Submissions Closed:
Submissions are Closed due to my husband, Michael C Pennington, had open heart surgery June 19th, 2020. He hasn’t been doing to well and needs more time to recover.
Thank you for your patience,
Joan
WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR: Guidelines
First – the donation tab on the front page is for the use of the Readers – Not the Authors – I feel the authors are already contributing their fine work that has made Aurora Wolf the magazine she is. Thank you for sending us your submissions, Aurora Wolf is structured to help support and promote the authors. Not for this publisher to milk all I can from your hard work.
Aurora Wolf publishes stories where dreams and memories are created for the reader’s enjoyment. Our online free library and low priced print and e-formatted anthologies feature speculative fiction with strong characters and morals that uplift the soul, encourage positive thought, happy endings and bring hope into our world.
In other words; the MC wins out over the forces of darkness. We want stories that will make your friends, children and grandchildren proud to be part of your life. Entertaining stories that ring with harmony and happy endings, but surprise with unexpected twists to plot, rising action and a conflict that will keep a reader riveted to your story page. The story must end well. No Doom and Gloom.
Aurora Wolf now publishes six new stories a month, plus contributions to our new serial short story section. It has now been nine years, publishing the best stories we can find from talented authors that deserved to be recognized. Please feel free to send us your submission, we will try our best to be prompt with our response from when the story is received and our decision.
Science Fiction: Space, Alternate Reality, Steam Punk, Nature, Post Apocalyptic (uplifting – with hope for what the future may bring). Especially Seeking: Near Earth Space Exploration and Under Sea Exploration adventures.
Fantasy: Sword and Sorcery, Heroic, High Fantasy, Dragon and Fairy Tales.
Historical Fiction: Is a new genre that I will accept – but the story must be uplifting.
We are not seeking stories centered about current religious controversy or politics. But we will accept spiritually uplifting works that can bring happiness to others.
No Horror, doom and gloom, extreme gore or violence. If the story ends with a tragic ending, such as Romeo and Juliet, I will probably Pass on your work.
Romance is okay if the story holds elements of Sci-fi or Fantasy.
No erotica, excessive foul language, or stories of abuse. Any such stories will be deleted without reply. But then . . . maybe I will reply.
We publish stories from all English speaking nations using their own spelling and voice.
This is a family publication; we like stories for all ages. We do not want stories that are stronger than a PG rating. We want uplifting stories that inspire righteous thought, morals and perhaps teach a lesson. Most of all we want stories that are original, packed with action, characters that show growth and endings that grab the reader.
Family oriented stories, parent with their child or sibling “stories” that show bonding and the emotions of an enduring relationship between two characters are looked upon with favor.
A good way to improve your chances of being accepted at Aurora Wolf is to make sure your story fits the guidelines in regards to the subject of the story and how well the story ends. Plus, I like a description that helps me visualize the main characters. Whether stated near the beginning or cleverly doled out as the story progresses.
READING PERIOD:
Open year-round. I try to get back to the authors asap. If I haven’t received your story within 48 hours, please ask if I got it. If you haven’t hear back from me, within one month, after I have received your story; please feel free to inquire. I get a couple dozen stories a month and it can be very easy to loose track due to regular everyday mail, and a nightmare of spam and promotion e-mails.
WORD COUNT:
2500 – 5,500 On the rarest of occasions, if a story can knock our socks off, we will consider outstanding works that fall outside of this range. Perhaps 2000 – 6500 words
Although we have great respect for flash and poetry; we are not accepting Flash Fiction or Poetry at this time.
For poetry I would suggest John C. Mannone of The Silver Blade Magazine http://silverblade.silverpen.org/content/?tag=john-c-mannone
STORY SUBMISSION:
It is very important that you use the header, Story Submission: Title – Author’s Name in the subject line. This allows us to help filter out the stories from the massive amount of service, promotional, and spam advertisements that pour in everyday.
“If you do not hear from us, after you submit your work, within a couple of days, please inquire. If we respond that your work is received and you have not heard back from us, within thirty days, with a Pass or Acceptance, please inquire. We work really hard to keep submission periods as short as possible. However, we have had computer gliches in the past, stuff happens, so don’t feel shy about contacting us.”
Times New Roman, 12 pt. Font.
No underlines; use italics for italics. Please keep the use of Italics to a minimum; all italics have to be manually entered into the publishing engine. The over use of Italics may cause the story to be passed up.
Please use a Single space between paragraphs.
Submit as an MS Word .doc or .rtf attachment.
Use the show and hide tool to check for and remove manually installed tabs and spacing. Use the paragraph format features to create a clean manuscript. Fancy style formats are not wanted, use normal style. They can be a nightmare when formatting a book for print or e-format.
Do not type or paste the story into the body of your e-mail, attachments only please. We are not accepting submissions via snail mail or regular mail unless they are on a zip drive.
For Submissions not using the headrer: Story Submission-Title-Name in the e-mail subject line there’s no guarantee that the story will be received. We try to acknowledged all stories within twenty-four hours, if you have not been contacted after forty-eight hours, please inquire.
No Simultaneous Submissions
No Multiple Submissions
No Reprints
YOUR E-MAIL:
Construct the subject line of your e-mail in this manner:
Story Submission: Story Title – Author’s Name
Include contact information in both the body of the e-mail and at the top of your story. Very important if your original e-mail gets lost. You may also include a bio with a links to your website and publications if you wish. This will be attached after the ending of your story online. If your story is accepted please continue to keep your contact information updated.
SEND:
Story Submissions for the on-line zine ONLY to: submissions@aurorawolf.com
PAYMENT & RIGHTS:
Five dollars US for First use, Non-exclusive Electronic rights for 12 months. At the end of the 12 month period, all rights return to the author. We do not use writen contracts until print publication and we do not use every story sent in, only the best of the best are selected for print publication.
If your ezine-published story is selected for inclusion in an Aurora Wolf anthology you will recieve one contributor’s copy for Non-exclusive, First American print and electronic anthology rights for the life of the Anthology. I’m sorry, we can no longer pay an additional fee for print publication. I am selling the books at the lowst price I can in the interest of promoting the books and the authors within.
As of January 2017 we only pay via PayPal. Payment outside of USA by US Mail is getting to expensive.
We ask that you mention Aurora Wolf as the first publisher of your work should it be accepted elsewhere.
MINUTIAE:
We reserve the right to make minor alterations concerning grammar, punctuation, spelling, formatting, etc. The author will be provided with a story proof for approval if any major changes are needed.
By submitting your work, you acknowledge that the submitted work is your own, and that you have read and agree to these guidelines.
You have the right to link to your work from your own or any writer’s website anytime during which your story appears on our site. And to use the graphics created on other sites to promote your work.
We reserve the right to return works and copyrights at any time due to infractions of the above requirements.
Joan M. & Michael C. Pennington