Please read the guidelines before submitting.
A huge, HUGE, tip of the hat to author Joachim Heijndermans, whose holiday creature feature “All Through the House” debuted on season 2 of the Netflix anthology series Love Death + Robots today. The staff is breaking out the champagne to watch, as this story also appeared in issue #1 of Curiosities way back in December 2017.
Congratulations Joachim!
If you’d like to see how the original version of the story played out, you can still pick up a copy of issue #1 for yourself here.
One dozen odd, bizarre, and genre-defying stories to entertain and delight. Go on a roadtrip to a Lovecraftian hell-pit. Witness acrobats leaping into the void. Sail uncharted waters with the deadliest of crewmates. Explore a shadow dimension populated by echos of the film industry. Experience the Louvre in the throes of the cataclysmic Artpocalypse. Fear the clown. And yes, we have… a Zombie Gorilla!
From darkly humorous to Bizarro adjacent, these are the strangest stories ever to have landed in the Curiosities mailroom.
Available now on Amazon in trade paperback, Kindle, and Kindle Unlimited. Follow the handy links in our store page.
Behind-the-scenes numbers for 2020:
907 manuscripts were submitted
in the 69 days that we were open
by 634 authors and 1 translator.
27 manuscripts accepted (3%)
4 were successful revisions
3 were reprints
2 were translations
at least 1 was written where English was a second language, and possibly 2 others.
The most fortunate author was Gwen Katz, who submitted twice and was accepted twice.
The least fortunate author submitted 13 times.
We had 5 active readers in the slush pile— 3 Americans, 1 Canadian, and 1 from Spain.
The most commonly used characters were (in descending order) Death, The Devil, and Jack the Ripper. This has been very consistent over the years.
We published 25 stories and 2 author interviews in 2 issues.
We aired 13 stories in 12 podcast episodes.
We’ve finally reached 100 episodes! Here is the first episode we ever aired all the way back in 2010, which was first published in the November 1913 issue of The Strand magazine. Vic Mullin narrates the first story ever to feature the legendary air kraken.
Unfortunatley, the original story master file was not in a recoverable condition. The sound quality on the story is very 10 years ago.
Music:
Tick Tock Tick Tock Quarantine Time by WinnieTheMoog
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/6145-tick-tock-tick-tock-quarantine-time
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Faster Does It by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/3741-faster-does-it
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Story music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Cover art: “Air Kraken over New Babbage” by Vic Mullin
What a year, what a year. Here’s the author eligibility list for Curiosities in 2020. This is not considered a pro market by SFWA.
First English Publication (short story)
B. Morris Allen “Payback” in Curiosities #8 (dinosaur western)
AJ Brennan “Dorothea Defies Convention” in Curiosities #7 (steampunk, gaslamp, fantasy)
Natasha C. Calder “The Death Trade” in Curiosities #7 (steampunk, SFF, horror)
Harris Coverley “The Instant” in Curiosities #7 (steampunk, horror)
Ian C. Douglas “Mary Shelley and the Saint Pancras Ghoul” in Curiosities #7 (steampunk, horror)
Angela Enos “The Automat’s Automaton” in Curiosities #8 (weird, dieselpunk, bizarro-adjacent)
JL George “Shards” in Curiosities #7 (fantasy, horror)
Philip Brian Hall “A Rainy Day at St Bartholomew’s” in Curiosities #7 (steampunk, SF, mystery)
Paul R Hardy “Twilight of the Electric Shadows” in Curiosities #8 (SFF, bizarro-adjacent)
Liam Hogan “Six Coins” in Curiosities #8 (fantasy, nautical SF, YA)
Gwen Katz “Seven Cups of Tea” in Curiosities #7 (steampunk, SFF, fairy tale)
Sebastien Mantle “One Last Date at the Pitside” in Curiosities #8 (horror, humor)
Avra Margariti “The Acrobat’s Guide to Vanishing Without a Trace” in Curiosities #8 (fantasy)
Phil Margolies “The Prince in the Darkness” in Curiosities #8 (historical fantasy, dieselpunk)
Jason J. McCuiston “Euphonia” in Curiosities #7 (steampunk, horror)
Tannar Miller “St. Marco” in Curiosities #8 (gasoline fantasy)
Lena Ng “The Finishing School” in Curiostities #8 (gaslamp, bizarro) **first publication by Rufo’s Dog in 2020
Konstantine Paradias “And The Faces Screamed In The Gallery” in Curiosities #8 (bizarro-adjacent, horror, superhero)
MM Schreier “Inked” in Curiosities #7 (steampunk, gaslamp)
Priya Sridhar “The Taste of Storms” in Curiosities #7 (steampunk, SFF)
Shaun van Rensburg “The Night Bazaar” in Curiosities #7 (fantasy)
reprints
CB Droege “Jack Be Nimble” in Curiosites #8 (steampunk, superhero)
Adam Gaylord “The There-It-Is Store” in Curiosities #7 (gaslamp, YA)
Chris Kuriata “Whaling With Clowns” in Curiosities #8 (bizarro, horror)
Jordan Taylor “The Mirror Crack’d” in Curiosities #7 (gaslamp fantasy)
