Ready… set… gross: seeking extreme horror submissions for UNSPLATTERPUNK! 3

Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction aims for three-pugnance with third instalment of controversial anthology that aims to shock, disgust, and morally enlighten.

Sixteenth century English poet Sir Philip Sidney encouraged writers to teach virtue and delight. If readers aren’t delighted (i.e. entertained), he argued, they’ll walk away.

Now that we’re in the twenty-filth century, the unsplatterpunk movement has put a new spin on Sidney’s advice by asking writers to teach and shock and/or disgust readers.

Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction launched the unsplatterpunk movement in 2017 with UNSPLATTERPUNK!. The British Fantasy Society called this inaugural collection “memorable and thought-provoking”. Last year, TQF upped the muck with UNSPLATTERPUNK! 2, which criminologist, aesthetic commentator, and novelist Dr Rafe McGregor called “a provocative, confrontational, outrageous, and innovative collection”.

Next year, TQF will flay new trails with UNSPLATTERPUNK! 3, edited by Douglas J. Ogurek. We challenge authors to submit short stories that submerge a positive message in filth, carnage, and whatever else shocks people.

We’ll take ultraviolent humour, perverted country bumpkin, and raw realism. We’ll take vile fantasy, gruesome sci-fi, and grossmance… anything so long as it defies contemporary sensibilities, repulses us, and integrates a virtuous message.

Bear in mind that this is not an easy task. “Unsplatterpunk is an exceptionally demanding genre in which to write, requiring an almost impossible balancing act between the disgusting and the morally uplifting”, writes Rafe McGregor in the foreword to UNSPLATTERPUNK! 2. “If it doesn’t convey a positive moral message, then it’s splatterpunk, not unsplatterpunk; if it isn’t disgusting enough, then it’s neither unsplatterpunk nor splatterpunk.”   

Also remember that gore is the new norm. Popular TV shows and films drip with eviscerations, decapitations, and amputations. Then there are the splatterpunk/extreme horror books that make those TV shows and films look like children’s programs. The most abhorrent stuff imaginable? We think not. Writers can take it to the next level.

Submissions are open to both established writers and hobbyists. Alas, the only payment we can offer is a pdf copy (available for download to all) and recognition – or is it notoriety? – for contributing to this genre-defining series.

Send your vile concoctions of 10,000 words or fewer (no poetry please) to TQFunsplatterpunk@gmail.com.

Tips

• Try to gross out or appall the person who thinks he or she has seen everything.
• Convey a positive message, whether blatant or subtle.
• Make the story as attention-getting as a death metal concert in a spa.
• Give us something we haven’t seen.
• Avoid traditional revenge stories. Torturing a bad guy isn’t a positive message.

Some people say, “Nothing’s shocking.” Make them eat their words. Give us your worst.

Deadline: 31 July 2019

Word count: 500–10,000

Reprints: No

Multiple submissions: Yes

Simultaneous submissions: No – we’ll get back to those who submit for this project within a couple weeks.

File name: [story title]-[author surname].doc

Payment: Non-paying zine (free epub, mobi, and pdf copies available to everyone including contributors) plus participation in an emerging subgenre

Send submissions as a .doc or .rtf attachment, along with a 3rd person bio, to TQFunsplatterpunk@gmail.com. Please include UNSPLATTERPUNK! in the subject line.

After publication, you are free to reprint your story elsewhere, but please credit Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction for original publication.

See standard guidelines for additional information on rights and legal matters.

Authors: One Month Left to Submit to TQF Unsplatterpunk Anthology

It’s gore… for goodness’ sake! 

We’re looking for writers with the most demented imaginations to be part of the first anthology in the festering subgenre of unsplatterpunk. However, you only have one month: the submission window closes on August 31.

NB: TQF is a non-paying hobby zine, so if writing fiction is your job, this isn’t the project for you; this is for the dilettantes, the hobbyists, the Saturday afternoon softball players and Sunday morning footballers.

Check out the submission guidelines, then get your head into the gutter and start writing. Just remember the one thing that distinguishes an unsplatterpunk story from a splatterpunk story: a positive message.

Plot, character, setting… they’re all important, but they’re all peripheral to gore and violence. And the message. Don’t forget the message!

So write something that would make readers of pop fiction cringe… something that would make the sword and sorcery geeks gag and the sci-fi nerds squirm.

Not gore for gore’s sake, but gore for goodness’ sake. See guidelines here.

Call for submissions: Theaker's Quarterly Fiction Unsplatterpunk Special

Just a storyful of splatter makes the medicine go down.

If ever there were a subgenre that demonstrates the idiom, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” unsplatterpunk is it. Unsplatterpunk offers the same vile ingredients of splatterpunk, literature’s most extreme progeny, with one exception: somewhere within all that nastiness, unsplatterpunk offers a message that promotes virtue.

TQF is seeking fiction or satire submissions (no poetry please) for an unsplatterpunk special slated for publication in December of this year. Please note that TQF is a non-paying hobby zine, so if writing fiction is your job, this won’t be the project for you; this is for the dilettantes, the hobbyists, the Saturday afternoon softball players and Sunday morning footballers. As always, the zine will be available free in pdf, epub and mobi formats, as well as on Kindle and in print via Amazon at the cheapest possible price.

TQF regular Douglas J. Ogurek will edit the issue. Here’s Douglas:

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Ever heard Sir Philip Sidney’s dictum that literature should “teach and delight?” We’re going to apply that sage advice to horror’s most controversial subgenre: splatterpunk. Well, maybe “teach and disgust” is more appropriate in this case.

Unsplatterpunk has all the gore, depravity, and violence of splatterpunk, plus it embeds a positive message.

Advice

• Offend John and Jane Doe in the first couple of sentences
• Make story concept as attention-getting as a balloon popping at a party
• Approach your subject matter with a 14-year-old boy’s mentality, but align your technique with that of a literary virtuoso
• Incorporate a positive message
• Try to avoid revenge or comeuppance stories: they often fail to teach a virtue

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So give us your taboo and your controversial. Give us your cartoonish violence and over-the-top carnage. Just don’t forget the positive message.

Deadline: August 31, 2016

Word count: 500 – 10,000

Reprints: No

Multiple submissions: No

Simultaneous submissions: No

File name: Unsplatterpunk[story title][author surname]

Payment: Non-paying zine (free epub, mobi and pdf copies available to everyone including contributors) plus recognition for helping create a new subgenre

Send submissions as a .doc or .rtf attachment, along with a 3rd person bio, to TQFunsplatterpunk@gmail.com. Please include UNSPLATTERPUNK in the subject line.

After publication, you are free to reprint your story elsewhere, but please credit Theaker’s Quarterly Fiction for original publication.

Please refer to our standard guidelines for additional information on rights and legal matters.