Gary Hill publishes Music Street Journal, curates Spooky Ventures and runs Tales of Wonder and Dread Publishing. In addition he has authored several books. You can find out about all of these projects, and find links for more information and to purchase books and merchandise here.

Founded in 2018, Poplar Grove, Illnois' Tales of Wonder and Dread Publishing is an imprint devoted to publishing science fiction, horror and generally macabre based books.

Open Calls

General Information: We believe that the story should dictate the length, so generally we do not have arbitrary word counts. Use as many words as needed to tell the story, but don't fill it with a lot of unnecessary text.

We only ask for non-exclusive rights to publish in the one specific work. We accept reprints as long as you own the rights to the work.

While we are open to different file types and formats, .doc and .rtf is preferred as it Times New Roman font.  Pleaes email submissions to TalesofWonderAndDread(at)SpookyVentures(dot)com

Please Note: We are a small imprint. Our focus is less on publishing books that will sell and more on publishing books we want on our bookshelves. That means we can't offer contributor copies or cash payment for submissions because some of our titles never sell more than one or two copies, meaning if we paid upfront we'd be losing money and out of business. We do have two options for submission compensation, though.

Option 1: Contributors can purchase the books diretly from us at our cost (plus the shipping we have to pay) and sell them at a marked up price and keep the profit for themselves.

Option 2: Contributors can receive a portion (actual percentage is dependent on the number of contributors choosing this option) of the royalties from the book (paid via Lulu directly to the contributor via Lulu's policies). Those who choose this option can still purchase the books directly from us at a discounted rate (20 percent above cost - plus the shipping we have to pay).

Tales of Wonder and Dread Magazine Issue 1
Release Date: October 2025
Submission deadline - July 8th, 2025
Science fiction and horror based stories, essays, artwork, poetry and more - including serialized stories

Horrifying Holidays Three
Release Date: November, 2025
Submission deadline - August 8th, 2025
Winter holiday horror stories (fiction and non-fiction) and poetry

Spooky Stateline Three
Release Date: September 4th, 2025
Submission deadline - April 20, 2025
Fiction, non-fiction and more centered around spooky stories in the greater Rockford, Illinois area

Spooky Berwyn Four
Release Date: September 4th, 2025
Submission deadline - April 20, 2025
Fiction, non-fiction and more centered around spooky stories in the greater Chicago, Illinois area

Untitled Music Science Fiction Book
Release Date: September, 2025
Submission deadline - April 20, 2025
Science Fiction stories and poetry with a music angle to them

Hearts of Horror
Release Date: January, 2026
Submission deadline - December 20, 2025
Fiction and/or non-fiction stories or poems with a heart angle to them.

Altered Realities: Stories of Alternate Universes
Release Date: June, 21, 2026
Submission deadline - January 25, 2026
Fiction and/or or poems about alternate universes.

Spirit of the Heroic Age
Release Date: July, 2026
Submission deadline - February 8th, 2026
Science fiction stories that have a heroic angle

Untitled book focused on expansions of classic public domain tales
Release Date: September, 4, 2027
Submission deadline - June 25, 2027
Prequels, sequels and alternate versions of classic public domain stories