Taking Submissions: Cosmic Horror Monthly January 2026 Window

Submission Window: January 1st – 7th, 2026
Payment: 3 cents per word
Theme: Weird and cosmic fiction under 5,000 words

What do we want?

Weird and cosmic fiction under 5,000 words

When do we want it?

Twice a year: January 1-7 and July 1-7

How do we want it?

Submitted via Publications | Moksha. This is a new submission tool we are using. Please do not submit fiction submissions by email.

Other Stuff!

Please submit your work only once, and please submit only one work per submission period. Please only resubmit works that have already been rejected if invited.

We believe that the horror genre’s diversity is its greatest strength, and we wish that viewpoint to be reflected in our story content and submission queues. We are especially interested in hearing from those whose voices are underrepresented in the cosmic/weird. If comfortable, feel free to drop this information in your cover letter. You can also indicate this using the checkbox on our Moksha submission form.

We strongly favor stories that use contemporary narrative styles.

Prose Poetry and other types of fiction with unique formatting/spacing are not a good match due to the print layout of the magazine.

Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please withdraw immediately upon acceptance elsewhere.

We pay 3 cents (USD) per word for original fiction.

We do not take unsolicited reprints.

Special open call coming soon!

We will have a special Shirley Jackson themed open call on March 1 this year. Tap here for more info!

What we don’t want

We do not take any work that used AI in its creation, work that uses established genre tropes in a standard way, and queries. Work written in an antiquated, Lovecraftian style is a hard sell.

Authors we love

Mike Allen, Paula D. Ashe, Mona Awad, Laird Barron, Nadia Bulkin, Nicole Cushing, Brian Evenson, Gemma Files, John Langan, Thomas Ligotti, Premee Mohamed, Jon Padgett, Hailey Piper

Via: Cosmic Horror Monthly.