands, Eclecticism and AntiopdeanSF. BestScienceFictionStories.com declared Mark’s flash fiction amongst its favorites of 2009 and 2010.
Mark edited ASIM issue 46 and co-edited ASIM Best of Horror Volume 2. Mark is the Australia Horror Writers Association’s Critique Group Manager and can be contacted at [email protected]
Follow this link for more information: Midnight Echo Guidelines
