“Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.” —Edward de Bono 

What

We are looking for humorous prose writing in English—fiction and creative nonfiction—for The Bare Bones Book of Humour, edited by Ankit Raj Ojha. 

Give us stories that make us laugh out loud, woo us with their quiet humour, probe the human condition with a funny bone, do all of the above, or none of it! We love good old storytelling, fun and thoughtful experiments, and everything in between. Surprise us. 

Word count: 500 to 2000 words 

Non-English words, phrases or passages are fine as long as translation is provided, wherever necessary, and the work itself is in English. 

Selected works will be published in a print anthology, available globally. 

Why 

“It’s hard enough to write a good drama, it’s much harder to write a good comedy, and it’s hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is.” — Jack Lemmon 

Life is a tragicomedy, and we rather have more of the latter. 

We seek to curate the finest literary humour from all over the world. 

Our Humour Hall of Fame includes but is not limited to: William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, Jane Austen, Laurence Sterne, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Bulgakov, Jerome K Jerome, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, William Saroyan, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Stephen Leacock, Douglas Adams, Viswanatha Satyanarayana, Premchand, R.K. Narayan, Satyajit Ray, Shrilal Shukla, Harishankar Parsai, Sharad Joshi, John Kennedy Toole, Terry Pratchett, Tom Sharpe, Beryl Bainbridge, Sue Townsend, Ludwig Bemelmans, Louis de Bernières, Colm Tóibín, Roddy Doyle, Martin Mcdonagh, Tom Robbins, Mark Haddon, Jonas Jonasson, Peter Carey, Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Wole Soyinka, Alexander McCall Smith, Haruki Murakami, Kōtarō Isaka, Paul Murray, Shehan Karunatilaka, and Ruskin Bond. 

With a tip of our hat to these and more masters, we intend to bring together some of the finest humour writers working today in a beautifully designed, handy volume for the bedside, coffee tables, bookshelves, libraries, bus rides, train journeys, air travel, cruises, and every nook and cranny on earth, sea and air where stories are cherished. 

Who 

Writers: Writers from all over the world, aged 18 and above, can submit their work.

Readers: The book is meant for adult readers; both general and mature themes are welcome. So, feel free to be subtle or outrageous with your humour. 

The publisher: Bare Bones is an independent publishing house based in Gurugram, India. Learn more at: www.barebonespublishing.in/about-us/

The editor: Ankit Raj Ojha has authored/edited two poetry collections and is winner of the 2023 Briefly Think Essay Prize. A former engineer and rock band frontman with a PhD in Literature from IIT Roorkee, he is currently an assistant professor of English with the Department of Higher Education, Haryana. Besides teaching, writing and research, Ankit edits The Hooghly Review and is a consulting editor with five Routledge journals. Find him on X @ankit_raj01. 

When

Submission window: June 15, 2025 to August 15, 2025 

Decisions will be rolling; all submissions shall be responded to within three weeks of the deadline.  

The book will hit the stands in January 2026. 

Where

Send your work as a .doc / .docx attachment to bareboneshumour@gmail.com (Our “humour” has “u” in it!) with the subject line: Bare Bones Humour: [Your Name]

General Guidelines 

• All manuscripts should be in 12-point type, double-spaced, with at least one-inch margins. 

• Paste a brief biographical note (third-person, not more than 50 words) in the email body. If possible, please mention where you are based. 

• Although we prefer previously unpublished works, we can consider reprints as long as the work has previously appeared in print only and the author retains reprint rights. If you are submitting such a piece, do confirm the above and also mention the when and where of its first publication. 

• Since we are doing a print anthology, we request you to try not to make simultaneous submissions—editorial time, page count, layout and page ordering may be riding on this. We realise that exclusive submissions are not always possible, so let us know beforehand if your story is simultaneously submitted, withdraw immediately if it is accepted elsewhere, and keep these requests to a minimum. 

Things we do not want 

AI-generated text, plagiarism, preaching, proselytising, hatred, graphic violence, pornography, factual inaccuracy intended to misrepresent, etc. You know the drill. 

Payment and publishing rights 

Contributors will receive a complimentary e-book of the anthology. There is no submission or publication fee. 

Writers accepted for publication will grant and assign to Bare Bones first worldwide print, electronic, and digital rights, exclusive for one year, and non-exclusive rights thereafter. For reprints, non-exclusive rights apply. Copyright in the works shall remain the property of the respective authors and the publisher shall affix a copyright notice in compliance with the provisions of the Universal Copyright Convention in every copy of the book.

Copyright of the Individual Works © Respective Authors [YYYY]

Please note that we cannot offer feedback. Editorial decision will be final.