Call for Submissions: Halloween Microfictions

Pumpkin spice lattes. Autumn chills. Cemeteries by moonlight. Halloween season is nigh and that means it’s time for the annual Circlet Press Halloween microfictions. We want your best spooky and sexy flash fiction and microfictions. We strongly encourage diversity and would love to see that represented in both the stories and in our authors. Give us queer, non-binary, trans, aromantic/asexual, disability centered, neurodivergent, and people of color. Straight and cisgendered are welcome too, of course. Please don’t self-reject. We’re happy to read any story that fits within our guidelines.

So what are the guidelines? Glad you asked! Circlet Press publishes erotic science fiction, fantasy, and horror. For our Halloween microfictions we like to receive stories up to 1500 words. The Halloween theme is a loose interpretation. We want anything in the spectrum from hot monster sex to simple cozy curled up by the fire stories. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. The stories do not have to be specific to Halloween but should at least fit in with the mood of autumn.

Horror stories and comedy are more than welcome but please make sure that consent between sexual partners is explicit. All characters engaging in sexual acts must be of legal age. A happy ending is not necessary however please note that I generally do not accept stories where one lover murders the other. Also, no fan fiction please. And no reprints.

The deadline for submissions is October 1st. Please include a short bio. Payment is $5 and the author retains all rights. You may send submissions to jwsubs13@gmail.com as either a Word doc or in the body of the email.

Microfiction: Mirrorman by Eric Del Carlo

“Mirrorman”
by Eric Del Carlo

The saving grace of Syd’s dingy studio apartment in a dilapidated building, which stood in a hardscrabble neighborhood was this: the enormous mirror. One wall of the single room was his “kitchen”; his bed went in the only space where it would fit; and the big sliding door of his closet was opposite the bed.

Someone at some point had faced that entire door in mirroring glass. It was as high as the ceiling and covered the whole wall.

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Microfiction: Fathoms Untold by TS Porter

“Fathoms Untold”
by TS Porter

Pearl Gleam the Huntress led her pod on their yearly migration. She was one of the largest of the Sea Peoples, and where most decorated themselves with bright shells and pearls, she wore strange armor fashioned from the carapaces of giant abyssal crabs. She was as long as an oarfish, faster than a mako shark, and her notched fins and the many scars on her arms and down the length of her tail proved her prowess as a warrior. Her pod trusted her to protect them, and protect them she did on their long journey, more often breaking the current at the head of the pod than swimming in any easier position.

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Halloween Microfiction: The Season by T.C. Mill

Editor’s Note: This story contains knife and blood play. Read accordingly please.

“The Season”
by T.C. Mill

This time of year finds them on the deep porch of the century-old farmhouse. It always will, even if they’re here in another century.

From under the overhang, they watch the rain fall. Leaves fall with it, beaten copper and winking gold coins dropping to the wet-darkened gravel drive. For an autumn day, it’s warm, and the porch is filled not with damp or chill but the sound: rattling and swelling like gusts of hungry breath. The pressure of the house looms above it like another thundercloud.

The last roses, pink as rare meat, have their heads bowed, heavy petals plucked by needles of rain. Out past the garden, along the tree-lined drive, it falls in such thick sheets that the world seems motionless. As if it has always been this way and always will be, seasons frozen in a silver amber.

They both know better.

Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: The Season by T.C. Mill

Halloween Microfiction: Playing With Your Food by Sonni de Soto

Editor’s Note: If you are afraid of spiders you may want to skip this story though I hope you don’t as it’s a wonderful piece.

“Playing With Your Food”
by Sonni de Soto

You hate the gasps and the stares as people around us scuttle away. But I don’t. Whether in the shadows or the streets, I’ve been the boogeyman too long for it to bother me. I smile, flashing my fangs at the full and frightened street, the long curved lengths sharp against my bottom lip, and blink innocently. All six, pitch black eyes. Scenting their collective fear combine and swell, my joints shake, the sensitive hairs along my limbs at attention, as my articulated legs twitch as if to pounce. I lick my lips and feel my heart race.

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Halloween Microfiction: Read This and Tell Me What You Think by Eric Del Carlo

“Read This and Tell Me What You Think”
by Eric Del Carlo

Harris held the sheaf out to me, the shivering pages betraying his anxiety. I blinked, nonplussed.

“Read this…” he said, a raw breathlessness in his voice, “and tell me what you think about it.”

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Halloween Microfiction: The Change by A.C. Quill

“The Change”
by A.C. Quill

At midnight I was out on the hillside, drumming my fingers and toes and waiting to change. Not wearing a lot: a greatcoat, no gloves, and feet bare in my walking boots. Less to retrieve, later.

But that night, nothing happened. I rocked on the balls of my feet trying to entice the change, to spark that shift that topples me forwards. I wanted my springy legs and my sharp nose. I longed to be careening between the trees in Tentsmuir Forest.  God, I was impatient! A crotchety middle-aged bitch…

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Halloween Microfiction: The Skeleton Man by Chloe Robbins

“The Skeleton Man”
by Chloe Robbins

The split-faced woman can’t believe her luck at finding a skeleton sitting so pretty in the light of a woodland campfire. Luck, or perhaps fate. Her name is Crystal and she isn’t from around here. She’s never heard of The Skeleton Man, though he’s famous. It’s said to be the most ghoulishly delicious sight, watching him invite his own bones outside himself for a dance. No blood or crassness, just a skeleton waltzing with its flesh. Lonely together.

But Crystal doesn’t know any of this. All she knows is that he’s left his bones sitting out for the night, his skin folded like laundry before the fire. His skull ripe as a berry for the picking. For the stealing.

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Halloween Microfiction: Daddy’s little Pumpkin by Sassafras Lowrey

“Daddy’s little Pumpkin”
by Sassafras Lowrey

Travis woke with a start – they hadn’t gotten to bed until just a few hours before . The benefit at the bar had ran late, Daddy had given them permission to stay up past bedtime but they were feeling it this morning.  Travis remembered when they were younger when staying up all night flogging cuties and flirting in the dungeon would leave them waking up exhilarated, reaching for the phone to see if anyone from the night before had texted. But now, Travis was exhausted, neck stiff, back sore. Yet they couldn’t help a bouncy sort of excitement pushing through  their exhaustion. Today was a day that they had been looking forward to for weeks. Daddy  had told them to make sure that they had the day off of work, and not to make any plans, that they were going to have a full date day, but then Daddy wouldn’t tell them anything about what they were going to do.

Continue reading Halloween Microfiction: Daddy’s little Pumpkin by Sassafras Lowrey

Erotica for Geeks