Dark Recesses Press is running their “Déjà Vu Horror Story Contest.” Their description of the contest is amusing enough to simply reprint: “We at Dark Recesses have not seen enough tales of serial killers, seductive vampires, schizophrenics with imaginary friends, confused ghosts in old buildings or creepy country sides, and central characters who sell their soul to Satan only to pay an obvious price. We are starving for more of these. We are sadomasochistic. We want cliché and we want it good! Torture us, please, and make us wish we never asked for it.”
The theme for their ninth quarterly issue, in which the winning story will appear, is “Lycanthrope: Now, we’ve all seen The Howling, An American Werewolf in London, Wolfen, Ginger Snaps or the more recent offerings of Underworld. The tale has been around in one form or another for as long as there have been people to tell hushed stories about it. Your task is to take it and make it yours.
“It can be gothic, humorous, terrifying, romantic, western, etc…As long as it fits nicely into the dark realm of things, follows our no sexual exploitation / abuse of children rule and includes our theme, you have carte blanche. You will be fighting against everyone else so make your work stand out. Prove to us that an old idea is worth revisiting when done right.”
The winning story which must be between 1,000 and 2,500 words long, will earn its author 5 cents per word and publication in Dark Recesses Press issue #9, scheduled to be released in January 2008 (their usual pay rate is 3 cents per word). Deadline is 31 October. For full details, see this page. This will also be their first print issue (after publishing the first eight in pdf format). General writers guidelines are available on this page.