BY GARY DALKIN
Fireside Fiction Company started in the US in 2012 with the goal of publishing ‘great stories regardless of genre’. Since then Fireside has become one of the best paying markets for fiction, offering 12.5¢ per word for first world publication rights and six-month exclusivity, as well as the right to reprint the story once, nonexclusively, in a Fireside anthology.
Editor Julia Rios will accept submissions between 17-23 September and 4-11 November, with further reading weeks to be announced for 2018. She requires flash fiction, any genre except erotica, up to 1,000 words, and stories between 1,000-4,000 words. Read some of the stories on the Fireside website to get an idea of the sort of material likely to be accepted; Fireside likes great storytelling, meaning stories that go somewhere and keep the reader wanting to know what happens next. The site has a strong bias toward speculative fiction, though non-genre stories are published. The Fireside team is very committed to inclusively, and is particularly open to work from marginalised communities anywhere in the world.