Time for submissions for The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Fifth Course of Chaos! After a year or two hiatus, the popular short-story series will be back this year with a brand-new installment in both print and electronic formats. TKWC4 was featured on a news station as a must-read for the Thanksgiving holiday season, and we’re sure the new installment will be a success as well!
As in the previous anthologies, all the stories contained within must be about murder and mayhem happening at Thanksgiving, and must feature a typical Thanksgiving dish as a vital part of the story (i.e. turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie). Most importantly, it must be funny! This anthology is all about making people laugh while enjoying a great mystery short at the same time. The anthology will be edited by Untreed Reads Editor-in-Chief Jay Hartman.
And now, the rules:
- All stories must be 1,500-5,000 words and aimed at an adult reading audience (no YA, for example).
- Deadline for submission for consideration is May 31, 2017. This is a firm date; no submissions after this date will be considered.
- All submissions should be sent to Jay Hartman at jhartman@untreedreads.com with the word THANKSGIVING in the subject line.
- Submissions must be in .DOC, .RTF, or .ODT format.
- We will not be publishing the stories individually; only the anthology will be available. The anthology will be available as a POD and as an ebook. You must agree to both our regular ebook contract and our print addendum to be included.
- Authors will receive royalty, but not up-front payment. Authors will each receive a share of royalties of 50% of net (net = cover price – vendor commission) based on the number of authors in the final anthology.
- Characters appearing in other Untreed Reads series or other series not published by us are strongly encouraged. If you are published outside of Untreed Reads, please check with your publisher to ensure you have the rights to create a new story for a different publisher with your character(s). If you are represented by an agent, please provide that information with your submission, if we’ll need to work with him or her should your story be accepted.
- Your story MUST have humor in it, feature a Thanksgiving dish, and have a great mystery or crime at the heart of the story.
- Stories not accepted for the anthology may be resubmitted in the future for other submission calls.
- All stories must be original and cannot have been published or self-published elsewhere or previously submitted to Untreed Reads.
- There are no restrictions whatsoever on age, race, sex, sexual orientation, etc. in the work. Just tell us a great story! We do, however, discriminate against licorice. Look, we all have our thing.
- Lisa Wagner returns with all new recipes to accommodate your stories!
Please direct any questions to Jay Hartman at jhartman@untreedreads.com. We recommend looking at the original The Killer Wore Cranberry and its sequels for an idea of the types of stories we’re looking for.
All decisions on material will be made by June 30, 2017. Every attempt will be made to notify all authors of the status of their submission at that time. Please do not inquire about status prior to July 15, 2017.
This anthology has an expected publication date of September 5, 2017 (quite possibly earlier).
This is an open call, and may be reposted anywhere and everywhere. No turkeys may be harmed in the making of this anthology. Pumpkins, however, are fair game.