STONE’S THROW is the monthly online companion to Rock and a Hard Place Magazine, delivering shorter, sharper content on a regular basis in an electronic medium, before collecting all 12 stories for an annual print anthology. Each month, writers will be given a submission prompt, and the best of the best, by our estimation, will be posted here the following month.
Interested in Submitting?
STONE’S THROW will open for submissions the first three days of every month, from 12AM on the first through 12AM on the fourth (with some wiggle room here and there to account for the editors being human). We’re looking for all the same dark fiction, crime, and noir as our usual submissions, but with a target length between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and aligned with the monthly submissions prompt (see below). We’ll read through each story, choose the one story that shines brightest, and publish it online the following month, paying $25 per accepted story.
After a year, we’ll collect all twelve stories into a STONE’S THROW Annual Anthology, to be published alongside our other print issues.
PLEASE NOTE — If you have been accepted within the calendar year for STONE’S THROW, you are ineligible to submit again during that same calendar year. However, we look forward to reading your submissions during our regular RHP Magazine open calls!
Upcoming Submissions Prompts
AUGUST 2026 SUBMISSIONS (opens July 1 – 4, 2026)
THESE SOCCER MOMS WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME — CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT!
This month, we’re looking for stories by and about women. Specifically, we’re looking for the challenges modern women face, anywhere from the workplace to the invisible labor of maintaining a home, to the stresses of being a mom. We want to see what happens when the women in our lives who so effortlessly look like they’re keeping it all together finally begin to crack, and of course, the fallout that ensues. Yeah, home is where the heart is, but only because there’s a woman there, doing all the work. And not only does she know where the heat is, she has access to plenty of knives.
CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT!SEPTEMBER 2026 SUBMISSIONS (opens August 1 – 4, 2026)
I HATE TO SPOIL THE END OF CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’S CINEMATIC MASTERPIECE, THE PRESTIGE, BUT . . .
This month, we’re wading in to the gene pool and pulling out duplicates. Twins. Whether fraternal, identical, or straight up haunted doppelgängers, twins and doubles have been an indelible part of noir going back to the beginning, and now, we want your take. Give us something sly, something mysterious, something we’re not actually sure we’re seeing. And remember, at STONE’S THROW, even if it looks exactly the same, it’s never actually what it appears to be.OCTOBER 2026 SUBMISSIONS (opens September 1 – 4, 2026)
ZAK BAGANS BETTER SHUT HIS FUCKING MOUTH
Everyone has wasted a random Tuesday afternoon watching ghost-hunting shows. Morons in fake glasses and too real cameras trying to record something that can’t be seen. But what if they actually recorded something real? What if they accidentally caught something worth killing over? This month, we want to know what happens when ghost hunters stumble over the scene of the crime. We want to see what happens when fresh blood is spilled in old haunted houses. We want to be scared not by what goes bump in the night, but instead what goes bang.NOVEMBER 2026 SUBMISSIONS (opens October 1 – 4, 2026)
DOES THIS MASK ACTUALLY CAPTURE MY REVOLUTIONARY SPIRT AS INTENDED?
A couple hundred years ago, a Catholic extremist tried to blow up the House of Lords with stacks of hidden dynamite. Since then, Guy Fawkes has become an icon and a symbol, appearing in legendary graphic novels, pretty okay movies, and on the faces of Internet hackers mocking the rich and powerful. This month, we want stories of the Fawkesian impulse, and so we’re looking for stories of revolutionaries, rebels, agitators, and terrorists. Show us what happens when their good plans go bad, or their bad plans go worse. Give them a noble cause or a despicable one. Show us what happens when the revolution comes and the flag is planted. And then show us whose chest that flag is planted in.DECEMBER 2026 SUBMISSIONS (opens November 1 – 4, 2026)
BING CROSBY WAS A LYING BASTARD AND WE’RE GLAD HE’S DEAD
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” right? Well not here at STONE’S THROW, and, we’re guessing, not wherever you are either. The demands. The wants. The needs. The bills. The pressure. Everything feels ten times heavier in December. Everything feels ten times tougher to move. In other words, everything feels perfect for STONE’S THROW. This month, we want your stories of holiday pressures and holiday rage. This month, we want to see what happens when the pressure becomes too much. This month, we want to see what happens when someone dreaming of a white Christmas is suddenly unable to see anything other than red.JANUARY 2027 SUBMISSIONS (opens December 1 – 4, 2026)
PROMISES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN AND BLED UPON
It’s a new year, and with it comes all kinds of promises. Promises to be better. To clean up. To find new, happier ways of living. But this is STONE’S THROW, and we know a promise is something made to be broken. This month, we want stories of betrayal. Of promises made and then broken. Make the betrayal hurt. Make it STONE’S THROW.
Submissions are CURRENTLY Open for our August SUBMISSIONS WINDOW
All these World Cup players had to come from somewhere. Let’s hear it for the ladies, but don’t dawdle, or you’ll make Mommy mad. Get those submissions in by July 4. CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT!