Submissions

Hark! What faint whisper trails idly upon the wind? Could its phantom declarations be true? Indeed, yes! Rejoice and be merry, for The Raven Post is accepting reader submissions!

If you have a macabre melody or frightening fable brewing deep within, we would be most honored to find it shortly upon our desk. Anything dark and dastardly will be duly considered, and should we enjoy your piece (and find it in accordance with our own storytelling aims), we will publish it in the Post’s “Reader Submissions” section. Should we select your submission for publication, you will be designated an official guest contributor to The Raven Post and join the inimitable ranks of horror’s most venerated voices.

PARAMETERS:

Short stories must be between 500 and 5,000 words in length.
Poetry must be below 1,500 words in length.
Short story submissions must contain some intriguing, frightening, suspenseful, mysterious, thrilling, supernatural, unexplainable, or otherwise horror-adjacent element in order to be considered (we are a short-horror-fiction paper, after all).
Poetry submissions needn’t necessarily be narrative (though this is welcome) but should, in some way, focus on macabre elements or themes.
We are currently only accepting submissions for short fiction and poetry; we are not accepting real-life anecdotes, nonfiction editorial pieces, true crime stories, book reviews, etc.
Submitted content should be generally tasteful and should not rely on stereotypes of race, sex, gender, sexuality, nationality, etc. to communicate character or tell a story; additionally, please avoid depictions of rape, sexual assault, or sexual violence.
We readily accept and appreciate any submissions from BIPOC writers, writers who identify as LGBTQIA+, and writers who are located outside of the continental US.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMISSION:

Please send an email with a short introductory message and your submission to ravenpostpublishing@gmail.com.
Submissions may be either pasted into the body of the email or attached as a Word document (.doc, .docx).
To prevent inbox clutter, please format the subject line as follows:
SUBMISSION: [“Title of Your Piece”], Prose [or Poetry]

At this time, we unfortunately cannot offer our guest writers compensation, though we hope to change this in the future. If you enjoy our work here and would like to aid us in reaching our monetary goals, please visit the “Support the Post” tab above. In the meantime, submissions we publish will include links to any desired professional or social pages alongside the author’s name. Submitted work selected for publication may also undergo a light editorial process, ensuring each piece adheres to The Raven Post’s style guide.

Please send all other inquiries, comments, concerns, and historical story recommendations to ravenpostpublishing@gmail.com. (Please note that, for the purposes of this paper, story recommendations must fall within the public domain or be otherwise copyright-free.)