We are accepting both short fiction and poetry submissions!

Our magazine is an SFWA-certified professional market.

We now use HeyPublisher to manage our submissions. If you already have an account, you’re set. If not, you can easily create a free account when submitting your work.

Apex Magazine Guidelines
Short Stories:
1) You will need to log into the HeyPublisher site. Go to this page and select 'click here to submit your work'.
2) Maximum word length is a firm 7,500 words.
3) Payment is .05 per word.
4) We do not accept reprints.

Poetry Guidelines:
1) You will need to log into the HeyPublisher site. Go to this page and select click here to submit your work. Be sure to mark your Genre as ‘Poetry’.
2) Send no more than one poem at a time.
3) Payment is $0.25 per line or $5 per poem, whichever is greater, paid within 30 days of publication.
4) Poems formatted flush left are preferred over those requiring special formatting (concrete poems, poems with staggered indentation, etc.). We’re looking for creativity of expression rather than of page layout.
5) We do not accept reprints.

Rights and Rules:
1) No simultaneous submissions. No multi-submissions.
2) We buy first world rights, exclusive for three months, nine months of non-exclusive e-rights after those three months, and non-exclusive anthology rights for three years.
3) Stories are required to contain a dark speculative fiction element.

What are we looking for here at Apex Magazine?
The easiest and best way to discover this is to buy a subscription to the magazine and READ several issues. After you do that, we offer the following details from fiction editor Catherynne M. Valente:

We do not want hackneyed, cliched plots or neat, tidy stories that take no risks. We do not want Idea Stories without character development or prose style, nor do we want derivative fantasy with Tolkien’s serial numbers filed off.

What we want is sheer, unvarnished awesomeness. We want the stories it scared you to write. We want stories full of marrow and passion, stories that are twisted, strange, and beautiful. We want science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mash-ups of all three—the dark, weird stuff down at the bottom of your little literary heart. This magazine is not a publication credit, it is a place to put your secret places and dreams on display. Just so long as they have a dark speculative fiction element—we aren’t here for the quotidian.

Keep in mind that the search for awesome stories is as difficult as writing them. If you are rejected, don’t get angry—instead, become more awesome. Write something better, and better, until we have to accept you, because we have been laid low by your tale. It really is that simple.

Art Submission Guidelines
We offer $50 for digital reprint rights for cover art. If you’d like for your art to be considered for Apex Magazine please send an email via our contact form that includes a link to your online gallery. We do not commission original work for the magazine, only pre-existing art.