DILIM Press incl. Anthology of Dark Fiction from the Philippine Diaspora Gold Star Program Gold Star

Thank you for your interest. While we cannot offer publication for every submission, we do appreciate the opportunity to read your work.

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General Requirements

All submissions must be original work that has not been previously published elsewhere, either in print or online such as on a blog, forum, or personal website.

* We no longer accept reprints.

* We no longer accept simultaneous submissions.

* We do not accept any work generated by Artificial Intelligence. Further, if your social media or any visible project portfolios display evidence of AI (we do check), our reader team will most likely not recommend your work for publication.

The subject matter we're requesting is inspired by the Philippines, Filipino diaspora, and Pinoy topics of heritage, lore, culture, history, and food, and we primarily publish authors from the Philippines or Filipino diaspora.

The Anthology of Dark Fiction trends toward mythology, horror, fantasy, folklore, science-fiction, and mixed or experimental work.

The Luz-Silva Literary Prize seeks literary fiction that explores interiority, relationships, collaborative values, and more about how global Filipinos live and work across the world—including the weird and wonderful overlaps with creatures and beings unseen.

FiliFutures seeks futuristic work for a digital-first journal.

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Eligibility

* Contributors must solely submit the work (no joint work at this time).

* Submitters typically consider themselves or their ancestors to be Filipino. In the past, submitters have hailed from either the Philippines or other places such as in North America, Saudi Arabia/UAE, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, and wherever Pinoys live.

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What Not to Submit

Please do not submit:

Work with no connection to the Philippines or Filipino diaspora. Work accepted to publication typically contains predominantly Filipino cultural, family, food, and historical themes or characters.
Work containing excessive violence or graphic content without literary merit.
Work that is created using generative AI.
Plagiarized material.
Work that has already been published (a blog, Substack, e-mail newsletter, social media, or your own website is considered published).
Work that is incomplete.
Work that requires very thorough editing. Send us your best work!

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Additional information:

We do not consider AI generated work.
- You will be required to attest that you are the creator of the work submitted to us. In addition, by submitting you attest that:
- You are at least 18 years of age;
- You are the sole copyright holder of the work (we cannot accept joint or collaborative works at this time);
- You are not prohibited by any prior agreement from the transfer of non-exclusive rights to the work;
- All information in the contact and cover sections of your submission is accurate and truthful;
You accept sole responsibility for any false statements or encumbrances upon rights not disclosed to us.
Upon acceptance we will send you a contract to review, which upon signing, binds you to all of the above.

IMPORTANT REMINDER: You attest you do not use Artificial Intelligence to create your story.

This question is required for your submission to continue forward.

We accept spelling and grammar checks.

We wish to only support humans and consider AI-generated work to be theft from humans.

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Confidentiality

We only require personal information to handle payments.
Your personal information is not shared with anyone besides our business staff, with these exceptions:

if we have a legal responsibility
if you have given us permission (email only)

Quota: This project has established a quota. Submissions will close when it is reached.

18%

Quick Links to Open Calls:

Existing DILIM Authors Free
Luz-Silva Literary Prize (closing in 11 days) Fee: usd $20.00
Open Submissions for Sirena's Song (closing in 25 days) Fee: usd $3.00
Open Submissions for Under the Volcano (closing in 176 days) Fee: usd $3.00

Luz-Silva Literary Prize Fee: usd $20.00 Open

Closes on Wednesday, September 16, 2026 1:59 AM EDT (in 11 days).

The Luz-Silva Literary Fiction Prize opens September 1 through September 15.

The contest is open to anyone with a tie to the Philippines who is writing in English.

Eligibility: we are seeking prose fiction manuscripts: your novella, novel, short story collection, experimental work or other prose is welcome.

The 2026-2027 theme is "Food."

If your book references delicious dishes, a banquet fit for royalty, a wet kitchen situation, dining figuring prominently in at least one scene, a feast of the datus or protein bites for our aswang in orbit, or a kamayan or celebratory meal, please consider sending. We also consider other manuscripts.

We're seeking literary fiction: focusing on characters, themes, style, and language.

We are not seeking commercial or genre fiction for this prize.

The maximum word count is 90,000 words and the primary language is English.

At this time, please send us your query and the first three chapters (or any 35 pages) of the manuscript.

Further Rules:

Individual pieces from the manuscript may have been published previously in magazines, chapbooks of fewer than 48 pages, personal blog posts, Substacks, or anthologies; however, the work in its entirety must be unpublished.
Agented manuscripts are not eligible.
Employees, board members, or close family members of the Luz and Silva families are not eligible.
Translations are not eligible.
Former winners are not eligible.
To avoid conflicts of interest, close friends of a judge or current students in a degree-granting program with a named judge are not eligible.
Writers may submit multiple submissions, each with its own submission fee.
We do not allow simultaneous submissions. Allow us the opportunity to review your work for suitability within the submissions period.
We work collaboratively with our accepted authors to build a beautifully-produced print version
We invest in our authors’ success.

We look forward to your submission.

Submit

Open Submissions for Sirena's Song Fee: usd $3.00 Open

Closes on Wednesday, September 30, 2026 11:59 PM EDT (in 25 days).

Sirena's Song is our second anthology. We invite your participation: we welcome submissions by as-yet-unpublished writers as well as seasoned authors and poets.

Our goal at this time is to provide a home for work in this anthology that focuses on themes important to women and non-binary authors.

We'd particularly like to read your work if you feel your perspectives have not been well-represented in publishing.

Mermaids have traditionally been understood as sea-based creatures who navigate between the ocean and the land.

Many authors in the diaspora also navigate boundaries, submerge to the depths, and rise up with new ideas. If these concepts spark your imagination, please help us build this collection.

The stories of the Sirena are about humanity's needs, desires, imaginations, and intentions and are of and pertaining to the ocean, the sea, the islets and bays, the shores, and the rivers and waterfalls--here and in other worlds or other planets--where our kinfolk water-creatures might exist.

DILIM is not darkness: it exists between light and shadow to illuminate hidden realms of the archipelago.

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About your submission to Sirena's Song

We're seeking your tales of thalassophobia, oceanic terror, underwater kingdoms, origins of the Yonaguni monument, creatures from Lemuria, musical echoes in the depths, or the dance of the stars in the heavens.

Share with us your fable about Amanikable, Amansinaya and Haik, WASP-34, or your imaginative stories of what fisher-folk or Navy sailors have seen in the night. Did the nuclear submarine ping a strange creature? Did unidentified submerged objects make an appearance? Share with us in your weird, wild fiction!

Send us your best work. We look forward to reading your submission.

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Submit

Open Submissions for Under the Volcano Fee: usd $3.00 Open

Closes on Sunday, February 28, 2027 11:59 PM EST (in 176 days).

Under the Volcano is our third anthology. We invite your participation: we welcome submissions by as-yet-unpublished writers as well as seasoned authors and poets.

DILIM is not darkness: it exists between light and shadow to illuminate hidden realms of the archipelago.

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Volume III: Under the Volcano explores what it means to be human amidst natural geologic phenomena: in the midst of lava, smoke, earthquakes, or landing or creating new continents or new worlds.

We have a particular interest in this work to highlight science fiction ideas.

We look for pieces from the perspective of the natural world, of those living under the mountain, of phantasms made of ash, of the aftermath of Pinatubo, of what might happen when we use volcanic energy to transform it into something new.

We seek visions of the future: manananggals sent to defend our space shuttles, moons populated by transplanted dwende and kapre, and where we as humans belong when our natural order continues to turn over, and turn over again.

We are seeking short stories and poems that explore your ideas and thoughts about geological processes, fire, and the creatures--and people--impacted by the lava flows.

Does Kan-Laon speak through you? Does Mayon share her story through you?

Please consider submitting.

Send us your best work!

We strive for rolling submissions and will give you an answer within 12 weeks.

Not Eligible:

Prior DILIM Press contributing authors are not eligible to submit.

We especially seek new and emerging writers. If you have not been published, we look forward to reading your work. Submitters may be based anywhere in the world.

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Submit

Existing DILIM Authors Free Tip Jar Option Open

If you are already published by DILIM Press, this is an open submission portal for work requested by the editorial team.

Submit

FiliFutures Temp Closed

This is a call for submissions to Filipino Futures.

This is a simple way for DILIM Press to collaborate and connect with interested authors on creating a future-forward work, that explores the culture, history, religion, family structure, and technology of the Philippines and diaspora community, in a futuristic setting.

At this time pay is 5 cents per word for accepted submissions, to be collected into a Digital-Only anthology.

Current submission date ends on August 31, 2026.
Submitters informed by September 30, 2026.

DATES TBD and depend on submissions.
Layout complete by February 28, 2027.
Releases: April 1, 2027.

(inspired by the Call for Submissions from Radix.coop: https://radix.coop/publishing/submissions/)

Call to Action from Monica T. S. Flores:

Are you game for investigating a futuristic approach, new imaginings of Filipinos in the moon base, on Alpha Centauri, at the bottom of the ocean?

I’m taking inspiration from future-facing narratives. Where do traditional values guide us a thousand years from now? Will our Aswang suit up in detachable spacesuits ? Will our Buwaya go in jellied tanks in Bicol-launched generation ships to Titan? Do we become colonizers for another planet and if so, do we repeat our history?

Let me know if you’re game to explore this in a shared environment. I’m particularly interested in how our current trajectories could inform how our descendants choose to live their lives.

If we woke up from cryosleep a thousand (or a hundred) years from now, would we still wear barongs? Would we still have kamayan?

More importantly, how would kapwa and hiya and utang na loob operate? Is there an end point? Would the ancestors still be able to find us, and we them? Would Catholicism still play the same role?

Help us and others consider these very important ideas!

Formerly accepted contributors are welcome to apply.

All dates tentative and DILIM Press reserves the right to extend or shorten the call or dates based on response.

STYLE GUIDE:
Please keep Tagalog words non-italicized, we don't need to italicize Tagalog at all in this work.

Please make the Google Doc "shareable" if you are able, to anyone. That allows us to review the work.

Please let us know if this is a short piece or is an excerpt from a longer work; in general, we're seeking self-contained pieces that are able to stand alone.

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