Deviant Nightmares

Just realized I never updated this. It was still leading people to Da-morgue for Chrissake. Bad. don't go there. Anyway, updated below or you can check the update center at deviant-nightmares.deviantart.…

The project formerly titled, "The Deviant Short Fiction Project" is now Deviant Nightmares by popular vote, as I'm sure most of you know.

It is designed to help promote and get exposure for as many authors and artists in the horror genre as possible by publishing authors from around the globe and including illustrations from hopefully as many. The more each one promotes their own work in towns and cities across the planet, the more people see the works of all published within.

The story part is over... Still accepting illustrations and need critiques on the stories in the finalist folder here deviant-nightmares.deviantart.…

You can stay updated on the progress of the project by watching the journal at

Illustrations can be submitted here deviant-nightmares.deviantart.… you don't need to be a member to enter the contest.
We are no longer affiliated with Da-morgue or working with them in any way cuz their founder Flipped the hell out and started being crazy in ways that was hurting us and our purpose.

Make sure you read the rules below before entering anything.

- word count - We are looking for short stories in the horror genre between 1200 and 4000 words, but will accept 600 and up if it's really good. Only so many stories below the 1200 word mark will be accepted, so please try to stay above that.

- Important - Horror never involves glittery vampires

- Age limit - We've been forced to make an age restriction on this project of eighteen years old and up.

- Submission limit - Each author is limited to three entries each, but only one from each who is chosen will make it into the book. Three entries may give you a better chance, however, so don't hold back.

- Content - We're not looking for a large amount of adult content, though because of the age restriction, some is okay if necessary to the story. Nothing ultra descriptive though. We're not looking for erotica.

- Deadline - The deadline for submissions is October 31rst at midnight. After that, the folder for stories will be closed to submissions and the judging process will begin.

Payment There is no payment per say, but you do get your name out there with your story in a short story collection that will be available worldwide, and you will get access to wholesale priced copies of the book so that you can sell it at a profit in your home town at book signings or however you see fit. We are not profiting off this either. Royalty will be set to zero so we can sell it at as low of a price as possible.

Illustrations

- Size - Try to stay around 5x8 inches for book covers at a resolution of 300 dpi. Also, be sure to keep all important content and text .5 inches from the edge so it doesn't get cut. If you don't observe this rule, and we can't fix it, your cover won't be considered.

- content - Be sure that the cover illustrations that you submit are okay for a shelf in a store. We want this to get as much exposure as possible and most stores will willingly carry work by local authors, but if it isn't appropriate for most - if not all - audiences, they probably won't carry it. For internal illustrations, which will be black and white, almost anything goes, but it should be related to stories that have been selected for the book, or something that can fit into the overall theme of the book in some big way. Again, not looking for porn. So keep it somewhat clean... Blood, however, is good.

- Logo and cover text - Don't worry about the Forsaken Press logo, and you don't have to include the cover text. It can be added later, but if you feel that you have a creative design for the text, go ahead and add it. Just make sure you keep a template offline in pdf or some other layered format which can be edited later if needed.

- Deadline - there is no deadline as of yet for illustrations. We will set one once the stories have been chosen as it will be easier to do illustrations at that point. Feel free to submit something now, however, if a particular story inspires you or you have an idea for something.

Originality I don't know how many ways I can emphasize the word original. So stop submitting stuff with characters from movies or artwork from album covers or anything else that is a copyright infringement. You guys have the opportunity to get your artwork featured in a short story collection with world-wide distribution, don't screw up your chances by submitting crap we're going to just say no to. We're in this to help you not get sued.

That should be everything. If I forgot something, let me know, or you can direct your questions to the update center at deviant-nightmares.deviantart.… or here.

The winner has been announced and awarded the points collected. See in the update center linked above.

Thanks to and all other deviants who helped for all of their hard work and to all of the groups who posted about this and helped to spread the word.