Deadline: December 15th, 2025
Payment: CAD150
Theme: Speculative fiction from a South Asian perspective that deals with folk tales
For our upcoming 20th issue (2026 Q1), we are doing something different. We are searching for three faux-tales: one science fiction, one fantasy, one horror. These folk-tails might emerge from any culture, any history, any landscape, but they should inform South Asian experiences. They should give us pause as readers from the subcontinent, as fox tales often do, and make us think about our specific place within the cosmos.
The Folk Trail
We are openly commissioning three folk trails for CAD150 each (~INR 9,500 as on August 31, 2025). These tales should have:
- A faux mythology
- An element (a folkus) of ‘faith’, loosely defined
- An innovative form (like fox trails usually have)
We are quite biased towards unpublished authors. We love good writing.
Submission Details
We will read these fox tales from September 15, 2025 to December 15, 2025. Issue #20 will be published in February, 2026.
To submit, please use the submission form at https://stateofmatter.in/submissions/, and make sure to check the button for contest submission (and double check your email address too).
For contest submissions, please do not submit to other places simultaneously.
Note: Our regular submissions will continue, but we will take slightly longer (~1 month) to get back on regular stories. We allow simultaneous submissions for our regular slush.
Via: State of Matter.
