Short Story Submission Guidelines

Section editor, curator – Kathleen Colburn – rrshortstories@gmail.com – PayPal – rrshortstories@gmail.com

Rapid River Magazine’s Short Story section is a web exclusive feature. Stories do not appear in the print edition.

– RapidRiverMagazine.com is a family-friendly website, therefore certain written works with offensive or graphic content will not be considered for publication.

– Suggested submission length – up to 3,000 words per piece. Longer works are considered – up to 5000 words.

See below for reading fees.

– All submissions will be reviewed for appropriateness and quality. Material is expected to be print ready with basic standards of grammar, spelling and punctuation met as well as sentence structure. If extensive editing is required, the writer has the option of working with the section editor.

– Kathleen is offering a special editing rate for RR writers. This fee is based on the standard 250 word page and is due via PayPal prior to beginning the work. – $4.75 per page.

– As there is no charge to the writer for publication, and Kathleen does not charge for management of the short story section, a reasonable reading fee must be charged only for submissions over 3000 words.

Reading fees for submissions over 3000 words are due via PayPal prior to the editor reading the piece.
3000-4000 words – $6.50,   4000-5000 words – $8

– There are no PayPal fees if your PayPal account is linked to your bank account rather than a credit card, and you choose the option “Send money to friends and family.”

– Formatting requirements are as follows and please be carefully consistent. Submissions that do not adhere to these requirements will likely not be considered for publication.

MS Word, 12 point font. Left align. One space only, after periods. Single line spacing within paragraphs.

Double line spacing between paragraphs. Story dialogue can be indented or not. Remove all headers and footers. Remove page numbers. Send as an email attachment not in the body of the email.

– All submissions must be assigned either Fiction or Non-fiction, and a genre from the list below. Include at top of story.

– Including a picture or pictures related to the story, draws attention. Maximum of two will be chosen. Please size appropriately and include as an email attachment. Preferred format – JPEG, no larger than 500 KB.

– Copyrights are owned by the author. Submission to Rapid River Magazine implies consent to publish the author’s material on rapidrivermagazine.com.

– Include a brief writer’s bio, in third person, a few sentences in length. Include mention of any notable published works.

Send as an email attachment not in the body of the email.

– Selected work will be posted once a month to coincide with the distribution of the print edition and monthly updating of the website, both occurring at the first of each month. Submission does not guarantee publication.

Deadline for submission is the 20th of the month, however publication for the following month is not guaranteed.

Genres

  • Action
  • Adventure
  • Art
  • Auto/Biography
  • Crime & thriller – light
  • Dark humor – light
  • Drama
  • Fable
  • Fantasy
  • Feel good fiction
  • Food
  • History
  • Horror – light
  • Humor
  • Insight
  • Inspirational & uplifting
  • Journal, including travel
  • Meaning & purpose
  • Memoir
  • Metaphysics
  • Music
  • Mystery- light/Suspense
  • Observational
  • Outdoors/Recreation
  • Personal Growth
  • Regional
  • Romance
  • Satire
  • Science
  • Sci-fi
  • Self-awareness
  • Slice of Life
  • Sports
  • Supernatural
  • Time travel-editor favorite
  • Travel

Updated 1/20/2016