BURN:  A BOYS BEHAVING BADLY ANTHOLOGY
Editor: Delilah Devlin
Deadline: May 15, 2025

BURN is open to all authors.

Editor/Author Delilah Devlin is looking for stories for a romantic erotica anthology tentatively entitled BURN:  A BOYS BEHAVING BADLY ANTHOLOGY.

Why write a short story for this collection? Well, it’s certainly not about making a lot of money, so why do it at all? I’ve said this before, many times, but here are my thoughts…

Writing a short story for a call for submissions is a chance to flex your writing muscles! It can be a chance to experiment with a genre you’ve never written. If you’ve never written a story in first person but don’t want to begin by writing an entire novel using it, start short! For myself, I’ve written stories in new genres or with fresh themes that ended up being so much fun to write they’ve spawned entire series of books.

You have a deadline! I don’t know about you, but I have trouble keeping my butt in the chair without one!

It’s a promotional opportunity! If selected, you’ll be joined by 12-15 other authors for the launch, sharing your audiences and, hopefully, picking up new readers along the way. Having your story in the collection is another chance to be “seen.”

And remember, you retain the rights to your story, so you can republish it for individual sale or give it away to attract subscribers to your newsletter. You might even decide there’s more story to tell and expand your short story into a novel.

Here’s what I’m looking for…

BURN: A BOYS BEHAVING BADLY ANTHOLOGY will include stories that satisfy the reader who craves stories about those sexy, alpha men who face danger without hesitation and who love unconditionally. Perhaps, he’s the new firefighter in a small town who rescues a woman from a burning building. Maybe he’s an arson investigator, hunting for a predator targeting a local business owner. Or a vulcanologist studying an awakening volcano. Is he an alien from a fiery planet seeking a mate, or an astronaut searching in a mysterious solar system for a new home for colonization? Could he be a fire dragon living in the human world? There are so many ways to go.

BURN will seek stories with varied settings here on Earth—present, past, or future—or on another planet or moon in this solar system or in a galaxy far, far, away.  Heroes and heroines might be more than human—supernatural creatures or even aliens and cyborgs.

I’m open to any subgenre of erotic romance you want to write. I’ll accept contemporary, historical, science fiction, or paranormal stories, and I won’t be picky about whether the stories are hetero, LGBT, ménage… Basically, you, the author, can go anywhere your imagination takes you so long as 1) the story is a romance, and 2) you have a bad boy/girl somewhere on the pages!

The anthology will be sold at a low price—my intent is exposure for you and your writing. The more readers reached, the better! You will retain the rights to your story so that, at a later date, you can republish your stories individually.

I’m seeking hot and inventive stories from authors with unique voices, and above all, I’m looking to be seduced by tales filled with vivid imagery and passion.

Published authors with an established world may use that setting for their original short stories.

This is erotic romance, so don’t hold back on the heat. Stories can be vanilla or filled with kink but don’t miss describing the romantic connection between strong-willed individuals learning to trust and love one another. A deep sensuality should linger in every word. Keep in mind that there must be a romantic element with a happy-for-now or happy-ever-after ending. Strong plots, engaging characters, and unique twists are the ultimate goal. Please, no reprints. I want original stories.

How to submit: Prepare your 2,500 to 5,500 words story in a double-spaced, Arial, 12-point, black font, Word document (.doc or .docx) OR rich text format (.rtf), with pages numbered. Indent the first line of each paragraph half an inch and double space (regular double spacing; do not add extra lines between paragraphs or do any other irregular spacing). U.S. grammar (double quotation marks around dialogue, etc.) is required.

In your document at the top left of the first page, include your legal name (and pseudonym, if applicable), mailing address, email address, and a 50-word or less biography, written in the third person, and send to bbbaburn@gmail.com. If you are using a pseudonym, please provide your real name and pseudonym and make it clear which one you’d like to be credited as. Authors may submit up to 2 stories. I will try to respond no later than July 15, 2025, with decisions.

Payment will be USD 25.00 ninety days after publication at the end of that month.

Who is Delilah Devlin?

Delilah Devlin is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of romance and erotic romance. She has published over two hundred stories in multiple genres and lengths and has been published by Atria/Strebor, Avon, Berkley, Black Lace, Cleis Press, Ellora’s Cave, Entangled, Grand Central, Harlequin Spice, HarperCollins: Mischief, Kensington, Kindle, Montlake, Penthouse, Running Press, and Samhain Publishing.

Her short stories have appeared in multiple Cleis Press collections, including Lesbian Cowboys, Girl Crush, Fairy Tale Lust, Lesbian Lust, Passion, Lesbian Cops, Dream Lover, Carnal Machines, Best Erotic Romance (2012), Suite Encounters, Girl Fever, Girls Who Score, Duty and Desire, Best Lesbian Romance of 2013, and On Fire. For Cleis Press, she edited Girls Who Bite, She Shifters, Cowboy Lust, Smokin’ Hot Firemen, High Octane Heroes, Cowboy Heat, Hot Highlanders and Wild Warriors, and Sex Objects.

She has also edited Conquests: An Anthology of Smoldering Viking Romance, Rogues: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, Blue Collar: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, Pirates: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, Stranded: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, First Response: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, Cowboys: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, Silver Soldiers: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology, and Secret Identities: A Boys Behaving Badly Anthology.

Direct any questions regarding your story or the submission process to Delilah at bbbaburn@gmail.com.

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, solve the puzzle, then tell me your favorite romance tropes, you know the underlying kind of romance it is. My favorites include: cowboy, enemy to lover, and forced proximity. So, what are yours? And if there’s one not listed here that you love, share it in the comments!

Report Card

Last week…

1. I got my white blood cell count booster shot! Woo-hoo. The rest of the week was a bit of blur since I spent most of it resting or outright sleeping. I’m so glad chemo is over so I can try to get back my strength!
2. I started work on one author’s edits! Yay, back in the saddle!
3. I decided on the theme, with readers’ help, for the next Boys Behaving Badly Anthology! It’ll be Burn!
4.  The family and I watched Carry-On on Netflix. If you love Die Hard like I do, you’ll love this little movie, too!
5. When I was up and about, I began slowly putting away things in my art studio. Doesn’t that sound pretentious? It’s just the place all my hoarded art supplies live. With Christmas gifts and all the sales, I have tons of supplies to find homes for. 🙂
6. Oh, one last thing! KDP (Amazon) kindly returned my ability to post pre-orders. They took pity on my excuse for canceling previous pre-orders—cancer! Now, I have to work up the nerve to begin listing a few!

This next week…

1. I have my PET scan scheduled for Friday. All fingers and toes are crossed that the images bear out what the blood work has been hinting at. If the tumors are small enough now, I hope I’m a candidate for some debulking surgeries.
2. I have two authors’ edits to work on this week. One to hopefully complete (depends on whether the author gets me the rest of her book!).
3. I still need to upload Once Upon a Legend to sites other than Amazon since it’s no longer exclusive there. I’m not sure why I’ve been dragging my feet. Oh yeah, fatigue.
4. This week, I’ll be diving back into finishing up Ignition!

Open Contests

Be sure to check out these posts and enter to win the prizes that are still up for grabs:

1. Story Cubes — Tell me a story (Contest) — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
2. Saturday Puzzle-Contest: Hunkering down in the cold… — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
3. Gabbi Grey: Why Representation Matters (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
4. Word Puzzle — Ideas for Next Boys Behaving Badly Anthology (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
5. Karenna Colcroft: Back to Boston (F*R*E*E Read!) — Everyone, get your FREE read!
6. Memory Game: The OG — Montana Bounty Hunters (Contest) — Get an Amazon gift card!
7. Saturday Puzzle-Contest: Movie Night! — Get an Amazon gift card!

Since school shut down on Thursday due to the winter storm, we had an unexpected four-day weekend! Not that we minded one bit.

The kids have enjoyed the snowfall even if the snow wasn’t suitable for building a snowman or an igloo. They did enjoy sliding down our short hill and throwing icy snowballs at each other. My daughter made two big pots of soup which we’ve already managed to devour. She made two batches of our favorite focaccia bread.

Before the storm, we bought a copy of Wicked off of Prime Video. The girls loved it so much, they’ve rewatched it a couple of times already and have rewound all the musical numbers so they can memorize the songs. They’ve also had a karaoke night.

We have two more days to go. I’m wondering if I can interest them in another movie night. I wonder what might interest all of them.

So, for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, how about you offer some suggestions I can make. Then I’ll make some popcorn, assembles some finger foods, and hunker down for another night they’ll carry fond memories of in the future. Enjoy the puzzle!

We never see this. Well, almost never. We can have years in between seeing a blanket of snow, so we savor it. Strange, I know. But the kids have dug through drawers to find gloves they never need and find boots that won’t soak up water in a second to go play in the snow. Mind you, the “kids” are 11, 16, and 20—plus my dear daughter, whose age I won’t mention.

Other than ensuring our many animals (goats, horse, geese, and chickens) are all safe and have food and shelter, they are in play mode. Mom (my dd) made two big pots of soup yesterday for us to nosh on whenever we get hungry—taco soup and tortilla soup. What is the difference? Oh, big difference the way she makes them. One has beans and beef the other is purely veg and spice. They had a karaoke night last night in the living room—always hilarious. We all nap when we want (me, more than the others).

So far, no power outages other than yesterday morning’s inexplicable loss. The temperature will warm up above freezing tonight, but not long enough to melt everything. So, tomorrow, we expect a lot of ice on the roads and patches of snow. We’ll be stuck inside another day, which I love, but which may be kind of confining to the kids since one day of snow is fun, two is boring, right?

Anyway, strange day. Terrible fires in LA, a president-elect sort of held accountable for his crimes, continued weirdness about which countries we’re going to annex/conquer because we can… I’m happy to turn off the news, enjoy the winter wonderland outside, and simply be happy I’m here to see another snow fall.

I hope you are all safe and cozy in your homes.

For fun, I’m including a memory game for you to play! Exercise that gray matter! It’ll help you keep sharp, promise. I’m using the images from my OG bounty hunter series set in Bear Lodge, MT—Montana Bounty Hunters.

Enjoy the game. For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me what you see when you look outside. Do you have snow on the ground? Is it raining, sunny? Do you have big plans for the weekend? Have fun!

I’m sorry I’m posting this late! We had a power outage this morning! Please welcome Karenna! ~DD

*~*~*

Delilah, thanks for allowing me to come here and talk about my new book, Bring on the Broccoli! This is book 7 of my Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat series…and the series has definitely been a ride.

It all started in 2010 with a 1000-word scene I dashed off to answer the question posed by a writer friend: “How could a werewolf be vegan?” I had an answer.

And then I had another scene with the vegan werewolf, Kyle Slidell, and his mate, Tobias Rogan, the Alpha who prefers letting someone else be in charge in the bedroom.

And then I had a novel. And then a five-book series, originally published between 2011-2014 and pulled off the market in 2016.

In 2021, I dug out the books and said, “I really like these. I should make them available again.” I started revising and re-editing the books, including bringing their setting from 2015, when they originally took place, to an undefined “present day” and updating some language and technology references accordingly. During that process, I started thinking maybe Kyle and Tobias’s story was longer than five books.

So I wrote book six, Take Some Tahini, which was released in summer 2024. However, there was a small problem with that book and future ones.

The original series included books that took place in Boston—where Kyle and Tobias’s tiny pack lives in a cluster of buildings on the East Boston waterfront—and in Pennsylvania and California. As of the end of book 5, Tobias and Kyle are living in California.

The problem being that I live near Boston. And I’ve never been to California.

When I wrote Take Some Tahini, I knew keeping Tobias and Kyle in California wouldn’t be sustainable. I planted the seeds for them to move back to Boston, though they’re no longer part of that tiny pack on the East Boston waterfront.

By the beginning of Bring on the Broccoli, Kyle and Tobias have fully relocated back to the city where their story began. And I’m not sure who’s happier about it, Kyle or me. I’ve always loved Boston; I grew up in Maine but had family in the Boston area, so I spent a fair bit of time here as a teen. And Kyle loves it because it’s where his chosen family, the pack he first belonged to when he became a werewolf, is located.

As Kyle said in Chapter One of Bring on the Broccoli, “We were home.”

As the author, I’m glad they are. I was starting to feel a little homesick writing the books that took place elsewhere.

Bring On the Broccoli (Real Werewolves Don’t Eat Meat 7)

Finally back in Massachusetts, vegan werewolf Kyle Slidell hopes for a peaceful life with his mate, Anax Tobias Rogan. But the pressure of ruling all werewolves in the United States is getting to Tobias. Kyle worries that the gentle, compassionate man he fell in love with is becoming like the previous Anax: a power-mad ruler who is all too eager to kill.

An old friend comes to Tobias for help in rescuing his mate from an abusive Alpha. As the extent of the Alpha’s crimes comes to light and the Alpha flees, Tobias sentences him to death. And he seems all too eager to carry out the sentence.

As they and their guards search for the fugitive Alpha, Kyle will do anything to ensure that the power within Tobias doesn’t take control—including becoming the Anax’s enforcer.

This book includes an on-page death in a werewolf attack, the on-page execution of a werewolf, discussions of abuse and assault, and depictions of PTSD.

 Bring On the Broccoli is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback. Amazon (US) link:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DM9H4VZN

About the Author

Karenna Colcroft lives just north of Boston, Massachusetts, and has been in love with the city since childhood. To the best of her knowledge, she has yet to encounter any werewolves or other paranormal beings here.

Karenna is a polyamorous, nonbinary human. She lives with her husband and has two adult children and three “bonus” kids, four grandchildren, and three cats, who aren’t at all pleased that Karenna writes about werewolves.

Find out more about Karenna online at http://www.karennacolcroft.com or https://www.facebook.com/KarennaColcroft , or join her Home for Wayward Werewolves at https://www.facebook.com/groups/karennacolcroftshomeforwaywardwerewolves

Receive a free story and get updates and sneak peeks at Karenna’s upcoming books at https://karennacolcroft.com/get-your-free-story/

So, the other day, I posted a poll to choose the next theme for another Boys Behaving Badly Anthology. The winner of the poll is “Burn”—a tentative title. I’m okay with that. So, authors start thinking about how you can use heat/burning/fire in a short story between 2500 to 5500 words. I’ll put together a Call for Submissions soon and make a formal announcement.

Ugh. My puzzle generator changed, and I don’t like change. I hope it works similarly to the old version. Since I’ve settled on a theme for the antho, I thought I might list some ideas authors might play with for their stories. For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell me which idea you love. If you have another idea to offer, I’m sure authors would love to see it!