Acidic Fiction, founded and published by Steve x Davis, is an online magazine for contemporary speculative fiction that publishes every Monday and Friday. Stories generally take place roughly 100 years in the past or 10 years in the future. Davis writes that Acidic Fiction hopes “to draw on ideas from speculative fiction to explore everyday life in a new light” and believes that subtlety within writing is the key to accomplish this.
Flash fiction (of up to 1,000 words) or short stories (less than 6,000 words) should be self-contained and sit somewhere within the realm of speculative fiction—horror, science fiction, magical realism, fantasy, slipstream, and other subgenres—though stories will only be categorized on the site as science fiction, fantasy, or horror. Regardless of the category, a submission should be highly plausible. Therefore, a story about the colonization of other planets or a story about a robot army wiping out all but three humans on the planet would not be the best fit for this magazine.
Additionally, while stories with sexuality, violence, or profanity will not be immediately rejected, these elements should be justified within the writing and will be labelled for readers’ discretion.
Acidic Fiction pays $35 per story (regardless of length) through PayPal upon acceptance. Davis writes that the magazine pays “by the story because payment per word places less value on shorter stories and prevents [them] from buying longer ones.”
This token payment purchases first world electronic rights (exclusive for 90 days, non-exclusive for another 90 days) and an option to buy world anthology rights (non-exclusive). Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but multiple submissions to the magazine are not.
Acidic Fiction tries to respond to most submissions in about seven days. This remarkable response time is all the more impressive when considering that Acidic Fiction’s hope “to respond to everyone with at least a couple of quick notes.”
You can learn more about them on their main site here.
Bio: Mandy Brown is a writer in Central Texas, the 2013 recipient of A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Tillie Olsen Fellowship, and the author of The Sting (Sweatshoppe Publications, 2013). Mandy currently teaches English at an alternative school and loves it! Read more of her writing at mandyalyssbrown.weebly.com.
