BAH HUMBUG | 2016 Advent Calender Call for Submissions

There’s always that one guy for whom the holiday season is anything but jolly. It’s a bother, a trial, or in a few cases, a downright misery, but in the end, the holidays bring hope, love, and cheer to even the darkest of days. What else but love would get Scrooge willingly under the mistletoe? 

EXAMPLES

• Chris Klassen hates Christmas. The weather is miserable, the customers at his custom hockey gear shop are always in a hurry, and he never has anyone to spend it with. Then, on Christmas Eve, he gets snowed in with his delivery guy and realizes he may have lucked into some goodwill.

• Working retail will wring the jingle out of you by the day after Halloween, and Craig is running out of excuses to avoid his elementary school teacher neighbor who lives and breathes kitschy crafts and wants to have Craig over for a holiday party. Turns out the decorations are for kids whose parents are in the military, and there must be some holiday magic in the glitter.

• Jordan is a photographer for a high-end architecture and lifestyle magazine. Envy of the wealthy and powerful people he meets on the job drives him, while his patient, loving partner, David, tries to keep their modest home fires burning. A big Christmas shoot seems far more appealing than a simple holiday at home to the jaded Jordan, and David will need help light Jordan’s way home. 

HERE’S HOW IT WILL WORK

• Requirements: Stories will be set in and involve any end-of-the-year holidays, such as Advent, Boxing Day, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year’s, Saint Nicholas’s Day, Solstice, Yule, and more.

• Romantic themes are required and stories will focus on happy endings.

• Requirements: Bittersweet Dreams will not be accepted for this anthology.

• Because of the packaged nature of the set, all stories need to stand alone. No sequels to or spin-offs of previously published works will be accepted.

• Submission Deadline: July 1, 2016. Contract offers will be made by August 1, 2016. *Please note earlier deadline.

• Publication Date: December 2016

• Advent Calendar story length: 5,000 – 18,000 words

• Manuscripts shorter or longer will be considered but will have to be extraordinary.

• Follow general Submission Guidelines for instructions and formatting.

TO SUBMIT

Send all submissions to submissions@dreamspinnerpress.com. Please include “ADVENT” in the subject line.

Send in the body of the e-mail:

• Your legal name, pseudonym if applicable, and contact e-mail address.
• Working title, series name if applicable.
• Genre and manuscript length.
• General story description in two paragraphs.
• Writing credentials.

 Attach to the e-mail:

• A short but complete story summary and/or synopsis.
• The complete manuscript, for all lengths of works.

FORMATTING YOUR SUBMISSION

Please follow these simple formatting guidelines. Our editors will thank you.

• Submissions will be accepted in .docx, .doc, .rtf, and .txt formats.

• Standard 12 pt Times New Roman, 1 inch margins, .5 indent for the first line of each paragraph. 1.5 line spaces between lines. No tabs or spacing to indent, please! Page numbers in the upper right corner, author name in the upper left corner with the title of the work following. Example: Stephen King / The Shining

• All submissions must be spellchecked and edited for American English grammar and spelling. Regional words and slang are acceptable when appropriate.

• Dreamspinner Press edits works using The Chicago Manual of Style as its primary reference. Editing your work to these standards prior to publication will greatly facilitate the publication process.