Submissions are open on a rolling basis for hermit crab stories - narratives that find their home in borrowed structures like menus, recipes, quizzes, instruction manuals, school reports, or any other existing format. Like the hermit crab inhabiting a found shell, these stories use unconventional frameworks as vessels for their narratives.

There is no theme but please read the stories we publish to get a feel for what we like.

Our usual submission guidelines apply (see below).

Published stories will be considered for our nomination for prizes (Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfictions, etc.).

• Words: Up to 1,000 (excluding the title)
• Submission fee: £6
• Author payment: £25

If you’re a member of our WestWord Community you get one free submission a year included with your membership and the submission link has been added to the Member Goodies page. 

Submission Guidelines

• All submissions must be sent through Submittable and we cannot accept email submissions. Anything sent via email will not be read.
• Please use a legible, easy-to-read font of at least 12pt or ideally 14pt.
• All submissions must be previously unpublished (never published in print or online, including a personal blog) and in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format ONLY.
• Simultaneous submissions are fine but please withdraw your submission via Submittable if it is accepted elsewhere.
• Our submissions are open to all adult writers worldwide. All work must be written in English.

Please do not send us stories of overt racism, sexism, homophobia, religious hatred or any other kind of bigotry and hate. Any sex must be relevant to the story. Do not send us graphic stories of rape, incest, child abuse, bestiality, or gratuitous violence. We won’t publish it and we do not want to read it.

Authors will retain all rights and copyright to their works. WestWord requests one-time, non-exclusive rights to publish your work.