Submissions for issue #20 will begin…
in SPRING 2026 (date tba)
People of the World!
Planet Scumm accepts short stories from writers across the world. Our pages have hosted the imaginative work of authors from every contintent but Antartica. We want to hear from writers with as various experiences, identities, and points of view as possible.
Please do not busy our big-hearted slush readers with AI-generated tripe. Stories generated in part or whole by AI are in violation of our author contract.
Specs
WHAT TO SUBMIT
Hard sci-fi, soft sci-fi, sci-fi that melts in your mouth-brain not your hand-brain
Speculative fiction, weird fiction, slipstream
Basically anything that pleases Scummy, our megaphone-toting slime buddy, will be considered for entry to the interstellar archive aboard Scummy’s saucer
HOW TO SUBMIT
Include submissions as a .doc or .docx attachment to PlanetScummSubmissions@gmail.com along with a brief cover letter in the email body. Please attach only your story (no images, do not put your story in the body text of the email).
Stories, or collections of flash fiction, should be no more than 5,000 words in length, and submitted in standard manuscript format.
Submit only ONE previously unpublished short story or flash collection. We do not accept multiple submissions from the same author in one reading period.
Simultaneous submissions are okay, as long as you promptly withdraw a story accepted elsewhere.
SCHEDULE, RIGHTS, AND PAYMENT
Accepted authors receive 8 cents a word and one contributor copy.
Our publication operates in print, e-book, and audiobook. Some accepted stories will also be published on our website. We purchase exclusive English-language print, audio, and electronic publishing rights for six months, with non-exclusive rights thereafter.
Authors will receive payment within 3 months of finalizing story edits.
Issue #16 “OVERGROWTH”
A5” PAPERBACK BOOK WITH A SOFT TOUCH COVER
Anthologies so nice, we made it twice!
Welcome, dear reader, to "Everything!" Volume 2.
(We wanted to title it 2Planet2Scumm, but the space authorities, who clearly hate fun, apprehended us first. ) We're happy to report that, despite the inferior-but-admittedly-informative title, what you're holding is a masterpiece of a tome. Thanks to the convenient format, what you're holding is every single story... as long as that story was in Issues #5–10. Frankly, it's an unprecedented amount of top-tier weird-sci-fi.
Within these many, many, many pages, you'll find such eccentric ideas as: 'what if human emotions were liquified—and also illegal?'; a user's guide to reaching the Otherworld (but maybe don't do it); the emotional ramifications of accidental time travel; a drippy flesh-melting plague; a strange man promising immortality for a stranger price... And so many more!
We’ve come a long way since the era of our scrappy handmade paperbacks, and we couldn’t have made it this far without our hardworking team, our talented and diverse set of authors, and the astonishing artwork from countless artists.
(Oh! And readers like you, of course!)