Archive of the Odd Issue 5
Archive of the Odd is a biannual magazine of found fiction—stories told in the style of found footage, also known epistolary, neo-epistolary, found file, or found document fiction. Essentially, stories told in the form of other documents.
DEADLINE:
May 15th
WORDCOUNT:
Main Zine: 500 -8,000
Standalone Chapbook: 5,000 - 12,0000
PAYMENT:
We pay 1 cent/word USD + a share of royalties. We are currently pursuing grants and other means of additional funding.
WHAT THEY'RE SEEKING:
Archive of the Odd is a biannual magazine of found fiction—stories told in the style of found footage, also known epistolary, neo-epistolary, found file, or found document fiction. Essentially, stories told in the form of other documents.
All submissions must be found fiction. We realize this is oddly specific, so if you’re not sure what we’re looking for, the best way will be to look at the stories on our website, or buy an issue to see the full zine treatment (in fact, if you email us or DM us on Twitter we’ll give you a coupon code for being a savvy author… just saying). Alternately, think about all the things you read on a daily basis that aren’t fiction. Newspapers? Emails? Product support guides? …Submissions calls?
If you read all of this and still have questions, please refer to our FAQ, or query!
Alright, let’s dive in!
While we are looking for speculative work, we do not have firm genre limits outside of that; we welcome both erotic elements and extreme horror as much as we do quiet horror, cozy fantasy, and hopeful sci-fi.
Mixed media, interactive, HTML, and other boundary-breaking pieces are always welcome. If you’re able to fit things in a PDF format, that’s great, but otherwise we can make alternative arrangements (e.g. links to repositories).
If there is related artwork, we will also pay for that! See Artists guidelines.
PLEASE DON'T SEND:
We welcome stories that tackle real world issues like racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and more. However, overt racism, homophobia, etc. without a distinct purpose will not be tolerated. Essentially, if we cannot tell if the hate is from the mouth of the character or the author, we cannot in good conscience accept it.
We do not accept work written or co-written with generative AI.
REPRINTS: [YES/NO]
Reprints are welcome, as long as you have the rights and let us know its publication history.
SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: [YES/NO]
MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS: [YES/NO]
(up to 3, although at most 1 will be accepted).
EXTRA INFORMATION:
We read submissions sight unseen, so please do not include personal information (name, address, email, etc.) in the document. Please include your name in your cover letter, though!
Cover letters won’t sway us, but in general a good format is “Dear Editors,” (or “Dear Mycelial Network,” “Dear Archivists,” “O Creatures of the Night,” etc.), your name, the title of the story, the word count, any special considerations (e.g. there being a link to a video halfway through), and a sendoff.
Please let us know in your cover letter if you would NOT like a personal rejection. This does not promise you will get a personal rejection otherwise, but we realize that not everyone likes personal rejections, so please let us know if you’d rather just get a form!
FORMATTING GUIDELINES:
Shunn formatting is nice, but if it doesn’t work for your story, don’t worry! As long as the fonts and stylization are readable, it’s fine. We don’t have a preference between plain text or pre-formatted pieces.
SUBMITTING:
Please submit work through our submission form! If this does not work for you, please query at archiveoftheodd@gmail.com.