Submission Call: Stories about films and cinemas
For stories about films, whether watching them or making them, and about cinemas.
Deadline: This submission call has now closed.
Word count: 1,000-10,000 words
Submission fee: standard (see submission guidelines).
Payment and rights: standard (see submission guidelines).
How to submit: Read the submission guidelines, then send us your story through our submission form. Choose the ‘Stories about Films’ submission type at the top of the form.
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This submission call is a celebration of film. We want your stories about making films, watching films, and the role they play in our lives. We're also keen to see stories set in or around cinemas as physical spaces.
Stories could be set at any time from the earliest days of cinema to today's digital world. Tell us about the pioneers of the medium, experiences on today's film sets, the distance from couch to TV, or the weekly stroll to Blockbuster. Show us Hollywood superstars, proud 70s parents with Super 8 cameras, or teenagers with iPhones. Just remember to keep your story and characters fictional.
Our relationship with the moving image has changed over the years but it has always been an important part of our lives and our culture, so there's a huge range of settings, themes, and ideas to explore.
We welcome general fiction, but also supernatural or speculative takes on the theme. (We always recommend reading one of our recent anthologies to get an idea of the range of genres we feature: our latest volume, featuring general and supernatural fiction, is Houses Borders Ghosts.)
The world of film and cinema could be central to driving the plot forwards, or simply provide an atmosphere and setting to your story. Feel free to experiment, and don’t worry if your story only fits the theme loosely: any stories that stray too far will still be considered as general submissions.
If you're in need of inspiration, we'll be exploring aspects of this theme between now and the end of May here on our website. Sign up for our email newsletter to stay informed.
As always, we welcome writers and stories from around the world.
The stories we select from this submission call will feature in a future Fiction Desk anthology. It's worth repeating that if you've not yet read one of our anthologies, it's a good idea to pick up a recent volume before you submit. Our latest, Houses Borders Ghosts, is out now.
