19 June 2013

Guest Blogging: Foxy Temples

And today I've got a guest blog up on the Fox Spirit Books site to celebrate the launch of the very fabulous Piracy. (Yarrrrgh!)

It's subtly entitled - When Temples Attack! and lets me gloriously indulge in my love of pseudo-archaeology and archaeology-adventure tropes in films and other media.  (Though this has nothing whatsoever to do with m'story in Piracy, but our Feral Leader did say we could do any subject we wanted!)

18 June 2013

More funky kickstarters!

If you're in the kickstarter mood, look no further than the following two cool projects -

What Fates Impose: Tales of Divination - an anthology of original fiction about the complications of predicting the future.

The Pitch:
"Edited by Nayad A. Monroe, this anthology brings together stories from a diverse group of speculative fiction writers who show the possibilities of what can go right or very wrong when people get predictions of their future. The book also includes cover artwork by Steven C. Gilberts, and an introduction by Alasdair Stuart."

At present, the contributors are:Introduction by Alasdair Stuart: "Singing from the Book of Holy Jagger"
David Boop: "Dipping into the Pocket of Destiny"
Maurice Broaddus: "Read Me Up"
Jennifer Brozek: "A Card Given"
Amanda C. Davis: "The Scry Mirror"
Damien Walters Grintalis: "When the Lady Speaks"
Sarah Hans: "Charms"
Erika Holt: "Murder of Crows"
Keffy R.M. Kehrli: "Gazing into the Carnauba Wax Eyes of the Future"
Jamie Lackey: "Another Will Open"
Rochita Loenen-Ruiz: "Body of Truth"
Remy Nakamura: "Pick a Card"
Cat Rambo: "To Read the Sea"
Andrew Penn Romine: "Ain't Much Different'n Rabbits"
Ken Scholes: "All Our Tangled Dreams in Disarray"
Lucy A. Snyder: "Abandonment Option"
Ferrett Steinmetz: "Black Swan Oracle"
Eric James Stone: "A Crash Course in Fate" (new) and "A Great Destiny" (reprint)
Tim Waggoner: "The Goggen"
Wendy N. Wagner: "Power Steering"
LaShawn M. Wanak: "There Are No Wrong Answers"
Beth Wodzinski: "One Tiny Misstep (In Bed)"

Why It's Cool: 
Dude, look at the contributors!  That's why it's cool.

The Link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stevensaus/what-fates-impose-tales-of-divination

Also check out...

Upgraded: A Cyborg Anthology - an original science fiction anthology for the cyborg age. Stronger... better... faster... We will rebuild you.

The Pitch:
"Hi. My name is Neil Clarke and I'm the editor of Clarkesworld Magazine and a current Hugo Nominee for Best Editor Short Form. Last July, I suffered a "widow-maker" heart attack that nearly killed me. The damage to my heart was very significant and that led to my doctors installing a defibrillator in my chest. That day, I became a cyborg.I've been working on Clarkesworld for almost seven years, but I've never edited an anthology that wasn't Clarkesworld-related. I just didn't come across anything that inspired me. Trust almost dying to provide you with inspiration.

"As I began looking into the possibility of a cyborg anthology, I quickly noticed that the cyborgs most people think of are villains (Cybermen, Darth Vader, the Borg, etc.). My people make excellent villains, but that only represents the tip of the iceberg. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that this was the anthology project I had been looking for...  a cyborg-edited cyborg anthology. I don't think that's been done before. Besides, cyborgs are cool.

"It seems only appropriate that this campaign will end on the first anniversary of my heart attack."

The following authors have already agreed to have a story in Upgraded:
  • Elizabeth Bear
  • Tobias S. Buckell
  • Yoon Ha Lee
  • Ken Liu
  • Genevieve Valentine
  • E. Lily Yu
And Julie Dillon has agreed to create an original piece for the cover of this anthology.
Plus there will be an open submissions period for some of the content.

Why It's Cool:
Again I say, dude! Look at them authors! Also Julie Dillon is a fantastic artist. 

The Link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/clarkesworld/upgraded-a-cyborg-anthology-edited-by-neil-clarke

Getting Your Fix #1 – Online Magazines

From time to time it is said that short fiction is a dying form and that publishers just aren’t publishing it any more. To that I say: bollocks! Short fiction has never been healthier and more available than it is now. There are more anthologies than you can shake a stick at, e-book shorts are sold for the device of your choice via assorted retailers, authors post free online fiction on their websites and then there’s the crown jewel of the short fiction world – online magazines.

To the surprise of no-one who knows me, I love online magazines. (Check out the Shiny Stuff section for links to my favourite stories!) And really, what’s not to love. So long as you have an internet connection and some kind of tech to read on, you have easy access to a vast quantity of free fiction. If you don’t like reading on a computer screen, then you can throw a few quid the magazine’s way and subscribe to get the e-book versions delivered to your preferred reading device, and many magazines do podcast versions of their stories and dead-tree versions as either individual issues or end of year anthologies.

But me, I read on screens. (Laptops, unlimited broadband and wifi – the three best inventions in the universe, I tell you true. Kindles and iPads come a close second.) I slush for Lightspeed, so would, of course, highly recommend anyone taking a shuftie at it. They publish some awesome fantasy and science fiction, along with author interviews (and they’re reopening for subs on 20th June, if you’re that way inclined!) Lightspeed also has a sister magazine – Nightmare - for the horror aficionados, though I’ll confess to not having read much of that as yet. (Bad Jen, no cookie.)

Strange Horizons is another firm favourite and has my highest stories-I-like hit rate of all the magazines I read, and always gives fascinating non-fiction. Beneath Ceaseless Skies is another top one, and is great for thoughtful secondary world fiction, as well as some gorgeous cover artwork. Clarkesworld completes the top tier online magazine roster, and another one with gorgeous cover artwork, however I find them a little bit highbrow at times so can be something of an acquired taste. Always worth a read though.

Crossed Genres can always be counted on for fiction that pushes at the traditional boundaries and has a specific interest for stories about under-represented people. (They also do some cracking anthologies, but anthologies are for another post!) Expanded Horizons is another great magazine pushing for more diversity in the field and publishes some truly breathtaking stuff.

In the department of ‘does what it says on the tin’, there’s Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and Alt Hist, which, no surprise, do heroic fantasy and historical/alternate historical stories, so if that’s your thing, that’s where you want to go. If you like longer short fiction, then may I point you at GigaNotoSaurus for all your novella pleasures. If you prefer much shorter short fiction, than Daily Science Fiction does flash fiction five days a week (and free subscription if you want the stories delivered via email.)

Other fab free online mags include Abyss & Apex, Indian SF, Subterranean Magazine, Apex Magazine, Philippine Genre Stories and Ideomancer, and if you get a taste for any of them, don’t forget to donate a couple of quid to show your appreciation and generally keep them going.

Lastly we have the hybrid online magazines – those that exist in both dead-tree and electronic formats and include, but are not limited to, things like: Albedo One, who sell PDF versions of their magazines, Something Wicked has moved to an annual anthology but back issues are still free on their site, Shimmer has some of their content free online while selling the full issues in print and multiple digital formats, and fans of the TTA Press range of mags can easily buy DRM-free digital copies of Crimewave, Interzone and Black Static from Smashwords.

So, yeah, no-one’s publishing short fiction at all. ;-)

13 June 2013

Ancient Wonders: Pauline E Dungate

Oops, one more Ancient Wonders interviewee for you lovely peeps - our very own Pauline E. Dungate!

Tell us a little about yourself, and what you like to write?

I spent all of my working life as a teacher but ended up as the resident teacher at Birmingham Nature Centre with a classroom full of exotic animals. I spend a lot of time reading, writing and reviewing when I am not in the garden. I take my camera on exotic holidays looking for wildlife. Last year it was Ecuador.

What inspired you to write “One Man's Folly”? 
 
Every year there is a Middle Earth Weekend at Sarehole Mill in Hall Green, Birmingham. Because of the Tolkien connection, the local paper often runs articles about his influences around this time. On the photo of Perrot’s Tower, an octagonal building, I noticed that the corner stones of the topmost floor looked very different from the rest of the brick built building. That led to the question of what they were made of. What if it was a stone circle in the sky. The story grew from there.

If the TARDIS could drop you off to any one site in its heyday, where would you go? 

It would probably have to be Hadrian’s Wall – either that or British Camp, the hill fort on the Malvern Hills.  

What appeals to you most about ancient sites/landscapes?

The mystery. We know so little about them so there is much that can be imagined and no-one can tell us we are wrong.  

What do you have coming out next?

I am working on a near future thriller set in Birmingham plus a number of stories. I write reviews and poetry as Pauline Morgan and there are plenty of my reviews around. The writers’ group I belong to has recently put out a pamphlet called Grapeshot which has three of my poems in it.

[Pauline E Dungate’s stories have appeared in anthologies such as Skin of the Soul, Narrow Houses, Swords Against the Millennium, Beneath the Ground, Merlin, Victorious Villains and Under the Rose. She has won prizes for poetry and has been a judge for the Arthur C Clarke Award. She reviews for SFCrowsnest and runs workshops covering all areas of creative writing. She lives in Birmingham with husband and fellow writer Chris Morgan.]

The Alchemy Book of Ancient Wonders is available in paperback and ebook formats from multiple retailers - see the anthology page here for linky links!     

06 June 2013

Fox Pockets: Piracy

Woohoo! We have official launch! 
Fox Spirit is delighted to announce the release of the first Fox Pocket ‘Piracy’.


The order of the next three volumes has been confirmed as Shapeshifters (I'm in that too!), Guardians and Missing Monarchs.

Small but perfectly formed collections of stories by a den full of talented writers, put together by Fox Spirit books for your enjoyment.

The stories are flash fiction, giving the reader bite sized introductions to Fox Spirit and the writers we love to work with. All designed to fit perfectly into the pocket so you can take a little fox with you everywhere you go.

There are ten books to the collection being published during 2013 and 2014 and titled:

Piracy, Missing Monarchs, Shapeshifters, Guardians, Under the Waves, In an Unknown Country, Things in the Dark, The Evil Genius Guide, Reflections, Piercing the Veil

Stories in Fox Pockets will wander unfettered between genres, mixing horror, fantasy, science fiction and crime. The subjects are deliberately loose to invite a wide range of interpretations. This pocket series showcases some of the wealth of new talent coming through in genre fiction.

The books will be available as a paperback through Lulu for 24 months after the release date of each volume. Ebook releases will take place a month after the paperback and will be available for longer, but not forever.

Fox Spirit will be offering a subscription to the paperbacks as part of a giveaway through the newsletter this summer so please subscribe on our home page to make sure you don’t miss out.

More about all our titles at www.foxspirit.co.uk

Piracy can be found at
http://www.lulu.com/shop/various/fox-pockets-vol-1-piracy/paperback/product-21058618.html

---So there you go, official press release and everything! Go pick yourself up a fun anthology right now!

05 June 2013

Foxy Jen!

And did I mention I'm going to be in this?  Let the happy dancing commence!  ;-)


Full line up (in no particular order) is:

Asher Wismer – War Most Willing
Josh Reynolds – Bultungin
Alec McQuay – Javier Reborn
Rahne Sinclair – EigiEinhammr
KC Shaw – A Cloud Like a Bunny
Emma Teichmann – Mimicans
Margret Helgadottir – The Lion
Jonathan Ward – Mask
S.J Caunt – Metamorphic
Michael Pack – To Fly
Fiona Glass – The Boyfriend, From Hell
Rob Haines – Reliquary
Jenny Barber – To Fox Tor Mire
Francesca Terminiello – Job Security
Den Patrick – Seductions
K.A. Laity – Carlos

Coming out from Fox Spirit Books soon, more details as and when....