FUN IN THE DARK

A mini anthology series of fabulously fun, deliciously dark short fiction.

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#2: “OPEN WATER”

Submission deadline: Midnight, 31 March 2026
Story length: 2000-5000 words
Payment: £20 plus a copy of both the print and e-book editions to each selected author.
We want your stories! Submissions are open to any author writing in the English language, at any stage of their career.

Please submit your work as a DOC/DOCX or PDF via email to kilterandrammel@hotmail.com with “Fun in the Dark Submission: Open Water” as the subject.

What are we looking for?

We welcome submissions in a variety of genres – horror, science fiction, fantasy, weird or bizarro fiction, crime/mystery etc. As long as your story clearly fits with both the theme of the individual anthology and within the overall tone of the series – fun yet dark – we want to see it!

When it comes to the specific theme of “open water”, we want stories featuring large bodies of open water: oceans, lakes, reservoirs etc. It can be set on, under or near the water, and can feature things (real or imagined!) that might live in these types of environments! How you interpret the theme is up to you, we just ask that open water of some sort features as a focal point in your submission.

This volume’s guest reader…

We’re excited to be joined by Hokunani Sorci as guest reader, who’ll be helping to choose six stories for Fun in the Dark #2: Open Water. Hoku is the author of the creepy short story collection My Dreadful Dreams: 13 Tales of Terror and the fabulously fun and dark novel The Haven Horror. She’s a big fan of stories that speak to the theme of “open water”, and is excited to see what you’ve got for us!

Submission Guidelines:

DEADLINE: Midnight, 31 March 2026.

N.B. “Midnight” applies to your own specific time zone, rather than GMT.

Please include the following information on the manuscript itself.
Author name and pseudonym (if applicable); email address; word count (to the nearest 100 words).

One entry per author.

Submissions should be between 2000 and 5000 words.

Submissions under 2K and over 5K will not be accepted.

Submissions should be previously unpublished.

N.B. We define ‘published’ works as any work available publicly, including stories posted on personal blogs or sites/apps like Substack or Wattpad

No resubmissions (i.e. nothing you’ve previously submitted to Kilter & Rammel that was unsuccessful).

No submissions that have used generative AI in their creation.

Stories should be submitted in standard manuscript format: 1-inch margins, 12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced.

If you’re unsure of how to format your manuscript for submission, check out William Shunn’s excellent guide here: https://www.shunn.net/format/story/

Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please tell us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere during the submission window.

Authors will be notified of whether their story will be included by 30 April 2026. Selected authors will receive a one-time payment of £20 (paid via PayPal or suitable equivalent) and one copy of both print and e-book editions.

Submit your story via email to kilterandrammel@hotmail.com in DOC/DOCX or PDF format by the deadline of midnight, 31 March 2026. We’ll let you know that we’ve received your submission within 3 working days.

Anything you’re unsure of? Check out the ‘Questions you might have…’ section below, and feel free to email us at kilterandrammel@hotmail.com if you have any further queries.

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Questions you might have…

What are you looking for?

Your story can be in any genre – horror, science fiction, fantasy, weird or bizarro fiction, crime/mystery etc – as long as it clearly fits within both the theme of the individual anthology (in this case, “Open Water”) and within the overall tone of the series – fun yet dark!

What won’t you accept?

We’re not looking for extreme horror, i.e. stories featuring graphic violence, sexual assault or abuse. Nor are we looking for serious, thought-provoking, gritty dark fiction. There’s absolutely a place for that elsewhere – we like reading that sort of work ourselves – but Fun in the Dark isn’t that place. By all means, dive into the darkness with your stories, just make sure you bring the fun too!

We can’t accept any fan fiction or adaptations, unless the source material is in the public domain.

We won’t accept any submissions written using generative AI. We want to see to see work written by humans, not that of machines. Any submission that we strongly suspect has been written using generative AI will be rejected immediately.

What do you mean by generative AI?

We’re talking about using an AI model, such as Chat GPT, to do the bulk of the work for you, e.g. to write the prose of your story. We’re NOT talking about AI language/writing tools, like spelling and grammar checkers. Go right ahead and use those!

What’s the process for selection?

Your story will get a first reading by Alex (editor-in-chief at Kilter & Rammel), who will then create a longlist.

From the longlist, Alex will narrow down the submissions to a shortlist (maximum of twenty stories), which will then be sent out for a blind reading by other members of the editorial team, including the guest reader for the volume.

Each member of the selection panel will judge the shortlisted stories and come up with their personal list of six that they’d like to see included in the anthology. A final line-up will be decided upon by comparing these lists to find a combination of stories that best works for the publication.

What happens if my story’s selected for publication?

You’ll be notified by 30 April 2026, and if you’re still happy for us to publish your story you’ll be required to sign a publishing agreement indicating that a) you are the sole and true owner of the material submitted, and b) your story wasn’t written using generative AI.

Signing the publishing agreement will give Kilter & Rammel Publishing rights to publish your story in print and e-book formats, as well as on kilterandrammel.com. These rights will be exclusive for a period of three months from date of publication, converting to non-exclusive rights for a further period of two years, nine months. The contract will expire three years from the date of publication.

Once you’ve signed and returned the publishing agreement, you’ll receive your payment of £20. Author copies of the print and e-book will be delivered once the anthology is published.

Once you’re signed on, your story will then go through a copyedit. The edit will look at the writing at a sentence level, and will deal with spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation and flow. Your work will also be edited to bring it in line with the Kilter & Rammel House Style, though we will retain regional spelling differences. Your editor will be extremely careful to retain your voice and style, and any proposed edits that could impact those elements will be queried with you.

What’s the timeline for publication?

• Now – 31 March 2026: submissions accepted.
• 1 – 30 April 2026: reading and selection. Authors notified of decisions. Authors paid and paperwork completed.
• 1 May – 30 June 2026: Production (editing, typesetting, proofing, marketing etc.)
• 1 July 2026: RELEASE!

Where will the publication be released?

The print edition will be available on Amazon only, but the e-book will be available more widely – Amazon, Kobo, Gumroad, Overdrive, among other platforms. The price point is to be confirmed.

The paid editions will include the six selected stories, as well as extended author information, an editorial/introduction, as well as bonus material (eg. a story written by a member of the Kilter & Rammel team, a piece by the guest reader, or any other appropriate content).

The six selected stories will also be made available in a simple text-only format on kilterandrammel.com, where they will be free to access for readers for a limited time (for three months from the date of publication). This free access is important to us – we believe everyone should have access to great, entertaining fiction, regardless of personal financial circumstances.

If my story is selected for this anthology, does that bar me from being able submit stories for others in the Fun in the Dark series?

Absolutely not! We want to encourage folks to write as much as possible and get practised at submitting stories too. If any or all of the themes for the Fun in the Dark anthologies get your creative juices going, then get writing and submitting!