Submit to Madness Heart Press, Madness Heart Games
or Aggadah Try It
We are overjoyed to see that you are interested in joining the Madness Heart Press Family.
If you would like to publish a manuscript with Madness Heart Press, you will need to either be invited or submit your pitch during our submission period, generally February-June. This restriction does not apply to our anthologies, Madness Heart Games OR the Aggadah Try It submissions.
Please click on the links below to see the specific guidelines for submissions in each category. In most cases, submissions will close when we have received a specific number of qualifying entries.
- Aggadah Try It Book Submissions – OPEN
- Novel & Novella Pitch Submissions – CLOSED
- Madness Heart Games Submissions – OPEN
- Trigger Warning – FEB-2023 – CLOSED
What Kinds of Books Do We Want?
Splatterpunk
“If it’s transgressive, addressing social or political ills, not pulling punches, and pushing the boundaries, then it’s Splatterpunk.” this quote, from Brian Keene exemplifies what we really want. Horror without boundaries, but with a voice. Splatterpunk is all about ultra-violence and sick and twisted terror, body horror, revenge, torture, sadism, and insanity. But all with a purpose. A counter-culture explosion of literature.
Bizzaro
I cut my teeth on Kafka and Durang. Surreal, absurd, and oftentimes uncomfortable, Bizarro-Horror is the modern-day home of Splatterpunk according to John Skipp. That said, we look for bizarro that is not only weird but had a message. Surreal with heart, meaningless with meaning.
Religious/Folk Horror
We adore horror that explores the folklore and mysticism of world traditions. Stories written that are counter to the cultural norm of America, written by authors who come from or currently live within that culture are of particular interest to us. On an important note, this does not include Christian or Catholic horror, we feel those genres are over-saturated.
Experimental Literature
This is sort of a catch-all for anything out of the ordinary. Poetry, plays, cookbooks, puzzle books, decks of cards, tabletop RPG’s, things that break the mold of the traditional methods of telling horror stories. It’s hard to quantify what we are looking for here, except to say the more unusual the method the more interested we are.
Jewish Speculative Fiction
This is for the Aggadah Try It Imprint, and we feel the need to be very specific here. We are looking for horror, science fiction, fantasy, and surrealistic fiction. Though we have a broad net for Jewish fiction, we are looking for stories with supernatural/unnatural/science fiction elements. We are not looking for realistic fiction, historic fiction, or Jewish studies. We feel books of those styles have plentiful publishing options to pursue.
TTRPG & Gaming
The Madness Heart Games’ doors are now open to working with creators of TTRPG materials. We are looking for horror-related gaming supplements and original works. All works submitted must either be an original creation OR made under OGL or another 3rd party license. These include games such as Mork Borg, Necronautilus, Trophy, Blades in the Dark, or any system that allows the use of their rules via the Creative Commons Attribution license.
The above systems are mentioned by name because they are of PARTICULAR interest to us. However, we are interested in working with any creators who focus on horror/grimdark themes.
A Note on Extreme Horror
Extreme horror is a hugely popular genre, and we love our extreme horror authors and audience. That said, we are extremely picky with what extreme horror we will publish. We do not accept extreme horror pitches except by specific invitation.