Submission guidelines

Submissions for Luna Station Quarterly close on May 15th.

Criteria

Luna Station Quarterly publishes speculative fiction written by women-identified authors. We think women write awesome characters and really cool stories and we want to show it to the world. We will consider stories submitted by any woman writer, regardless of experience or writing resume. If you consider yourself on the woman end of the gender spectrum in any significant capacity, you’re welcome here!

Stuff we never get enough of:

  • Stories about people who are of color, disabled, queer, or marginalized in some way
  • Sci-Fi, particularly afro-future views, solarpunk views, stories about disability and mental health of the future
  • Adult-themed stories (caveat: no erotica or heavy violence)

Stuff we want:

  • Fantasy
  • Science Fiction
  • Space Opera
  • New Fairy Tales (not retellings)
  • Some creepiness
  • Stories that explore the nooks and crannies of an original world
  • Big events from the everyman perspective
  • Unique settings and storytelling forms
  • Well written stories with strong characters

Stuff we don’t want:

  • Anything biased toward any religion, race or moral preference
  • Extreme gore or sexual content, in particular no explicit rape or sexual assault. (everything in moderation)
  • Bizarro fiction
  • Poetry
  • Fan Fiction (original stories only, please)
  • Bad grammar/punctuation (please proofread and watch your sentence structure!)
  • Plagiarism
  • Anything generated by an AI or chatbot

A further note about sex and violence in submissions.
Science fiction has a long-standing tradition of pushing boundaries and asking difficult questions. It is meant to challenge us and ask us to look at ourselves and how we treat each other and the world around us. That said, LSQ is centered on uplift and so any story that contains explicit sexual situations or violence especially toward women will be considered more carefully than other stories and the content must be justified within the story’s arch.

Our stance on AI-generated/aided stories
Fuck generative AI.

Format and Details

Stories should be 500 to 7000 words in length. We may publish longer or shorter works, but the greater your story is above or below limit, the less likely we are to publish it. No poetry please.

Submit only one story per submission period. We do not accept multiple submissions.

— NOTE: We are no longer accepting simultaneous submissions. —

Reprints

We prefer original works, but will consider reprints that were published at least 3 years prior to the LSQ issue publish date. Authors should be sure they have the right to sell reprints. If your work is a reprint, include any necessary reprint information at the bottom of the work, such as “First appeared in XYZ Magazine, May 2011.”

— NOTE: Reprints must be at least 3 years past their initial publication date to be considered. —

Deadlines:

Luna Station Quarterly is published once a quarter, and has the following schedule:

Publication Date

Submission Dates

March 1st September 15th – November 15th
June 1st December 15th – February 15th
September 1st March 15th – May 15th
December 1st June 15th – August 15th

Response Time

Our response time varies. We have 3 rounds of reading to determine acceptance and you may receive notification from us during any time between the end of the submission period up to 1 month before publication. Feel free to contact us (via the contact form) if we do not acknowledge your submission has been received within two months of the publication date.

If you want to ask about something you have submitted, it is extremely important to use the contact form) and include the date, title, author name, and when you sent the submission.

If your story is accepted, you will receive an email that includes the publication date and a short, simple contract. This must be returned before publication or your story will not be published.

Rights

Copyright remains yours at all times. We simply ask for the right to publish your story in the ebook (epub, mobi, pdf) and print versions. If you want us to remove a story from our archive, please write us via the contact form to let us know.

Anthology rights: to be determined later. If ever such a thing comes to pass, authors will be contacted to work out terms.

Payment

Luna Station Quarterly pays $10 USD for each story, payment made via PayPal. In addition, authors receive a lifetime subscription to the ebook version of the magazine. We also provide a profile page for all authors which may be used to link to a homepage and display biographical info and social media links.

Final Notes

We reserve the right to change the submission process between issues. If you have any further questions regarding this process, please use the contact form to get in touch.

Thank you for reading our guidelines!

Submit Your Story