Staffs & Starships Magazine is focused on literary quality speculative fiction. We hope to gather together pieces that raise a question - pieces that hark back to an era when speculative fiction really meant speculating or postulating on some aspect of the world around them in a way that made the reader question themselves.

Here’s what we want:

• Fiction of literary quality that leans towards the traditional

• Fiction with strong characters and sound plots
• Fiction that raises a question – whether explicit or implicit

We don't discourage the odd story or the uniquely intriguing. We want stories that make us read; we want stories that keep our interest.

Please let us know if you are submitting this elsewhere at the same time. No reprints; no poetry; no non-fiction.

Length:
We're looking for shorter fiction. 3,000 words is a good number, but we'll accept anything up to 4,000 words if it catches our eye. If you really think you have a great story that's over that, send a query to the editor, and we'll have a look at it (nothing over 6,000 words, though, please).

Format:

1. When submitting electronically, please including the following:
   • "Submission: 'title of story'" in the Subject line.
   • The word count and genre of the story in the email.
2. Please put the following at the top of the first page of yours story:
   • Your name (or names, if you have a pen name you'd like the story to be published under)
   • Address - please include both your street address and email address. The street address is for the purposes of sending out a contract should your story be accepted
   • The genre of your story
   • A word count - an exact one, please
3. Please send all electronic submissions as one of the following document types: .doc, .rtf, or .odt
4. If you are sending a hard copy, please send it as such:
   • Copy should be single-sided
   • Copy should be double-spaced
   • Copy should be in one of the following font types:
     1. 11 or 12 point Times New Roman
     2. 10 or 11 point Palatino Linotype
     3. 11 or 12 point Arial
     4. 10 point Courier
   • Include your information (name, address, etc.) only on the first page
   • Have standard one inch (1") margins on the side and one inch (1") margins on top and bottom.

Electronic submissions are the preferred method of submission. The reason being that I can easily format a story in electronic form to the needs of my layout & design settings. With that in mind, formatting is of little consequence.

Do not include a cover letter or query. Your story should impress me, not the number of times you've been published.

Payment:
Staffs & Starships is new. Please keep that in mind when submitting to us. We will pay 1 cent per word as a rate. You'll get a minimum of $10 for a story and a maximum of $30.

Authors will also be given a print copy of the magazine and a free download of the .pdf from our website.

Contact Information:

Emails:
Science Fiction - editor@jbdrydenco.com
Fantasy - feditor@jbdrydenco.com

Conventional Mail (both science fiction & fantasy):
Sheer Speculation
c/o James Boone Dryden
820 E Henry Clay
Suite 2
Whitefish Bay, WI 53217