For the 3rd issue of The Stone Digital Literary Magazine, we wanted to try something new and think outside of the box.
For this special issue, we are asking for your best mystery stories. We are defining mystery just as editor Otto Penzler has done for the Best American Mystery Stories anthologies. A mystery story shall be “any short work of fiction in which a crime, or the threat of a crime, is central to the theme or plot.” This broad definition gives writers a wide berth in which to navigate their imaginations. Many genres could cross over from literary fiction (our normal staple) to crime thrillers to whodunits to ghost stories. What we hope for is to uncover stories with a strong psychological bent. Characters and their psychological dimensions should remain paramount to plot and atmosphere.
Are you up to the challenge? Then what the heck are you waiting for? Follow the below guidelines and submit your mystery story to The Stone today!
- We are looking for original, previously unpublished works written in English.
- We currently do not have a word limit, however, we typically publish stories of 5,000 words or less. If your story is longer than that, just make sure to knock us dead. Flash fiction is also welcome.
- All submissions must be sent via email.
- Email your entry to stonesubmissions@gmail.com with “Submission: Story Title and Author Name” in the subject line.
- Include your entire story in the body of the email along with a brief author bio as you would like it to appear if your story were to be selected for publication. PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY ATTACHMENTS!
We will do our best to respond to your entries in a timely manner, within six weeks if possible. Please do not send a follow-up inquiry unless six weeks have passed.
We do accept simultaneous submissions but ask that you notify us as soon as possible if your entry has been selected for publication in another magazine. We promise to have a drink in honor of your success and hope that you consider us in the future for other works!
If selected for publication, we ask for first publication rights. At this time we are not able to offer payment, but we do offer the satisfaction in being published and having your story available to readers across the globe. After publication in The Stone, you are free to republish your story in additional anthologies. We simply ask that you reference that the story was first published in The Stone.
Rights for all individual published works revert to the author upon publication. The Stone Magazine reserves the right to archive and republish works previously featured.
Founder and Editor – D. H. Schleicher
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To help get your imagination kick-started, we’re offering for five days only (July 16th 2012 to July 20th 2012) a free download of The Stone Issue Two!
Remember – You don’t need a Kindle to read The Stone. All you need is the free Kindle App! Don’t have the Kindle App yet? Click here to download it for free to your PC, Mac, iPad, tablet or smart-phone.
Have the Kindle App already? Then click here to download The Stone – Issue Two for FREE – or for only $1.99 (USD) after July 20th 2012.
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The Schleicher Spin 
Maybe I overlooked it in the post, but when’s the deadline for this?
Julio – it all depends on the flow of submissions. I’d like to be able to put out the issue in October or November. So September 15th would be the deadline – but that’s by no means written in stone (pun intended – ha ha).
Great! I always like to know how much time I have to procrastinate on such things. 😉
New random deadline – Sept 30th