Paying market, Short Story America, pays $100 for stories/ $50 for flash fiction

Short Story America will be proud to consider your stories for publication. If you would like to submit a new story for first publication on Short Story America, please click the “Join” button below. Short Story America will also consider publishing your previously-published works in the Short Story America archives. If you would like to submit a previously-published short story for the permanent archives so that the rest of the reading world can discover your work, please click on the “Join” button. We look forward to reading your fiction. Kudos to you for creating stories which would not exist in the world if you had not been born! Thank you for this and future opportunities to read your works.

Short Story America publishes memorable, entertaining stories which move and matter. We want stories which readers will remember and want to read again. If your story entertains from the first page forward, and if your story’s pacing and conflict engage the reader’s interest from plot, character and thematic standpoints, then please submit your story today. Please do not worry about genre classifications. A great story is a great story, regardless of genre. If the reader genuinely wants to know what eventually happens in your story, and is still thinking about your story ten minutes after finishing it, then your story works. Don’t let anyone kid you in that stuffy way that has helped to drive the short story to the margins of American culture. If you have a cracking good story, we want to read it.

Scope: 500 words to 12,000 words. We believe that a fine story can be told within that scope, and find it tragic that some longer stories these days have to gather dust rather than be read by a wide audience. We’ll deliver the wide audience. You deliver the great story within this broad scope. If your story is great and happens to exceed 12,000 words, then don’t worry. If it’s great, we’ll accept it anyway.

Font and spacing: Please use Times New Roman, size 12. Double-space your text. The story title and author name should be centered at the top of your document. At the end of your story, please include a brief author biography.

Expectations: Avoid graphic sexual situations, and avoid gratuitous violence and profanity. If violence is part of the story, that is fine. Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” are famous examples of the relevant role which violence can play in a great story. Avoid the kind that is “for the heck of it.” Any profanity should be relevant or realistic to the character or speaker.

Your Contact Information: When you register to submit your first story, please follow the prompts for contact information.

Important: We do not accept snail-mail submissions. All submissions must be made through the website. We look forward to reading your story!

More information here.