The Willows
It’s been a while since I’ve posted any publishing opportunities, so I’m going to put up a few of the guidelines for The Willows, “an atmospheric horror and dark fantasy magazine with an emphasis on the traditional weird tale, in the classic style of Blackwood, Dunsany, Hodgson, Machen, Lovecraft, etc.”
Good luck in your submissions.
Please study these guidelines in depth, or you risk eliminating your chances for acceptance!
We are currently looking for short stories which would be told in a gentlemen’s lounge in turn-of-the-century London, or Dublin, or New York City, or Prague.
Two points are essential for any submitting author to understand:
1) Weird Fiction does not merely mean “stories that are weird.”
Weird Fiction refers to a specific genre, and if this genre is one with which you are unfamiliar, we ask that you not submit here until you have become sufficiently familiar. For an overview of the Weird Fiction genre of literature, we highly recommend the book Supernatural Horror In Literature by H. P. Lovecraft.
We offer the following letter from a corresponding author:
“The Willows” is one of my favorite tales, bar none, from, of course, my favorite author Algernon Blackwood. I’m a major fan of the classic greats in the horror and supernatural genres, and I’ve worked on my own writing in such a style. I consider myself a true “modern traditionalist.”
If the above sentiment does not, to a large degree, describe you and your work, please submit elsewhere. Contrariwise, if you find yourself in agreement with the sentiment of your literary colleague quoted above, you have an excellent chance of being published in The Willows.
2) Please! We do not accept stories set in postmodern times!
We understand that Postmodernity began with Virginia Wolfe et al, but the postmodern times we are referring to are the ones beginning post WWII (a sad demarcation, we know, but a well-known one notwithstanding). We pass over all such tales on general principle.
Find out more here.
Leave a Reply