Permuted Press seeks short stories for its new zombie anthology, The World Is Dead, to be edited by Bram Stoker Award winner Kim Paffenroth and featuring tales from Jack Ketchum, David Wellington, and Gary Braunbeck. Stories should be set significantly after the dead rise (though of course reference can be made back to that event). The point of the stories should be to investigate and elaborate the ways people (or zombies) have developed to cope with the new situation of the living dead--not just strategies and tactics for killing the dead, but the kinds of rituals, institutions, and social structures that you envision in this kind of post-apocalyptic world.

Reading Period: We will read stories from August 1, 2008 to August 31, 2008. DO NOT SEND SUBMISSIONS BEFORE AUGUST 1. THEY WILL BE DELETED UNREAD.

Payment: Payment will be $0.01/word USD ($0.005/word for reprints), based on the final, edited word count from Microsoft Word rounded to the nearest hundred words, plus one contributor's copy.

Submission guidelines: Stories should be 2000-8000 words, standard format, with the author’s name, email address, and word count in the upper left-hand corner of the first page. Stories should be sent as email attachments in Microsoft Word to theworldisdead@permutedpress.com.

Return time: Rejections will be sent ASAP; if the story makes the first cut, it will be kept until the end of the reading period.