Seaside Gothic Magazine: Fiction, Poetry, and Nonfiction Submissions

Seaside Gothic is a magazine from the edge of the sea where the frontier of civilisation meets the wild of the water. They live beside the seaside and write amidst the changing of the tide on paper warped by the salt in the air and wet from the spray of the sea. From this divide they look for writing that expresses the sense of border living that is shared between the coast and the ocean, where language is pushed to the horizon and words take on new form as they find their home where the sea meets the sky.

Seaside Gothic publishes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction of high quality that meet the criteria of seaside gothic literature. There are three criteria that define seaside gothic literature:

• It is led by emotion, not reason, exploring the human experience mentally and spiritually as well as physically.
• It addresses duality—land and sea, love and hate, the beautiful and the grotesque.
• It connects to the edge, living on the seaside either literally or figuratively.

Submissions should be a single piece of fiction, a single poem, or a single piece of nonfiction attached as a Word (.doc or .docx) or PDF document in Times New Roman size 12. Double line spacing is preferable for fiction and nonfiction. Submissions must be complete self-contained pieces not in excess of 1 000 words in length and not serialised or extracts of larger works. Quotes or extracts of work currently in copyright under UK law will be included in nonfiction if Fair Use can be justified at the discretion of Seaside Gothic, and will not be considered within fiction or poetry.

Submissions fee: There is no submission fee.

All contributors are paid and credited in the magazine by name, for which a profile picture and short biographical statement must be provided. The pay rate is currently £0.01 per word. Payment is offered for accepted submissions via PayPal within two weeks of publication. If revenue increases, or additional funding is secured, then this figure will increase universally for all accepted submissions.

Submissions to Seaside Gothic are considered only during open submission windows. The next open submission window is from the 13th January to 19th January 2025.

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