Submission Guidelines
What We Publish
Gothic fiction and art. Mood and imagery are more important to us than genre distinctions.1 We’re still developing our aesthetic, so feel free to take chances.
How to Submit Fiction
We’re open to contemporary, historical, and secondary-world settings, but futuristic settings are likely to be a hard sell. We rarely publish pieces much shorter than 2,000 words or much longer than 10,000. We don’t publish graphic sexual content or obscene language.
All submissions should be sent to sara.L.bickley@gmail.com. The subject line must include the letters HLS. Submissions that fail to follow this guideline might not be seen or responded to.
Fiction may be submitted as an attachment in any common file type. We do not have specific manuscript formatting requirements.
Previously published works are considered for publication if the original publication was at least ten years before the date of submission and the story is not available for free online.
Please, no multiple submissions of fiction. Simultaneous submissions are considered; please withdraw your work immediately upon its being accepted elsewhere. Please do not submit previously rejected works unless asked to do so.
Include a brief biographical note or be prepared to provide one upon acceptance.
If we fail to send an acknowledgement within 36 hours, please query.
We no longer send personalized rejections.
We encourage you to report submissions and responses to Duotrope, The Submission Grinder, or Chill Subs.
How to Submit Artwork
We present one work of visual art along with each story. These works are selected from various sources.2 They are, for the most part, not specially commissioned.
We’re always in need of art! If your style seems even tangentially relevant to our aesthetic, we strongly encourage you to share your work. We’re open to any medium and a variety of styles.
All submissions should be sent to sara.L.bickley@gmail.com. The subject line must include the letters HLS. Submissions that fail to follow this guideline might not be seen or responded to.
Artwork may be submitted as an attachment in any common file type. The submitted file should be at least 500 pixels wide. Be prepared to provide a higher-resolution file if your artwork is accepted.
For artwork only, previously published/posted submissions are considered without restrictions, and we do not ask for exclusivity.
Include a brief biographical note or be prepared to provide one upon acceptance.
If we fail to send an acknowledgement within 36 hours, please query.
Letters
We encourage discussion in our comments section, and we also welcome letters to the editor commenting on previously published stories, expressing preferences for future stories, recommending works of interest to our readers, or discussing the general state of Gothic fiction.
Please direct letters to the submissions address, sara.L.bickley@gmail.com; include HLS in the subject line. Selected letters may be reproduced in future issues of House of Long Shadows and/or forwarded to authors for a potential response. No payment is offered to letter-writers.
Publication and Payment
A new story with accompanying artwork is posted every Saturday. There will be four or five posts each month depending on the number of Saturdays. Most stories will be behind a paywall (except for a few teaser paragraphs); artworks will be publicly visible.
Published stories remain available in the archive indefinitely. Reasonable requests for removal will be honored.
We pay a minimum of $10 for artwork, $10 for fiction up to 10,000 words and $20 for fiction more than 10,000 words. Originals and reprints receive the same rate. In some cases we pay more than the minimum; this depends on subscription revenues received during the month your story appears. In addition to monetary payment, published authors also have access to a complimentary six-month subscription.
Payment will be sent the month after your work appears, and will be via PayPal unless the author requests another method.
AI Policy
We have no interest in publishing computer-generated works with no human author. Please don’t submit such things.
However, we recognize that generative AI can be used in ways that support, rather than supplant, human creativity. We do not require authors or artists to disclose their use of (or abstention from) AI tools.
Updated 6 June 2025.
Some things we’d like to see more of: Romantic suspense with Gothic tropes (think Barbara Cartland). Sympathetic vampires (think Anne Rice or Dark Shadows). Horror mysteries with non-supernatural solutions (think John Dickson Carr).
Including, but no limited to, unsolicited submissions