The Weeknight Writers e-zine aims to showcase the skills and talent of our paid community members while also providing a safe, nurturing space for folks to experience the publishing process for the first time. We will publish two issues per year — one in winter and one in summer — and the best stories from each issue will be compiled into a Best Of anthology the following year.
Upcoming issues
Our 2027 Weeknight Writers e-zine issues will be Growth and Entropy. How you interpret the themes is entirely up to you, though all stories and poems must contain a speculative (science fiction, fantasy, or horror) element. You can see the full guidelines here; note that you must be a paid member of the Weeknight Writers community to be eligible for inclusion in the e-zine.
Growth
What better theme to start growing our members’ visibility with than growth? The Growth issue will open for submissions in August 2026, with a planned release in February 2027.
Entropy
The Entropy issue will open for submissions in March 2027, with a planned release in July 2027.
How we’ll support you through writing and submitting
We will provide three layers of support for participating writers in the weeks before and during our submission periods:
- Brainstorming sessions: Two brainstorming sessions will be held the month before submissions open. This will be an opportunity for Weeknight Writers to discuss the possibilities of the anthology’s theme and get a feel for the ideas that excite people. You’ll also have full access to the brainstorming area of our Discord server, where you can discuss your story ideas and work your way through story problems at any time.
- Beta reading: Fellow Weeknight Writers will beta read your story! Some folks have offered a set number of beta reading spots in advance. These will be community members, not the community leaders, as we want to judge stories with fresh eyes upon submission.
- Editor feedback: During submission, you will have the opportunity to tell us if you want feedback on your story. We will provide feedback to all writers who say they want it, regardless of whether or not we accept their stories.
Writers will also be able to discuss their stories and ask questions about the process in the dedicated e-zine channels on our Discord server.
Want to be part of this collaborative publishing process? Join Weeknight Writers today!
What you’ll get if your story’s accepted
The Weeknight Writers e-zine will be a 100% free publication aimed at reaching as many readers as possible. As such, authors will not receive financial compensation for stories published within the e-zine. Compensation will instead be provided in the form of free placement in the e-zine’s Classifieds section, giving authors an opportunity to promote their books or book-related services. These Classifieds will be separate from the authors’ bios, which will also be included.
Stories selected for the e-zine will automatically be eligible for the Best Of anthology for the relevant year. These anthologies will be paid products, and authors selected for these anthologies will receive pro payment as defined by the SFWA ($0.08 per word).
Other ways Weeknight Writers will support you
Your Weeknight Writers membership grants you access to a myriad of support beyond the collaborative e-zine publishing process:
- Nightly accountability check-ins to help you stay motivated to write every night
- Writing sprints on Tuesday and Friday evenings to help you get some words in after a long day of work
- Discussion areas for every aspect of writing, editing, publishing, and marketing—plus some fun areas just for socializing (or venting, because we all need to vent sometimes)
- Weekly virtual write-ins on Saturdays where you can connect with other writers and participate in writing sprints to get more words out
- Monthly socials (biweekly during First Draft Fall) where you can deepen your connections with other writers
- Monthly worksheets (with weekly First Draft Fall worksheets in October) to help you improve your skills at story planning, writing, editing, and marketing
- Eligibility for publication in the Weeknight Writers e-zine
- Priority placement in general promotions like our Queer Author Spotlights on Bluesky
- Opportunities to participate in members-only promotions and sales
- Placement on our (currently under construction) Community Authors page
- Free access to all Writing Roundtables, our two-hour, in-depth panels exploring various aspects of the writing process
- Discounted access to all future Weeknight Writers courses, including our upcoming Manuscript Evaluation Workshp
- Access to the Storyfyre Pro 60-day free trial + 50% subscription discount to simplify planning, writing, and editing your projects
Weeknight Writers E-zine FAQs
We created this e-zine specifically to showcase the incredible skills of our paid members. Limiting our author pool to paid members also helps us create a truly collaborative, close-knit publishing experience that’s welcoming to folks who’ve never published before.
Anyone who signs up before August 31st, 2026 will be able to submit to the Growth issue. However, you’ll need to sign up by July 11th to participate in live brainstorming sessions and August 1st to claim one of the beta reading slots offered by our members.
You can purchase a membership through our Ko-fi checkout page. Payments can be made through PayPal or Stripe (which processes payments from most major credit cards).
You’ll receive an email with a link to our members-only Discord server and instructions for joining our community. You must complete the instructions as followed to gain access.
If your story has already been accepted, it will still be published in the e-zine. However, it will not be eligible for the Best Of anthology the following year unless you reactivate your membership.
Exact acceptance rates are difficult to guess until we’ve run our first few issues, but we expect to accept the majority of stories submitted.