2026 Illustration of the Year, "Cosmic Allure" by Santiago Rosas

What's in this month's issue:

• Working Class Writers Grant closes Sept. 30
• SLF awarded Oak Park Area Arts Council funding
• Deep Dish - Oct. 8 @ after-words
• Deep Dish @ WindyCon, Oct. 9-11
• SLF staff updates
• Giving to the SLF
• Join our co-writing community
• Opportunities for writers

This fall, the SLF is bidding farewell to two staff members and welcoming several new.

Outgoing Managing Director Connor Nevitt (he/him) joined the SLF in 2024 while earning his B.A. in English with a Creative Writing concentration from the University of Illinois at Chicago. During his time at the SLF, he served as Grants Coordinator and Podcast Producer in addition to his duties as Managing Director.

An avid creative writer with a love for all things fantastical, his short story "An Eye for an Eye" was published in Alien Baby Magazine. Connor is leaving the SLF to begin his graduate studies in the Prose and Poetry MFA program at Northwestern.

Subscribe to Connor’s Substack at https://connornevitt.substack.com/.

Outgoing Programming Director and Volunteer Coordinator Angeli Primlani (she/her) joined the SLF in 2023. Angeli is a Chicago-based novelist, playwright, director, producer and actor. She is an editor who works on college textbooks and scholarly publications. Her first novel, The Marlen of Prague: Christopher Marlowe and the City of Gold, was published by Guardbridge, UK in 2022 and is available in the usual online places. Her play “Where the Fox and the Hare Say Goodnight” was recently produced by the Chicago Dramatist's Alumni festival, and she’s currently on the SFWA Scriptwriting Nebula committee. A staged reading of her play "The Red Rain" was performed at the 2026 Nebula Conference.

Keep in touch with Angeli at https://primlani.com/. 

Keep an eye out for next month's newsletter, where we'll introduce you to our new staff members!

The Deadlands, a quarterly speculative fiction magazine that publishes death-focused stories, poetry, and nonfiction, will accept fiction submissions from Oct. 1-31. Learn more and submit at psychopomp.com/deadlands/guidelines.

OTHERSIDE publishes speculative fiction, poetry, and nonfiction by self-identified members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. The Winter issue will be open to submissions of original fiction and poetry Oct. 1-7 for trans, BIPOC, and/or disabled authors only, and Oct. 8-21 for general submissions. Nonfiction is currently open year-round. Learn more and submit at othersidespec.com/guidelines.

Neon Hemlock Press is open to submissions of speculative chapbook manuscripts from Aug. 20 - Oct. 15. Learn more at neonhemlock.submittable.com/submit/365983/speculative-chapbook-novelette.

Kaleidotrope will be open to speculative fiction and poetry submissions from Oct. 18-24. Rates are $0.01/word (1 cent a word) for fiction and a flat rate of $5 per accepted piece of poetry. Learn more at kaleidotrope.net/guidelines/.

Diabolical Plots will be accepting submissions for their next themed issue, Diabolical Rot, from Oct. 18-25. In addition to being centered around rot and rotting, submissions must have a speculative element. Learn more and submit at diabolicalplots.com/dp-general-submission-window-and-diabolical-rot-themed-window.

Bridge, Chicago's independent, intersectional not for profit organization for art and public scholarship, invites submissions for for the next volume of the Bridge Journal. Bridge welcomes submissions in poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, visual art, cultural criticism, design, and hybrid work from established as well as emerging writers and artists. Learn more and submit by Nov. 30 at bridge.submittable.com/submit.

The Must Read Books Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing (formerly the Dell Magazines Award) is open for submissions. The $500 award will go to the best unpublished and unsold science fiction or fantasy short story submitted by a full-time undergraduate college student, and the winning story will be published in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine. Learn more at mustreadbooksaward.com.

Tales to Terrify, a volunteer-run fan podcast featuring short horror, dark fantasy, and other disturbing fiction, is open to Flash Fiction submissions of less than 2,000 words. Learn more and submit at talestoterrify.com/submissions.

The Submission Grinder is a donation-based tool for writers to search for publications to submit their work, view anonymized response time statistics based on other writer's submissions, and track their own submissions. Learn more at thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com.

The Inevitable Foundation strives to accelerate the careers of disabled screenwriters and filmmakers and de-stigmatize disability and mental health in television and film. The Accelerate Fellowship is a four-month rewriting sprint that gives disabled film and television writers $30,000 in funding and bespoke mentorship to develop a spec script to market. The Emergency Relief Fund provides grants to disabled writers, filmmakers and writer-producers experiencing financial hardship. Learn more and apply at inevitable.foundation.

The Speculative Literature Foundation is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council; by the Oak Park Area Arts Council, in partnership with the Village of Oak Park and the Illinois Arts Council; and by the Oak Park River Forest Community Foundation.