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Upcoming open submissions window

1st November - 31st December 2026.

Submissions open to writers born on, or living on, the island of Ireland

GUIDELINES AT A GLANCE

 

Below are some of the magazines likes and dislikes followed by key guidelines for submitting to our magazine.

 

Submission that void our content guidance or formatting guidelines will not be considered for publication.

 

 Full submission guidelines available at bottom of page

Content guidance (Things we love, hard sells and hard nos!)

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First and above all else SHOW us a world and TELL us a story within it. Your story needs a protagonist, who needs a goal, with motivations. Below are a few other preferences.

 

We love!!!

 

  • Stories that interrogate human potential.

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  • Stories the explore changing human nature. Especially our relationship with the natural world.

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  • Absurdism and comedy.

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  • Romance!! We're here for a love story but please make sure there's a piece of tech/science at the heart of story; such as in the Black Mirror episode "San Junipero".

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  • Anything Kilgore Trout would have written but don’t rip off a Kilgore Trout. We’ll know.

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  • Stories that interrogate the philosophies of emergent technologies

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  • Cli-fi.

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Hard sells!!

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  • Stories where any political party or religion take over the world and either save or ruin it.​​​​

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  • Stories that both begin and end in abject despair.​

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  • Body horror.​​

 

Hard nos!!

  • Stories about animal cruelty, rapists, murderers, child abusers, cannibals - or any other extreme form of cruelty or abuse.​​

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  • Misery porn.

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  • Robot porn.

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  • Any other sort of Porn.

Cyperpunk writer typing.jpg

Styleguide and formatting summary

 

We ask that everyone submitting a piece to Science Fiction Ireland follows these guidelines, and reading the full guidelines and following them will most definitely improve your chances of joining starship Sci-FI Ireland in our next instalment!!

 

Exceptions on format can be made for rare circumstances where the story demands a distinct style (e.g., epistolary, experimental formats such as — Lazarus Rising — in issue 1), but that will be on a case-by-case basis. 

 

Following the guidelines not only increases your chances of your story being chosen, but it helps us make the process of preparing pieces for publication smoother—and will mean less editing for you down the line! We have an extended style guide linked as a word document with some information on our magazine formatting style that we encourage you to look at before submitting.

 

·      All submissions should be double-spaced in 12pt, readable font (e.g., Times New Roman, Calibri, Arial etc) and follow standard manuscript formatting—first line should not be indented, while every subsequent paragraph or line break should have an indentation. 

·      Double quotations for speech and em dashes preferred 

·      UK (or Hiberno) English spellings please (unless a character or story requires otherwise) 

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Submission guidelines at a Glance

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We want:​

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  • Science-fiction. Stories in which were the science/technology element removed the plot would not function. We will accept Science-Crossover such as Science-Fantasy, Science-Horror. Science crossed with folklore, legend and myth are also encouraged.

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  • Note on translation: We accept and encourage submissions in Gaeilge, but work should be submitted with an English translation and publication is conditional on the author working with our translations editor; and the work will be published bilingually.

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  • 2,000-6000 words. Paid at £75 (€86.50 give or take) per story plus free contributor copy.

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  • Please use the email as a cover letter containing: Name, story title, word count and brief writer's bio - including place of birth and where you’re working from right now.

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  • Sci-Fi Ireland is looking for submissions from new and established writers from as diverse and inclusive a range of demographics as possible; however, submissions will only be accepted from writers 18 years and older who are either living on, or were born on, the Island of Ireland.

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  • We accept simultaneous submissions, but do not accept multiple submissions nor do we accept resubmissions/reprints.

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  • Please send only RTF, DOC or DOCX files, do not include identifying information in your manuscript and stick to standard manuscript format as much as possible. Please also read and follow Sci-Fi Ireland's style/format guide. Our style/format guide is available via the button above this text box.​​

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