The Turning Leaf Tavern is a way-station for people travelling throughout the fantasy realms. Here, you can find Hobbits and Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Half-feet, and representatives of a hundred different races and fictional worlds. They find themselves at the tavern's door when need calls, and within its walls they find succor and good cheer. The tavern itself is in its own universe, designed by M. Allyson Szabo, and has its own stories to tell.
Tales from the Turning Leaf Tavern will not be just about the tavern, though. The stories within its pages will come from you, the writers of the world. The anthology will be comprised of somewhere between 15 and 25 stories, each with a recipe or four at the end, so that readers may share in the glory of the story's victuals. That said, Allyson has decided to provide some preliminary tales about the tavern and its denizens for writers to riff off of. You, the authors, have permission to use the Turning Leaf Tavern and its people in your writing, though M. Allyson Szabo retains the copyright to the tavern itself and the characters she created to go with it. Your stories, even the ones with Turning Leaf and the folk within, belong to you, the original authors.
This anthology will be comprised of fantasy stories that are original and unique, paired with recipes that go along with the tales that are told. If you have a story that is set in a fantasy world, is between 2500 and 6000 words, and that involves a tavern and its food in some way, then we would love to read it! Submissions will be opened on January 1st, 2025, and will close on March 31, 2025. The exact number of stories has not been set, and will depend upon the submissions made to the anthology. Please note that submission does not equal acceptance. We will contact everyone who has submitted a story and recipe by April 30, 2025 to inform them of the status of their submission.
The Terms and Conditions (aka "The Rules")
Format for Submitting
The Contract
If your story is chosen to be in the anthology, the Publisher will issue a contract. The terms of the contract will be finalized in early 2025, but will include the following (or similar; we are still working on the legal language). The author of each accepted submission will be given the chance to go over the contract before editing and further work on the anthology begins.
Tales from the Turning Leaf Tavern will not be just about the tavern, though. The stories within its pages will come from you, the writers of the world. The anthology will be comprised of somewhere between 15 and 25 stories, each with a recipe or four at the end, so that readers may share in the glory of the story's victuals. That said, Allyson has decided to provide some preliminary tales about the tavern and its denizens for writers to riff off of. You, the authors, have permission to use the Turning Leaf Tavern and its people in your writing, though M. Allyson Szabo retains the copyright to the tavern itself and the characters she created to go with it. Your stories, even the ones with Turning Leaf and the folk within, belong to you, the original authors.
This anthology will be comprised of fantasy stories that are original and unique, paired with recipes that go along with the tales that are told. If you have a story that is set in a fantasy world, is between 2500 and 6000 words, and that involves a tavern and its food in some way, then we would love to read it! Submissions will be opened on January 1st, 2025, and will close on March 31, 2025. The exact number of stories has not been set, and will depend upon the submissions made to the anthology. Please note that submission does not equal acceptance. We will contact everyone who has submitted a story and recipe by April 30, 2025 to inform them of the status of their submission.
The Terms and Conditions (aka "The Rules")
- First and foremost, submission of an entry is taken as acceptance of all the terms and conditions.. Those chosen will be given the contract to read in plenty of time to read it thoroughly. Any author can withdraw their work from the Anthology, for any reason, up until the contract is signed.
- This anthology is open to authors residing anywhere in the world.
- All submissions must be written in grammatically correct English.
- Stories submitted to the anthology cannot be previously published. This also means that you cannot submit your work to this anthology and to somewhere else at the same time.
- Submissions will open on January 1, 2025, and will close on March 31, 2025.
- Stories should be between 2,500 and 6,000 words in length. This includes the recipe. There will be no "wiggle room" for longer stories, sorry. Shorter stories may be negotiated.
- I use Reedsy to determine the word count and do the initial organization.
- All work submitted to this anthology must have a tavern or inn of a fantasy style (think The Prancing Pony in The Hobbit) included in the story, which at least one scene must take place. Authors are permitted to use the Turning Leaf Tavern if they wish, but must adhere to the information provided by its owner, M. Allyson Szabo (to be added before submissions open).
- The author submitting must own all the rights to the work being submitted, and agree to the submission rules.
- Each submission must be accompanied by at least one and no more than five recipes, without exceeding the 6,000 word length restriction.
- The Publisher intends to run a Kickstarter, with the intention of raising money to pay authors with accepted submissions a total of $25.00 USD. Authors who are accepted will also be permitted and encouraged to purchase author copies at the standard KDP author cost (to be disclosed after signing the contract) to sell at their own convenience.
- Each accepted author will receive one copy of the book, gratis, as thanks for their participation.
Format for Submitting
- Please use a clear, easy to read font. Times New Roman or Arial are fine. No fancy fonts or colors, and no images unless previously arranged with the Publisher.
- Please submit your work in *.doc, *.docx, *.rtf, GoogleDocs, or plain text format.
- When submitting, please do NOT include your name or contact details in the actual story/recipe document, or in the file name. Submissions will be judged blind, and matched to correct emails after the fact.
- There is no entry fee for this anthology. It is not a contest, though submissions will be judged by several editors for theme, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and the like.
- Submissions can be sent to M. Allyson Szabo via the online submission form.
- Please include your name, address (including country), telephone number, your PayPal or Venmo address (if different from the one you've used to send the submission from), and a brief biography (up to 200 words at most) in the email. Please also attach a picture of yourself, which may be used with your biography in advertising and on M. Allyson Szabo's website in conjunction with the Anthology.
The Contract
If your story is chosen to be in the anthology, the Publisher will issue a contract. The terms of the contract will be finalized in early 2025, but will include the following (or similar; we are still working on the legal language). The author of each accepted submission will be given the chance to go over the contract before editing and further work on the anthology begins.
- The Author is the sole copyright owner of the Work, and retains all rights to the Work except for those expressly granted to the Publisher in this Agreement.
- To the extent a separate copyright attaches to the Anthology as a collective work, the Publisher is the copyright owner of any such copyright on the Anthology as a collective work.
- The author hereby grants the Publisher first English-language anthology publication rights.
- The author grants the Publisher the right to be sole publisher of the accepted story for one year after the publication date, at which time the Publisher returns all rights to the author, except the right to publish the Anthology as a collective work.
