::Submission Guidelines::

NOTE: The Open Vein will be closed to submissions until further notice. All submissions currently "in house" will be read and considered for publication in the fourth issue. Thank you!

We are looking for all types of horror fiction, supernatural or real, subtle or visceral. We aren't literary snobs but we're not idiots, either. Character is not the only thing that drives a story—especially not in genre fiction—but please, no matter what style you write, treat your subject matter with respect. As a warning: excessive gore and sex are not substitutions—or requirements—for great storytelling; they are supplementary elements. Graphic sexual situations involving children or minors will likely be grounds for rejection.

Unfortunately, we cannot yet afford to pay our contributors, but we are very interested in helping undiscovered writers get their first published credit. Of course, we also welcome the contributions of known or previously published authors.

The Open Vein will be published on a bi-monthly schedule, with 7-12 stories in every issue. Stories can be up to 7000 words (we're now accepting flash fiction!) and have spelling/grammatical integrity. Anything that has not been re-read by the author at least a few times is likely to be rejected. We realize editors and writers are different people, but if you're wielding the English language, you ought to understand how it works.

As part of our mission to be as honest and forward as possible, we intend to comment on every manuscript, sharing why we accepted or rejected a story. So, if you're squeamish on (constructive) criticism, you may not want to submit. Current response time is between 2 and 8 weeks.

All manuscripts should be e-mailed here with the subject header "Submission:" with the story title following. In the body of the e-mail, please give a brief bio, as well as a synopsis of your story and an approximate word count. Stories must be submitted as a Microsoft Word (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf) attachment. Manuscripts should be in a standard font, such as 12pt Times New Roman or 10pt Arial, double-spaced. Please only put one space between sentences. This is the style that The Open Vein uses for publication, and it gets very cumbersome to have to remove all those extra periods. Manuscripts that blatantly disregard these guidelines will be rejected.

We only require one-time rights, and you're free to submit your story simultaneously anywhere else you wish. Reprints are also welcome.

In addition to stories, we welcome artwork, as each issue will feature one piece for the cover. We're looking for basically any style and media: pen-and-ink, digital collages, paintings, charcoal, etc., but all artwork must be black-and-white (or grayscale), and submitted here as a 300dpi TIFF file attachment.

Looking forward to your submissions,
Justin Burning, Editor