Submissions Open For Our New Anthology - Countryside Horror

"In the country, there are unseen eyes and ears everywhere. They may not be many in number, but they are highly perceptive." — Donna Goddard

Have you ever had this uncanny feeling that someone or something is watching you, or perhaps following you? You don't turn back; you don't say, even under your silent breaths, "Come, let's go home," in the countryside. They follow you home, your village home, a place where the world moves slowly; the landscape is marvellous, but many hidden truths and mysteries are lurking beneath the surface. Are you willing to conjure them up, sniff some rural folklore from the air, change a popular old wives' horror tale into something yours? Why ... well, you are the creator here!

You can do all of the above and even more in your story; here are a few highlight points to keep in mind.

• Submit only one story within 2000-3500 words in any subgenre of horror.

• You have to use your imagination and create your unique new apparition or entity to haunt the pages of this new upcoming horror book and the readers.

• One thing to remember: we've already spread some modern ghosts around; now we're looking for rural spectres or phantoms to give us that ominous bone rattle.

• Take inspiration from some existing folklore and create a new way of presenting your rural ghost this time. Basically, don't do a retelling; rather, do a fresh telling with a new kind of ghost.

• The setting has to be rural, or the origin story has to be rural; then it can move further to a small town or a city, maybe. No metropolitan city ghosts this time, please!

• People coming from big cities experiencing the rural ghosts is a big 'Yes' from our end.

• You can and must create some scenes that will give a jump-scare sort of feeling.

• Submit your story by 30th November 2026, till midnight and send it with #ruralghoststory in the subject line to editorialmagazinecc@gmail.com

Selected writers will need to pay INR 1500 in the final stage, when the book is about to go to press. There is no submission fee or registration charges apart from that. The Author will be given five author copies and an E-Certificate for being part of this publication.

The anthology will be published under our -The Great Book Project Initiative, with an aim to bring out eclectic voices as Paperbacks or Hardcovers.

Happy Submissions!

Monalisa Joshi

Founder, Director & Chief Editor

P.S. In case of any doubts, feel free to write to me at the above given email ID.