Submission Guidelines

We are currently seeking submissions for the October 2020 Issue of Nimue’s Grotto. The deadline for submissions is October 24, 2020.

Submissions that reach us after October 24, 2020 will be considered for the December 2020 issue. Deadline for December 2020 is December 14, 2020. (The deadline is a week early so we can publish for Christmas.)

What are we looking for?

We've updated our guidlines! Starting with the Fall 2020 Issue, we are looking for book and movie reviews in addition to fiction.

We are looking for flash fiction in the genres of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror. Stories of 1,000 words or less, please! There’s no lower limit. If you can tell a complete story in twenty-five words, go for it!

We want complete stories. In other words, stories with interesting characters, and stories that have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Entertain us. Make us laugh or cry, and best of all, make us think!

We want First Electronic Rights. This means that we wish to publish your story first on our website. After six months, you are free to publish the story again anywhere you wish. We only ask that you credit Nimue’s Grotto as the first publisher. If you publish again online, we also ask that you include a link to the magazine’s main page at: https://nimuesgrotto.com.

Non-fiction

Something new!! Starting with Fall 2020, we are accepting book and movie reviews but the genre of the book or movie must match the genres we publish. In other words, Horror, Fantasy, or Science Fiction. Send your query to editor@nimuesgrotto.com, just in case we are already covering it.

Unfortunately, we are not a paying market right yet. We hope that will change sometime in the future, but for now all we can do is say, “Thank you!” And publish your story, of course.

What we DO NOT Want

We’re pretty flexible when it comes to fiction, but there are some things we are definitely notinterested in seeing:

Genres other than those listed above.
In other words, we don’t want Contemporary Romance, Mystery, or Literary stories. Unless, of course, you can combine Romance and Fantasy or Mystery and Science Fiction, for example. Oh, and by “Fantasy” I mean magic, elves, and that kind of thing, not what you wish your spouse would do to you on a romantic get away. Which leads me to. . .
Erotica
I love to read all kinds of stories, but we do not want stories that are mainly about sexual interactions, even between consenting adults.
Reprints
If you have published your story somewhere else, we don’t want it.

How to Submit

Fiction

To submit a story for consideration, please paste it in the body of an email message, at the end of the story put the following:

— The End —

and follow it with one (short) paragraph telling us a little bit about yourself. You can include links to your own website, or your publisher’s website.

Make the subject something like this:

SUBMISSION: story_title (e.g. SUBMISSION: Lost and Found)

Send your submission to:

editor@nimuesgrotto.com

Reviews

Reviews are the only type of non-fiction we are consdering right now. Reviews of books and movies don't necessarily have to be newly released. Movies in theaters are great but movies just released to Blu-Ray/DVD are also acceptable.

However, please let us know what book or movie you would like to review. I'd hate for you to waste your time reviewing something that has already been accepted. Send an email with a subject line something like this:

REVIEW: book_or_movie_title (e.g. REVIEW: Onward)

And again, send your proposal to: