Selling Stories to The Dark Magazine

An interview with Sean Wallace

The Dark

Horror/Dark Fantasy - Open Now - 2000 - 6000 words - 5 cents per word -No Simultaneous submissions - Yes to Reprints at 1c a word.

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The Dark is the only magazine in the spec world where you might get your rejection back after a sub before you can watch an episode of The Twilight Zone.

I personally have 66 rejections from this market.

That won’t discourage me though, I would LOVE to get a publication credit here. Authors I admire, like Ai Jiang, Ken Liu, and Leah Ning have graced this mag.

It was time to see if Sean Wallace would agree to give us some hints, and I’m thrilled he finally said “yes!”

Wallace founded The Dark Magazine, and also created Prime Books, a small press specializing in speculative fiction. Through Prime Books, he has published numerous anthologies and collections, often highlighting dark and experimental stories.

He has edited or co-edited a number of projects, including three magazines, Clarkesworld Magazine, The Dark, and Fantasy Magazine, and several anthologies, including The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, People of the Book, Robots: Recent A.I., and War & Space: Recent Combat.

Here is our chat!

AF: Can you give us some hints as to what kind of stories are most likely to be successful?

SW: For The Dark, which is a literary dark fantasy / horror magazine, we are always looking for stories that engage you by the throat, whether it's with approach, themes, or style, or a mix of all three.

In essence, it has to be something new, different, maybe even challenging and thought-provoking, leaving you with a memorable after-taste as it were.

AF: What do you see too much of?

SW: We see simply too many stories that seemingly have no awareness of the submission guidelines, which, on one hand, make it incredibly easy to reject right out of hand, but it does waste a bit of time and energy dealing with them, regardless.

AF: What is your number one piece of advice for new writers?

SW: Read. Read. Read. Read some of what has come before you but also read
what is being written today. Read widely, in any genre that you feel comfortable with.

Beyond that, you should, once in your life at least, tackle slush for a semi-pro or professional magazine, and that might really open your eyes to what’s coming in, which mistakes to avoid, what aspects of your writing to improve on, etc etc etc.

AF: If you could do something differently in your career path, what would it be?

I don’t think so. Things happen for a reason. I wouldn’t be here,
otherwise, and at my current age, I don’t have the energy for regrets
or doing much about them. You are constantly making mistakes (and
improvements) and that’s best moving forward.

Fan of Dark Fiction? (But not toooo dark?) Each of these anthologies has 13 tales of creepiness goodness. Most are mine. A few are from the best writers I could round up to join me.