Anthologies are a great opportunity to get your writing into bookstores. They generally have a wider distribution than literary journals and they have a longer shelf life. Anthologies are also a great way to establish a relationship with a publisher.

Below are two opportunities to get your work published in an anthology. Each of these anthologies are looking for a very different kind of writing.

One is multi-genre but focused on speculative fiction, the other on music.

Deserts of Fire

Night Shade Books an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, is publishing a new anthology edited by Douglas Lain. When you submit, you query him directly. The anthology is of new work as well as reprints. The deadline for submissions is June 1st.

Deserts of Fire is an anthology of fiction that takes place in or during the Iraq War. The anthology will feature a range of stories, some will be action oriented military stories and others will be polemical stories of dissent.

Authors of reprints will be paid $50 to $100 depending on the length of the story and authors of previously unpublished work will receive $100 to $200 depending on the length of the story.

This is a horror, fantasy, and science fiction anthology but it will also include experimental work. To learn more visit Douglas Lian’s website here.

Stories of Music

Stories of Music is a new anthology published by Timbre Press focusing on collecting poems and creative non-fiction that relate directly to music and the power of music.

Poems can be up to 100 lines long, and works of creative non-fiction can be up to 9,000 words in length. They are also looking to publish a number of other mediums including art, audio recordings, and video.

All submissions must be made on their website by June 1st. They will respond to all submissions by June 15th and July 16th they will publicly announce the proposed line up of authors and artists.

They will pay all contributors $200.

To learn more or to submit click here.