Uncanny Magazine is an established and respected publisher of science fiction and fantasy, that focuses on publishing diverse work from writers “of every conceivable background”. They generally publish prose and poetry, although for their upcoming submission window from the 1st through the 15th of May they will only be open to Novella submissions. We are reviewing them in advance of them being open to submissions so authors have time to do any last minute revisions in advance of submissions and because it is a particularly good opportunity. You can get a feel for what fiction they’ve published in the past by visiting this page.

They will be accepting original, unpublished speculative fiction novellas that are between 17,500 to 40,000 words in length. They will pay $.10 per word (including audio rights), which is a professional rate. If you are unsure that your novella counts as unpublished, please query first.

All stories must be submitted through their Moksha submission system and must follow the following rules:

 All stories should be in Modern Manuscript Format and attached in .RTF, .DOC, or .DOCX formats. Please feel free to include your pronouns (optional) along with your name and email address in the upper left corner of your manuscript. Note, you do not need to add your mailing address or legal name to your manuscript. We will only ask for that information if your story is chosen for publication.

Your cover letter should contain the length of your story, your significant publishing history and awards, and information that might be relevant to that specific submission.

Please do not send multiple submissions at once.

They try to respond to all submissions within 30 days, and welcome queries after that point.

They will also be open to short stories (750-6000 words) submissions from May 16 to May 30.

To learn more, please visit their submission guidelines here.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2021 Guide to Manuscript Publishers.