Submissions

Overview:

For this anthology, we’re looking for speculative short stories that show your original interpretation on the theme of “Superheroes/Supervillains.” One man’s superhero is another man’s supervillain (and vice versa), so let’s see what you’ve got. Show us your classic superhero reimaginings. Your take on what makes a superhero or supervillain “super.” Undersung heroes, overachieving villains, supes originating in fairy tales or folk tales or fables—we want to read all about them.

Submission deadline: December 1, 2026, 11:59 p.m. ET.

Word count: Stories must fall between 8,000 and 10,000 words. Anything outside this range may be deleted unread.

Genres and subgenres: Sci-fi, fantasy, speculative, superhero

Terms:

Multiple submissions: Yes, up to three stories per author, and each story must be a separate submission. If multiple stories are included in a single submission, we’ll read only the first one.

Simultaneous submissions: Yes, but please do us the courtesy of withdrawing your story right away if it’s accepted somewhere else.

Reprints: No. The contributor agreement warrants that the work has not been previously published in any form or medium, so we can only consider unpublished work.

Compensation: For this anthology, we’re offering a flat fee of $100 per short story accepted plus a digital contributor’s copy. The fee is a single payment, disbursed sixty days from the date the contract is signed by both parties. It is not contingent on publication of the anthology.

Rights: We buy first English-language anthology rights, worldwide, in all formats, exclusive for twelve months from the publication date. After those twelve months, exclusivity returns to you and you are free to republish the story anywhere. We keep a non-exclusive, perpetual right to keep the anthology itself in print and on sale as a complete work, which is what lets us keep the book available. We do not acquire the right to publish your story separately, to put it in another anthology, or to license or sell any subsidiary right in it. You keep copyright and every right we have not named. Each later republication must credit its first publication in this anthology as well as Big Bear Press and must include the year.

AI: Absolutely not. Hard pass. Every work we publish must be the author’s original effort, created without the use of AI to plan, generate, edit, or otherwise manipulate text. Please do not use AI to write your cover letter, pitch, or bio, either. If your story is accepted, your contract will require a signature certifying that you have not used AI. This commitment goes both ways. We will never use your work, or license it to anyone else, to train or fine-tune an AI system, and we will not upload your work or your personal information into a consumer-facing AI tool.

Submission Guidelines:

• All submissions are read blindly. Please make sure that your name does not appear in the file name or anywhere in the manuscript. (If you use a header or footer with your page numbers, please use the title of your story, not your name.)

• All submissions must be uploaded to the submissions form. Emailed submissions will be deleted unread. The submissions form will ask you for the following information:

  • your legal first and last name

  • your pen name if you use one

  • your email address and phone number

  • a brief author bio (< 150 words) written in the third person. You may include your website URL and one link to a platform (e.g., Instagram, Substack) where readers can find you.

  • The title of your submission.

  • The exact word count of your submission.

  • The genre of your story.

  • A brief (<200 words) blurb about your story describing how it connects to the theme.

• The name of the file must be the title of your story. Do not include quotation marks or other punctuation in the file name. Use spaces, not underscores, between words. If your title is longer than five words, just use the first five words (excluding “a,” “an,” and “the”).

• Your manuscript must be formatted in the standard way: black 12pt Times New Roman font, double-spaced, no tabs. Please number your pages and do not include images.

• Upload your manuscript as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf file.

Tips:

To increase your chance of acceptance, please review the Big Bear Press website for our publishing ethos and aesthetic.

• Follow submission guidelines! Failure to observe the guidelines may result in your work being deleted unread.

• Make sure your story addresses the theme of this anthology: Superheroes/Supervillains.

• No AI at all, anywhere. We mean it.

• We do not publish work that graphically depicts depraved acts, including, but not limited to: incest, rape, pedophilia, bestiality, necrophilia, animal torture, blasphemy.

• Every work included in the anthology will receive professional in-house copyediting, but it’s in your interest to submit your most polished and proofread work. Put your best foot forward!

Response time: You can expect to receive a response within six weeks after the submission call has closed.

Publication date: [TBA] 2027

Publication format: Ebook and print. The ebook goes to Amazon Kindle and the print edition to IngramSpark, with a direct sale link from bigbearpress.com.