the doorway to gothic and horror Publishing

We accept fiction and flash fiction in the following genres:

• Traditional Gothic 
• Contemporary Gothic
• Horror (literary, psychological, non-gory)
• Speculative Fiction
• Science Fiction
• Supernatural Fiction
• Paranormal Fiction

Cross-genre work is welcome, provided the genre element is integral to the story.

We accept craft articles dedicated to any of the above genres. The article should be a well-researched piece that educates and informs readers about the genre. See the Homepage for the listing of our genres. 

We accept one-act plays in any genre and in any category: drama, comedy, tragedy, farce, etc. 

Short Stories

• Up to 6,000 words (minimum 2000 words)

Plays

• Up to 30 pages, or
• A one-act play in standard UK stage play format

Craft Articles

• 1000-2000 words (ideal) 
• Longer articles up to 3000 words would be accepted if they are exceptional

Flash Fiction (NEW!)

• 1000 words (ideal), though up to 1200 could be considered

File format: .doc /.docx - STRICTLY NO PDFs!

Font: Preferred Arial or Times New Roman. Please stick to the same font for everything – text, headline, numbers, title, name, etc. Please avoid the use of italics randomly. 

Format: One-inch margins on either side of the document, 12-point font, double-spaced. On the first page, please put your name, contact details and the word count. Pages should be numbered.

Language: English

Unformatted submissions are very painful to read, so we are likely to skip them.

We are looking to publish writing that is

• Conceptually strong
• Emotionally or intellectually resonant
• Well-crafted in language and structure
• Purposeful in its use of genre
• Written with conviction and clarity
• Very entertaining and thrilling to read!

We value brave new ideas, unique voices, and meaning over spectacle, gimmicks, and excessive use of genre tropes without a strong premise. We want strong Gothic horror and speculative fiction, exciting paranormal and sci-fi stories, and fascinating magical realism, as long as they go beyond tropes to explore the self or challenge weird practices and bias, address identity-related crises, isolation and confinement, death and decay on the back of age-old superstitions or archaic practices that influence our belief systems of modern times. 

• Gratuitous violence or cruelty
• Sexualised or exploitative content
• Shock-driven or purely commercial genre tropes
• Work that relies solely on twists without depth
• Ick, violence and sleaze

• There is no reading fee or submission fee for submissions of stories, plays and craft articles, and we will read everything that follows our guidelines.
• One submission in each category is allowed: a short story, a play, flash and a craft article. 
• It is not mandatory to submit all three; just submit the one piece that you want.
• Please don't submit two short stories or two plays or two flash fiction pieces or two craft articles at once in the same submission period.
• Simultaneous submissions are accepted. Please notify us if accepted elsewhere within 2-4 days of receiving information from the other publisher, and at least 2 weeks prior to the publication date of our edition. 
• Please wait for 6-8 weeks before sending us an email inquiring about your submission.
• Please include a short author/playwright bio of yourself in the email, along with a headshot/photograph of yourself -72 DPI resolution. 
• Submit your works ONLY in WORD DOC format to submission@indiangothic.com

• For both fiction and non-fiction, our reprint policy allows us to publish extracts from recently published novels (last two calendar years) with permission from the authors and their publishers, and current stage plays that are already in performance with permission from the playwrights and the producers. 
• As a rule, we will NOT REPRINT blogs, articles, craft-related articles, stories, flash fiction and plays that have already been published by other magazines or anthologies in the last 10 years.

• Authors and playwrights retain the copyright of their works. Authors can republish their work anywhere after 6 months. 
• Indian Gothic will retain first publication rights for the submitted pieces of work for an exclusive period of 6 months, and archival permission thereafter, until such time the lit mag wants to.
• The submission reversal window will close 2 weeks before the publication date of the lit mag, as conveyed on the website or on social media. 
• If the Indian Gothic window of reversal of your consent is closed by then (for writers who wish to withdraw their submissions), we can only extend our deepest apologies, and we cannot unpublish the piece. 
• Your "reversal of rights to publish" notification to us should arrive at least 14 days PRIOR to the period's publication launch through email. 
• We request authors and playwrights to give credit to Indian Gothic as the first publisher of their work when they republish elsewhere.

Please do not use AI tools to write your story or play, as we can spot the glaring AI-ness in words, phrases, sentences, punctuation and grammar. We are going to reject it. 

If you are a writer or a playwright, we assume you will not want to use Chat GPT, Claude, Google Gemini or any other AI writing app like Sudowrite to assist you in writing your entire story or play because we believe you can genuinely write and can impress us with your choice of words, command over language, unique style of expression, etc. (Besides, it is embarrassing to get exposed as a writer who did not write.) 

We won't ever publish a work that's 100% AI-generated if we can identify it. By any chance, if such a piece of writing shows up on our site, it won't be for lack of diligence; it would be for lack of recognition. Let's hope that never happens. If you spot it, please write to let us know with proof of your claim, so we can remove it.