Wicked Women Out Now!

Just in time for Halloween, Wicked Women (edited by Jan Edwards and Jenny Barber) has landed!  Available in paperback or ebook formats from your local Amazon or Barnes & Noble.com.  Spooktacular!  (Sorry. I'm not sorry!)

From thieves and tyrants to witches and warriors, here are twelve tales of women who gleefully write their own rules, women who’ll bend or break the social norms, who'll skate along the edge of the law and generally aim to misbehave.

Contents:


Juliet E. McKenna - Win Some, Lose Some
Christine Morgan - The Shabti-Maker
Tom Johnstone - Kravolitz
 A. R. Aston -  No Place of Honour
Adrian Tchaikovsky - This Blessed Union
Sam Stone - The Book of the Gods
Chloë Yates - How to be the Perfect Housewife
Stephanie Burgis - Red Ribbons
Jonathan Ward - A Change in Leadership
Jaine Fenn - Down at the Lake
Zen Cho - The First Witch of Damansara
Gaie Sebold - A Change of Heart

Published by Fox Spirit Books 

 ISBN: 978-1-9093486-9-1

Urban Mythic 2: Tanith Lee interviewed

Author of “The Mermaid” in Urban Mythic 2, Tanith Lee answers a few questions!


Tell us a little about yourself and your writing. How long have you been writing and how did you get started?
I’ve been writing since the age of 9 – about 57 years. Being slightly dyslexic (something unrecognised in my childhood) the school couldn’t teach me how to read. My father stepped in and taught me in a few months. About a year later, by then reading as a locust feeds, I began – as if logically – to write.

What is at the root of your Urban Mythic story?
The story came from an idea a friend told me and said I might use. It was so straightforward – shocking.


You’ve written widely across a multitude of forms and genres including horror, SF, fantasy, historical, detective, contemporary-psychological, children’s and young adult; in novel, short story, radio play and TV script form: do you find yourself drawn to any one in particular? 
All and any, if they call to me. When the inspiration comes, I’m off.

Is there any genre or style of writing you haven’t tried yet but would like to?
Anything, probably, again if I get that alluring signal.

What do you think of the current state of the fantasy/sf/horror genre?
I don’t take a lot of notice of that. I read the ones I love, and now discover new loves. But I read mostly, and widely, outside the three main ‘fantasy’ areas. Always have.

Room 101 time: what one genre cliché would you get rid of?
None. From wonderful epic ideas and phrases can come rubbish. And from (perhaps) limited or clichéd ones, gardens of Hell and Paradise may flower.

What are you up to next? (Published works/conventions/random fun stuff!)
Some (Main House) reprints of some of my past work, and some new, for the USA, are under discussion. I’m also putting together lots of Lee short story collections, all including new original unpublished tales. These for UK, Australia and the USA. Conventions – I love them, but right now, no time.

Urban Mythic 2: Chico Kidd interviewed

Author of “Blood*uckers” in Urban Mythic 2, Chico Kidd answers a few questions!

What is at the root of your Urban Mythic story?
I’ve always had a soft spot for werewolves. About a year or so ago I started trying out a new voice, an NYPD detective who didn’t just happen to be a werewolf but had joined the police because she was one. “They say the real reason so many weres are drawn to law enforcement is we still want to run in a pack. Though if you ask me I think it’s just ’cause we like chasing stuff.” I spent quite a long time nailing Taz’s voice, and also working on her world (in short, the weres are cops and the vampires are the Mob) and how it all worked and fit together. This story came out of that— in effect, it’s backstory before I’ve even completed the present-day narrative!

Alchemy Press have also published your novella The Komarovs – tell us about that and is it connected to any of your other works?
It’s just one in the long-running series I call the Da Silva Tales, which comprises so far about twenty long short stories/novellas (a goodly number of which have been anthologised) and four-and-a-half novels, the first of which, Demon Weather, has been published by Booktrope. David Longhorn summed up the milieu thusly: “One not-so-fine day Portuguese sea-captain, Luis da Silva, found himself in Venice under demonic attack. The result was to make him a ghost-seer and necromancer— one with the power to conjure up those who’ve died before their time.” Set in the early years of the 20^th century, the Captain amasses a “Scooby Gang” which includes one of the protagonists of The Komarovs— Harris the werewolf. In fact its original title was Wolfbane!


You’ve travelled a great deal and had many interesting experiences – are there any adventures that particular stick out?  What places or activities have you not yet experienced that you want to?
No adventures as such, but I learnt to dive in the Maldives in the 80s, when the coral was fabulous. Nowadays much of it is dead and white, mostly due to a voracious beastie called the crown of thorns starfish. We travelled round the world about eight years ago, and that was fun. On a later trip to Hawaii I visited the newest lava flow. Mostly cooled, there was still one stream of lava falling into the sea. Two years before, people had been sunbathing on that beach. Before my other half became ill, we would go to the top of anything and everything— many years before 9/11 I remember standing on the top of one of the Twin Towers. The view was astonishing. I’d like to visit Vietnam because I am a great foodie and their cuisine looks amazing.

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author? 
Romance! And probably politics.

Room 101 time: what one genre cliché would you get rid of?
Chick-lit vampires! Buffy (and all who sailed in her) was genre-changing, but has sadly yielded to Twilight’s soppy bloodsuckers. That’s a great shame, IMHO. The Buffyverse also made humour and character integral to the action, which is what I aspire to do with the Captain and now with Taz.

What are you up to next?
The second Da Silva novel, The Werewolf of Lisbon, is due to come out this year, I hope, with the others to follow. To that end I need to finish volume five! I also have a story in Terror Tales of Yorkshire, out right about now. Plus I want to do more with Taz. I have this mad idea of writing the series backwards— first novel would be present-day, then go in reverse to the “thirteen years ago” of “Blood*uckers”. But I reckon that’s quite a long way off.

Urban Mythic 2: Sarah Ash interviewed

Author of “La Vouivre” in Urban Mythic 2, Sarah Ash answers a few questions!

Tell us a little about yourself and your writing.
I love stories. When I was a child, I used to scribble after ‘lights out’ by the street lamp outside my window, filling little notebooks with barely legible scrawl in different coloured crayons. Growing up in Bath, I used to wonder about all the lives lived out from pre-Roman times till the present day and how what happened back then gradually became transmuted into local legend as it was told and re-told through the ages. Which is why what I like to explore in my own writing what would happen, for example, if a rational, enlightened eighteenth century soldier-prince encountered real, raw magic when waging war on the neighbouring country (The Tears of Artamon). I was trained as a musician and taught music for many years and my stories frequently feature musicians struggling with their craft. Kaito, the main protagonist of The Flood Dragon’s Sacrifice plays the flute – and an old song of his clan takes on a special significance as the story develops.

What is at the root of your Urban Mythic story?
A summer holiday in the Jura a few years ago brought us into Courbet country. Frustratingly, the new Courbet museum in Ornans was still being finished then, but we were able to visit a few of the places he depicted in his paintings. It’s atmospheric, tranquil, unspoilt countryside where time seems to stand still. As for La Vouivre, this isn’t her first appearance in my writing! I’m still working on a longer novel in which she is one of the protagonists … but set several hundred years earlier.


What attracts you to anime and manga, and have you ever considered writing in this form?
How long have you got? Well, first of all, there’s a distinctive attitude to story-telling and character interaction that I don’t find in other graphic novels or Western animation. For example: in a shounen (boys’) manga or anime like Naruto, characters get hurt and die, even when they have supernatural powers. It might be fantasy (with ninjas) but it feels real. You won’t find that kind of emotional realism in the animated shows churned out (mostly) by the US for YA audiences – and it’s why you won’t find much anime (unless it’s been heavily sanitised) on kids’ TV in the UK.

Secondly, I love the way that certain mangaka-like CLAMP (the celebrated four women team) weave Japanese mythology into their work; xxxHolic is still one of my favourite manga, with gorgeous Art Nouveau-style graphics and twisted tales that stretch the imagination of the reader.

Thirdly, a great deal of care and attention goes into the soundtracks for anime series; the work of gifted composers such as Yoko Kanno, Kenji Kawai, and Yuki Kajiura add so much to the whole experience with their imaginative and memorable scores.
Lastly, I’d really love to write in this form if a mangaka expressed interested in working with me (hint, hint…). And I’d be insanely happy if a Japanese publisher ever offered to publish any of my novels and – a frequent bonus in Japanese light novels – add illustrations.

If you could have dinner with any writer in your field (past or present) who would it be and why?
Alexandre Dumas the elder would make a wonderful dinner companion; given his colourful life and appreciation of all things gastronomique – he might even prepare some of the dishes himself!

Is there one subject you would never write about as an author? 
It’s not so much a single subject as when unexpected events in ‘real life’ suddenly – and horribly – come close to a significant episode in the story that I’m working on (tidal wave/tsunami being a recent case in point) I find it almost impossible to continue.

Room 101 time: what one genre cliché would you get rid of?
The teenage kick-ass heroine who is a ruthless assassin but also a brilliant and sensitive musician, looks good in a silk gown on the dance floor at the palace ball (make up Mary Sue-style shopping list of character assets as desired…). First person present tense with these young ladies is also becoming a little stale. (Was that two clichés?)

What are you up to next?
I’ve recently brought out my first original e-book, The Flood Dragon’s Sacrifice which is the first of a two-part Japanese fantasy, so I’m (desperately) trying to finish the second part. I’m also working on the sequel to Scent of Lilies a historical ghost story set in the Byzantine empire

Urban Mythic 2: James Brogden interviewed

Author of "How to Get Ahead in Avatising" in Urban Mythic 2, James Brogden answers a few questions!

Tell us a little about yourself and your writing.
I love writing stories because I’m basically a control freak and for a short time I get to be god of my own little fantasy world. I also teach English, and my students will probably tell you much the same thing. I’m a naturalised Brummie, born in the north and raised in Australia. I loathe all forms of competitive sport, which is why I was deported from Oz, though I do like to get out into the mountains whenever I can to lose my head in something vast. When I moved to the UK as a teenager I very quickly fell in love with the weight of history which is layered into the landscape of the British Isles, though I wonder how much of that comes from having made Tolkien and Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence part of my own internal landscape as a child. My grandmother, who lived back in the UK, made sure to send me and my brothers books which she considered to be quintessentially English; so as well as reading Aussie kids’ classics like The Magic Pudding, I grew up with Billy Bunter, Just William, and Biggles. When I moved here, it all sort of clicked, and it’s kept on clicking ever since.

What is at the root of your Urban Mythic story?
The idea of Jungian mythological archetypes in the collective unconscious – the psychological roots of all our myths – with a bit of tweaking to suggest that the archetypes aren’t just passive parts of our psyches which we tap into occasionally, but that they actively want to be incarnated as living human beings to act out their mythological life stories. And, of course, the inevitable political and media corruption of all this. Disclosure warning here: it’s a bit of a spin-off from my latest novel, Tourmaline, and the sequel which I’ve just finished, called The Realt.


Which of your previous works are you most proud of, and are there any that you would like to forget about?
I’m most proud of my story ‘If Street’, in the previous Urban Mythic collection. I wrote it on a long plane flight back from my brother’s wedding in New Zealand – which was the first time all of my immediate family had been together for about 10 years – and so it’s got a lot of my own feelings about the ambivalence of looking back on your life and wondering about the ‘road less travelled’, which I think crystallised reasonably well. I’m also a huge fan of Robert Holdstock, and I wanted to write something which riffed on the idea of the two brothers at the start of Mythago Wood. That weight of history thing again, and what happens when it falls on a person rather than a place.

If you could kill off any character from any other book, who would you choose and how would they die?
Maxim DeWinter, from Rebecca. His second wife should have learned something from the tale of his first wife, channelled some of her fiery spirit, grown a spine and offed him once she realised what a misogynistic bastard he was. Ideally, this would have been by pushing him out of an upstairs window so that he died surrounded by Rebecca’s rhododendrons, then dragged him into the house before Mrs Danvers set fire to it, disposing of the body.

Tell us about Project Tezlar – what’s it all about, and will you be doing any similar projects?
Project Tezlar happened because I wanted to build something physical based on a thing I’d written about (plus maybe a bit of work avoidance). It’s a model of a tezlar gun – a weapon used by some of my characters in Tourmaline to exorcise dreamers from our world who pop up in theirs and cause mayhem. It’s basically a big static electricity zap gun. I bought a nerf pistol from my local toy shop, tricked it out steampunk-style with a brass-and-copper paintjob and stuck all kinds of random cogs and switches all over it, the crowning glory being a plasma ball I put in which lights up when you pull the trigger. I also built a battery pack and had a leather holster custom made for it. If you want to see it, go to my blog. The next project is to make a PV detector to accompany it – but if you want to know what one of those is you’re just going to have to read Tourmaline.

Room 101 time: what one genre cliché would you get rid of?
Vampire romance love triangles. Can we please put to rest once and for all the ridiculous notion that to these creatures we are anything other than food?

What are you up to next?
I’m putting the finishing touches to The Realt, which will hopefully be with Snowbooks soon after Urban Mythic 2 comes out. Assuming that [a] they like it, and [b] the timing all works out I’ll be launching it next summer at London Film and Comic Con 2015. The project after that is going to be more out-and-out supernatural; kind of a homage to Picnic At Hanging Rock, about a group of school kids on a geography field trip who disappear and end up somewhere … strange. Until then it’s back to the day job.

Wicked Women: Warm Up!

Due verrrrry soon from the ever fabulous Fox Spirit Books, the one, the only, Wicked Women! (Edited, of course, by Jan Edwards and me!)

Cover by Sarah Anne Langton

From thieves and tyrants to witches and warriors, here are twelve tales of women who gleefully write their own rules, women who’ll bend or break the social norms, who’ll skate along the edge of the law and generally aim to misbehave.

Contents:
Juliet E. McKenna – Win Some, Lose Some
Christine Morgan – The Shabti-Maker
Tom Johnstone – Kravolitz
A. R. Aston –  No Place of Honour
Adrian Tchaikovsky – This Blessed Union
Sam Stone – The Book of the Gods
Chloë Yates – How to be the Perfect Housewife
Stephanie Burgis – Red Ribbons
Jonathan Ward – A Change in Leadership
Jaine Fenn – Down at the Lake
Zen Cho – The First Witch of Damansara
Gaie Sebold – A Change of Heart

Urban Mythic 2: Marion Pitman

Author of "The Cupboard of Winds” in Urban Mythic 2, Marion Pitman answers a few questions!

What is at the root of your Urban Mythic story?
There was a terrific writer called Paul Jennings, who had a column in The Observer from 1949 to the 1960s. The columns were collected into books, which is where I discovered them as a child. They are very clever, and very funny, but also often rather mystical. In one piece he writes about modern local deities, and mentions a cupboard from which draughts blow, and speculates that if you opened the door suddenly you’d see all the winds sitting inside. So I stole the idea and expanded it. I tried various ways of doing it until it finally came out like this.

How would you describe the kinds of stories you usually write and does this Urban Mythic story depart from that?
Well I write quite a lot of ghost stories, but I also write some fantasy and SF, and odd bits in other genres, sometimes humorous, so I’m not sure there’s any usual to depart from, really.


What are you currently reading?
China Miéville’s Railsea, Zoë Marriott’s The Night Itself – both brilliant – and Stella Gibbons’ Conference at Cold Comfort Farm – not a patch on the first book but still amusing.

If you could have dinner with any writer in your field (past or present) who would it be and why?
As to the present, too many to choose from, but from the past, I think I’d narrow it down to G.K. Chesterton or Charles Williams. GKC should be very good company, but I think I’d take Williams – his books are fascinating, take a bit of effort but are well worth it; he sounds an interesting person, and I don’t know much about him. And there would always be the possibility of some gossip about the other Inklings!

Room 101 time: what one genre cliché would you get rid of?
Difficult. I rather wish downbeat endings weren’t quite so much de rigueur. I’m old fashioned, I like the decent people either to triumph or to be avenged. I feel down if the villains don’t get their come-uppance.

What are you up to next?
Publishing wise, got a story due out next year in The Mammoth Book of Tales from the Vatican Vaults from Constable and Robinson, and if all goes well, next year also I should have a collection coming out from Alchemy Press. And hopefully watch some cricket before the season ends.

Urban Mythic 2: K T Davies Interviewed

Author of “For the Memory of Jane” in Urban Mythic 2, K.T. Davies answers a few questions!


Tell us a little about yourself and your writing.

My high school English teacher, Mr Tempest, told me that I wanted to be a writer before I realised I wanted to be a writer. He also told me that I wrote like James Joyce which I think had more to do with my inability to punctuate rather than content. I was ‘home schooled’ for a goodly chunk of my early childhood which amounted to running wild, exploring derelict buildings and feeding cake to feral cats. I think my, somewhat unconventional, childhood influenced my writing in many ways.

What is at the root of your Urban Mythic story?

Bradford has a long and grim and bloody history that really does include Vikings. For this story I pillaged anecdotes that I heard growing up. I think the ancestors would approve.

What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

It was from Robin Hobb at a reading/signing she did in Huddersfield (I think), many moons ago. My eldest child was a toddler and I was struggling to square the life/writing circle. In short and to paraphrase, it was along the lines of ‘don’t sweat the housework, write’.


What do you like to do when you’re not writing, and does it come in useful for your stories?

I like to paint and read and play games, which does indeed come in useful but then I find that everything does. I’m a bit of a magpie and file everything interesting away for later use.

How did you get into a knife fight and has the experience slipped into your fiction?

It’s not as exciting as it sounds but yes, a practical knowledge of arms and armour does help when writing ye olde fight scenes. I used to re-enact and had just arrived on site for a weekend of 17th century frolics when a friend and I tried out some new stabbers. The main-gauche (parrying dagger) I was using had rather flamboyant and somewhat pointless, as it turns out, quillons. I thought I’d caught my sparring partner’s blade on said quillons and stepped in, ready to administer the coup de grace.

Or so I thought.

His blade slipped free, and sheathed itself in my thigh. Voila! I won a scar, a ruined pair of jogging bottoms, and an anecdote.

Room 101 time: what one genre cliché would you get rid of?

I’d just consign lazy writing to room 101.

What are you up to next?

By the time this is posted I’d participated on some panels about all things nerdy at Loncon 3, the World SF Convention. I then attended FantasyCon in York where two of my favourite publishers were up for awards and where Urban Mythic 2 and my new novel Breed were both launched.

I’m currently trying to finish Breed 2 and the follow up to my first novel (The Red Knight), which is called The Golden Hart. I’m also editing an edition of the BSFA Focus magazine which will be about writing for computer games and comics, two of my other loves. I’ve also got another short story coming out later this year in Fox Spirit’s Mouse and Minotaur anthology.

Find out more about K.T Davies on her website here!

Urban Mythic 2: Pauline E Dungate Interviewed

Author of "Trapped in the Web" in Urban Mythic 2, Pauline E. Dungate answers a few questions!

Tell us a little about yourself and your writing.
I’ve always loved reading. We were introduced to the local library as soon as we were old enough to look after a book properly. At school a group of us used to make up stories and it went on from there. The only fiction I’ve had published are short stories but like most writers there are several novels in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. I also write poetry and lots of reviews (both under the name of Pauline Morgan.)

What is at the root of your Urban Mythic story?

Birmingham has such a diversity of people living in it. Most cultures have their own myths. I like the idea that the basis for them has a root in reality and just as you can’t totally leave your heritage behind when you migrate so why should the myth figures stay behind. For those who don’t know Birmingham, the Number 11 bus route circles the city. You can get trapped in circles. There are also elements in the story which relate to things others have told me, but they are there for colour.


You’ve travelled extensively – do you have any interesting stories from your travels? What locations are do you find particularly inspiring?

Until the last few years, travelling had to be confined to school holidays (I was a teacher) but without that restraint the opportunity to go to far off places has increased. Mostly, we go with a company running nature orientated tours but that has meant finding the wild areas in places such as Ecuador, Papua New Guinea and Armenia. They are likely to turn up in stories or poems.

What’s the most important thing you have learned about writing?

Keep trying. Not every editor likes what you do but eventually you’ll find one who likes some of it.

What aspects of writing to do you find the most tricky?

Beginnings and endings. I had to start this story three times before it felt right. At the end there is always a temptation to go on after the story has finished. Sometimes it takes a good editor to say stop.

Room 101 time: what one genre cliché would you get rid of?

All aliens look humanoid and speak English, sorry American. I’m sure some are fluent Chinese speakers.

What are you up to next?

Rest of the year is pretty busy – three cons, lots of books to review, stories to write, a serious Milford crit session before heading to the Greater Antilles (Caribbean) for three weeks in December.

Urban Mythic 2: Christine Morgan Interviewed

Author of "High School Mythical: Asgard" in Urban Mythic 2, Christine Morgan answers a few questions!

Tell us a little about yourself and your writing.

I’ve been a reader as long as I can remember. I love language. It’s like Play-Doh, a complete sensory experience that, with patience and practice, can make almost anything you imagine. Among my childhood friends, I was the storyteller who came up with ideas for let’s pretend, and constructed elaborate scenarios for my toys. As a teenager, I got into role-playing games as another outlet. Once I began attempting to write for real, I started with ‘traditional’ fantasy … but horror was my true calling. These days, it’s mostly historical horror and dark fantasy, with an emphasis on drawing from mythology, folklore, and various ancient cultures.

What is at the root of your Urban Mythic story?

I have a teenage (only teenage for a couple more months, egads!) daughter, and in watching her with her friends, her with her shows, the way some attitudes seem universal to the young … it got me thinking about the gods of various mythologies. Being immortal, being eternally young, having that sense of invulnerability and freedom from responsibility … and what a dangerous thing that is among those who have power. The behaviour of the Norse gods in the stories, and the Viking heroes in the sagas, can be seen a real high school / frat boy light, brash and boasting, drinking, fighting, sex, joking around. Plus, I grew up on those 80s teen movies, so it all fell together from there.


How strongly do standard mythological stories influence your work and is there a particular type of mythology you favour?

Hugely … my fascination with mythology began with a kids’ book of Greek myths way back in elementary school. From there, I branched out to explore stories of the other pantheons, the differences and similarities they shared. I majored in psychology and, if I had to specify a school of thought, I’d call myself a Jungian/Skinnerian. Archetypes, collective unconscious, and the effects on behaviour. I’m still most familiar with the Greek myths, but since then I’ve studied Norse, Mayan, Egyptian, Celtic, and many others. It’s hard to pick a favourite. A lot has survived from the times of Greece and Rome, which makes them easier to learn about … but so little has survived of the Norse and Mayan that it lends an extra level of mystery.

If you could kill off any character from any other book, who would you choose and how would they die?

That is quite the question! Any other book? By any other author? Hmm. Do I go big, epic? Like, say, Sauron? A smaller but more personal and sinister evil, like Iago? (What a prime bastard that guy was!) Dolores Umbridge, who was way worse than Voldemort, in my opinion? And kill … I’ve killed off plenty of my own characters, some of whom deserved it and some who definitely didn’t … I’ve certainly wanted to slap characters in other books (looking at YOU, Mrs. Bennet and most of Jane Austen’s) … but the only ones I’ve ever wanted to rid the world of were those who were just so badly written that the literary world as a whole would be better off without them. And that’s never really the character’s fault.

What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

Not the old “write what you know” clunker. I think that one’s done, and does, way more harm than good. How dull and limiting that would be. I prefer “write what you want to read.” The drawback, in my case, being that I want to read almost everything. For books on the craft, I’d go first and foremost with Stephen King’s On Writing, and the A Way with Words series of Modern Scholar lectures by Professor Michael D.C. Drout. Most of the truly best advice I’ve received, though, hasn’t come in words so much as by example, the examples of writers who love what they do, who have fun with it, and let that shine through on every page, no matter how dark the subject matter might be.

Room 101 time: what one genre cliché would you get rid of?

The Prophecy. The whole one destined chosen hero balance to the force save the universe no matter what a reluctant dimwit or twerp. Hate that. It usually goes hand-in-hand with boring, insipid main characters who, for supposed protagonists, are never very proactive.

What are you up to next?
My next horror novel, a non-sparkly vampire book called His Blood, is coming out soon from Belfire Press. I have stories in several upcoming anthologies, a lot of which are Lovecraftian or mythology-inspired (or both; myth-meets-Mythos is a blast!), and many Viking-themed tales. I’ve also recently taken on a few editing gigs, helping out with the Grimm Red/Black/White books from Fringeworks, a nature-run-amok anthology called Teeming Terrors from KnightWatch, and the Fossil Lake anthologies. The next convention on my schedule will be Portland’s BizarroCon in November, always an awesome time, though I’m also planning to drop by Bellingham ComicCon in October.

Find more information about Christine at her website here!

Cool Kickstarters: Holdfast, Accessing the Future, Clarkesworld Chinese

For those who love excellent fiction, there's some more funky fundraiser projects you should take a look at!  May I direct your attention to the Accessing the Future anthology, the Holdfast Magazine anthology and the Chinese translation campaign for Clarkesworld...

Accessing the Future - a SF anthology exploring disability & the intersectionality of race, class, gender & sexuality.

The Pitch:
"We are raising funds to publish a special anthology of disability-themed speculative fiction, Accessing the Future, co-edited by Kathryn Allan and Djibril al-Ayad, to be published by Futurefire.net Publishing.

"Futurefire.net Publishing is the publisher of both The Future Fire magazine of social-political speculative fiction, and of two previous anthologies, Outlaw Bodies (2012, co-edited by Lori Selke) and We See a Different Frontier (2013, co-edited by Fabio Fernandes). Djibril al-Ayad, a historian and futurist, co-edited both volumes and has edited TFF since 2005.

"Kathryn Allan is an independent scholar of feminist SF, cyberpunk, and disability studies, and is the inaugural Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellow (2013-14). She is editor of Disability in Science Fiction: Representations of Technology as Cure (2013, Palgrave MacMillan), an Associate Editor and Reader of The Future Fire, and her writing appears in both academic and popular venues. She tweets and blogs as Bleeding Chrome.

"This anthology will call for and publish speculative fiction stories that interrogate issues of disability—along with the intersecting nodes of race, nationality, gender, sexuality, and class—in both the imagined physical and virtual spaces of the future. We want people of all abilities to see themselves, as they are now and as they want to be, in our collective human future. The call for stories will open immediately after this fundraising campaign ends."

Why It's Cool: 
Dude, seriously, how is it not? As per Future Fire's previous and very excellent anthologies, this is an opportunity for seriously underrepresented voices to be heard, with stories that will cover disabilities in way that doesn't marginalize people's experiences by making their disability a cheap plot point.

The Link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/accessing-the-future

And speaking of underrepresented voices -

Clarkesworld: Chinese Science Fiction Translation Project - Clarkesworld magazine wants to translate and publish a Chinese science fiction story in each issue, funding is for the first year.

The Pitch:
"China has one of the largest science fiction reading populations in the world and has produced a significant body of work that has remained relatively unseen by English-speaking audiences. In recent years, a few stories and novels have made their way to English language publication, but we are unaware of any project to regularly feature Chinese works in a science fiction magazine.

"Clarkesworld Magazine has always aspired to publish stories from a global pool. It's our opinion that different perspectives make the genre stronger. We've published authors from all over the world, but quality translations have been few and far between. In recent years, thanks to the efforts of writer/translators Ken Liu and John Chu, it's been our privilege to publish five. These stories include:

• "The Fish of Lijiang" by Chen Qiufan (2013 Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards Winner)

• "A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight" by Xia Jia (2013 Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation Awards Honorable Mention, 2012 Locus Recommended Reading List selection, and reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2013 Edition, Rich Horton ed.)

• "Grave of the Fireflies" by Cheng Jingbo

• "Pepe" by Tang Fei

• "Spring Festival: Happiness, Anger, Love, Sorrow, Joy" by Xia Jia

"and we'd like to bring you even more.

"I've recently signed an agreement with Weixiang (Storycom International Culture Communication Co., Ltd.) to add a translated Chinese science fiction story to each issue of Clarkesworld. Each month, Storycom's team of experts will send us a list of stories they think would work well for us—much like we use our slush pile to choose our current fiction offerings. I'll select one from that pile and then work with the author and translator to get the story ready for publication. Every story will appear in all editions of Clarkesworld—our free online edition, podcast (audio fiction), ebook and digital subscriptions, print issues, and annual anthologies—and provide these authors with significant English language exposure. (They'll be paid too.)

"We believe that providing markets that actively publish translated fiction is good for readers, authors, translators, and the genre as a whole. Our past experience tells us this is something we are qualified to and should do."

Why It's Cool:
Because there needs to be way more translated fiction out there. And if Clarkesworld make their stretch goals, there'll be translated fiction from other regions of the world too which will be all the awesome.

The Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/clarkesworld/clarkesworld-chinese-science-fiction-translation-p

And for more awesome, check out -

The Holdfast Magazine Anthology - the first print anthology of Holdfast Magazine

The Pitch: "Holdfast is a free, online speculative fiction magazine (that means science fiction, fantasy, horror and all the stuff that falls between),that celebrates and examines these amazing genres. Check it out at www.holdfastmagazine.com

"The Holdfast anthology will be a beautiful artefact, comprised of new unpublished fiction, and some of the best articles from our online magazine, all in one, gorgeous good-quality paperback volume, including fantastic original artwork like this papercut piece from Issue 2 by Zoe Lee, as well as original cover artwork by artist Faye McNulty, who designed the Issue#2 header above.

"Read about a time-travelling law enforcer making a difficult choice, a cursed cycling tour that goes hopelessly and hilariously wrong, and what happens when the drugs don’t work on Sleeping Beauty in our fiction section. Discover what shark brains look like (spoiler: a human uterus), find out about the underrepresentation of Black women in science fiction, read a thank you letter to Margaret Atwood, and witness our attempts to convert a literary snob over to SFF in our non-fiction section."

Why It's Cool:
Because it's Holdfast Magazine, and Holdfast is fab. And there'll be some shiny new stories in it. Also there are not that many UK based online mags so supporting the ones we do have is always a good thing.

The Link: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/holdfast-magazine-anthology

Urban Mythic 2: Lou Morgan Interviewed

Tell us a little about yourself and your writing.

I’m a novelist and short story writer, and I bounce infuriatingly between any kind of genre that takes my fancy. So far, that’s urban fantasy and horror for both adult and teen readers, because at the end of the day, I just like telling stories.

My first novel, Blood and Feathers, was an urban fantasy involving hellmouths and sarcastic angels with drinking problems, handguns and secrets, and which was nominated for British Fantasy Awards in both the best newcomer and best fantasy novel categories. The sequel, Blood and Feathers: Rebellion, picks up the story, and has also been nominated in the best fantasy novel category for this year’s BFAs. I’ve also written short stories for people like PS Publishing, Jurassic, Fox Spirit and Solaris – and Alchemy Press, of course.

And I have two cats, because that’s the law if you write fantasy.

What is at the root of your Urban Mythic story?

The idea behind “Death and the Weaver” came from Breton folklore. I spent a lot of time in Brittany growing up, and still go back most summers, so I know the stories pretty well. My favourite was always the Ankou,  a skeletal Grim Reaper figure whose role was to collect the souls of the dead from each parish. On the face of it, it doesn’t sound that unusual, but the interesting thing about the Ankou is that he is always one of the parishioners himself: the soul of the last person to die in the year serves as the Ankou for a year and is then replaced. I love the idea that this could (and probably would) mean it was someone you knew – and I started to wonder how that would change your relationship with death.

Bringing the Ankou up to date was a lot of fun. I read as many versions of the legend as I could, which stretched my French about as far as it could go! In most of them, the Ankou is very tall and usually has long white hair and a head which constantly revolves (so no death escapes him). He carries a scythe with the blade pointing forward and rides a cart pulled by two horses – one fat and one thin. Not all of these would work in a modern setting … but the C in a Citroen 2CV originally referred to “chevaux” (horses), so…


You’re known for having soundtracks for your work – did “Death and the Weaver” have a soundtrack or particular song?

Funnily enough, it did! Along with the Breton folklore, I love Breton music and I have quite a lot of it. I started out having some of the more traditional songs playing in the background, but even modern Breton music still has strong folk roots so there’re lots of bagpipes and accordions in there. I ended up with two songs pretty much on a loop, both by Anthony Chaplain. One was “Marie de la Dondaine” (click here) and the other was “Bzh” – basically a mash-up of several different traditional songs. The title is the abbreviation for the Breton name for Brittany: Breizh. Those two songs between them probably came to feel like a part of the story.

How has the transition between writing adult and YA fiction been? Is there anything you can do with your YA work that you couldn’t do with your adult work? Or vice versa?

I’ve probably been very lucky in that the kind of books I want to write hover around the border between YA and adult fiction. I’m always interested in the idea of identity and responsibility, which are two of the biggest themes in YA and still incredibly relevant beyond that. I mean, who gets to 18 and says, “Yes, that’s it. I know exactly who I am. This is me.”?

I love having the opportunity and freedom to work in both fields and I hope I don’t treat them that differently (although, in fairness, I try to swear a bit less in YA!). The one big change I’ve found, though, is that I feel there have to be more consequences in YA. Not in a judge-y, lecture-y sort of way, but the Blood and Feathers books have, for instance, a fair amount of casual violence in them … and I don’t think I’d be comfortable writing that into a YA.

Room 101 time: what one genre cliché would you get rid of?

Every genre comes with its own set of clichés; they’re what help us identify them as a particular genre, aren’t they? I think I’d rather get rid of the idea that there’s “literary” fiction and “genre” fiction and never the twain shall meet. There’s a fair amount of snobbery in either direction, and that utterly infuriates me. There are as many different stories in the world as there are ideas and not all of them will appeal to everyone … and that’s OK.

What inspired you to run a marathon next year and where can people go to sponsor you?

If only it were a full marathon! I’m actually running a half-marathon (although that’s still 13 miles which is enough to make me weep at the moment): the Bath Half, in March 2015. I’ve thought about it for a couple of years now, and never managed to talk myself into it, but I did one many years ago (the Moonwalk, which takes place at night through central London) and I loved the challenge. I am, clearly, a glutton for punishment.

As part of that, I’m hoping to raise some sponsorship money for Kids Company, who operate centres in both London and Bristol to provide practical, emotional and educational support to vulnerable inner-city children. You can find out a little more about them on their website.

Their work is amazing and incredibly worthwhile, with the potential to make an enormous difference to so many children’s lives, but they need at least £13.5 million a year to keep doing it. Even the tiniest donation helps towards that and is incredibly welcome, so if anyone would like to sponsor my months of running (which, believe me, is something you won’t hear me saying very often) to train through the winter, and for the race itself, you can find my sponsor page here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/runloumorgan

What are you up to next?

I have a couple of stories I’m really excited about which should be surfacing in the near future. Besides “Death and the Weaver”, there’s a story about Oliver Cromwell’s other head which will appear in Fox Spirit’s Missing Monarchs issue of their Fox Pockets series, and I was thrilled to be asked to contribute to the third volume of the Zombie Apocalypse! anthologies. Zombies have never been my favourite monsters, so the chance to create one that interested me was too good to pass up.

The beginning of 2015 also sees the paperback release of Sleepless, my first YA book for Stripes Publishing as part of their Red Eye horror series, which follows a group of friends who take an unlicensed study drug they find on the internet. It’s all set around the Barbican and Smithfield meat market in central London, because ever since I lived there I knew I wanted to set a horror story there! And it’s probably not giving too much away to say that for it won’t end well for everyone…

For more information, check out loummorgan.wordpress.com or @LouMorgan

Nine Worlds Geekfest 2014

Short version: OMG!OMG!OMG! That! Was! Awesome!

Longer version:
Well gosh, that was fun. And if ever there was a convention that needs a lot of photos taking during it, it's Geekfest.  Alas, I took none. So you'll just have to take my word for the fact that there were so many cool costumes!  Harley Quinn, Dr Who and Ace, baby in a flying saucer pram, Judge Dredd, assorted manga type people, Daenerys, a Sharknado...! 

And panels.  Good lord, were there panels.  About a million of them, with a handy digital programme thing to make it easier to sort personal scheduling out.  Missed a load I wanted to go to because they clashed with other ones I wanted go to a bit more.  I need a Time Turner for next year, I think, so I can see all the things.

But what I did see - well, there was the Urban Fantasy panel, of course, which I live tweeted due to the perplexingly small amount of women being mentioned as having written urban fantasy and/or city based fantasy.  There'll be a blog forthcoming on that shortly, I think, as there's a lot of thinky thoughts bubbling in my head about urban fantasy, cities and visibility of women.  Though, apart from the issue with forgetting women authors, it was a good panel with some intriguing points made and the panellists were excellent. 

I also made it to the Time Travel panel; the Mythology and Fairy Tales panel; the Writing LGBTQ+ Characters in SFF talk by Laura Lam; the Rule 63: Gender and subversion in History, Popular Culture and Fandom panel; the 'It's A Man's World...': Where Are The Women In The Creative Industry? panel; the Looking Backwards panel, which was a cool history thing; and the podfic vs podcasts thing - which I somehow managed to not realise would be about fan fic, despite the fact it was in the fanfic track! But it was a fun one, and very interesting.

And I may have gone a bit mad shopping in the dealer room. And that's before the post-con book binge of buying up stuff recommended on panels and mentioned by lovely random people. And talking of people, I saw many, in that ships that pass in the night kind of way, and big hugs to Alasdair and Marguerite and Adrian and Adele and Ian who were particularly lovely and made the con just that bit better!

Definitely need to book up for next year. 

Wicked Women contents!

Why yes, we have a Wicked Women announcement!

Wicked Women
 Edited by Jan Edwards and Jenny Barber 

Presenting twelve stories of women who gleefully write their own rules, women who’ll bend or break the social norms, who'll skate along the edge of the law and generally aim to misbehave.

Contents:
(in alphabetical order, final order TBC)

A. R. Aston -  No Place of Honour
Stephanie Burgis - Red Ribbons
Zen Cho - The First Witch of Damansara
Jaine Fenn - Down at the Lake
Juliet E. McKenna - Win Some, Lose Some
Christine Morgan - The Shabti-Maker
Tom Johnstone - Kravolitz
Gaie Sebold - A Change of Heart
Sam Stone - The Book of the Gods
Adrian Tchaikovski - The Blessed Union
Jonathan Ward - A Change in Leadership
Chloë Yates - How to be the Perfect Housewife

Due to be published late 2014 from Fox Spirit Books

Urban Mythic 2: Cover, Launch, ToC

Darlings! Hello!  We have a launch date for the ever marvellous Urban Mythic 2!
We will be unleashing the Anthology of Awesome at Fantasycon in York, on Saturday 6th September at 2pm.  Hurrah!

Not only that, we have cover!  Well, prelim cover.  Slight changes may be made to the font-y bits, but, hey, look... pretty picture from Edward Miller!

And! Final order of contents!

The Mermaid  - Tanith Lee

For the Memory of Jane  - K T Davies

Where the Brass Band Plays  - Adrian Tchaikovsky

How to Get  Ahead in Avatising -  James Brogden

 La Vouivre -  Sarah Ash

Trapped in the Web - Pauline E Dungate

 The West Dulwich Horror  - Carl Barker 

The Cupboard of Winds  - Marion Pitman

Blood*uckers -  Chico Kidd

High School Mythical: Asgard -  Christine Morgan

Paradise Walk  - Andrew Coulthard 

Death and the Weaver - Lou Morgan

Are you excited? I'm excited! ;-)

Urban Mythic Miscellany

Oh what news we have for you my lovelies!

First, Urban Mythic #1 was kinda sorta nominated in the British Fantasy Awards.  Oh yes! Our very own Adrian Tchaikovsky made the Best Short Fiction short list with his story 'Family Business'.  Massive congrats to Adrian!

Our publisher overlords at Alchemy Press also made the short list for Best Small Press and Best Non Fiction (with Doors to Elsewhere by Mike Barrett); and with our loyal Fox Spirit editor hats on, we're also rather pleased that Fox Spirit Books also made the shortlists in Best Small Press, and Best Anthology (with Tales of Eve edited by Mhairi Simpson).  So epic glee all round!  (Not least because so many women made the BFA short lists this year as well. Hurrah!)

Now! Urban Mythic #2 news! 
Yes, my darlings, we have contents!  In alphabetical order, with proper order to follow anon, here be our fabulous people...

Sarah Ash – La Vouivre
James Brogden – How to Get Ahead in Avatising
Carl Barker – The West Dulwich Horror
Andrew Coulthard – Paradise Walk
K T Davies – For the Memory of Jane
Pauline E Dungate – Trapped in the Web
Chico Kidd – Blood*uckers
Tanith Lee – The Mermaid
Christine Morgan – High School Mythical:Asgard
Lou Morgan – Death and the Weaver
Marion Pitman – The Cupboard of Winds
Adrian Tchaikovsky – Where the Brass Band Plays

And! There will be a cover by Les Edwards - to be revealed at a later date.

Aaaaaalllll the awesome!

Adventures in Shopping Around

So here’s the thing… I love books (and really, what sane person doesn’t?) More specifically, I love e-books and will quite cheerfully buy vast quantities whenever funds allow, because, what’s not to love?  They take up no space, can be instantly downloaded, I can cart my entire library around in one e-reader which is a big bonus for travelling, and are also handy when I want to be lazy and not actually muck around with boxes stored under beds to find the book I fancy rereading.  I can read them on my kindle, on my iPad, on my laptop or on my iPhone if I squint a bit, so there’s also the bonus of back up options if one device gets a bit glitchy - which is why I very rarely buy dead tree versions of books these days.  Fiction reading and buying, for me, is always e-book format – oh there’s the odd exception if I’m at a convention and have a mad moment of buying something at a launch, or if there’s no e-book version available and I really-really want to read it (though if I don’t really-really want to read it I’ll not bother, and just make a note to keep an eye out in case it ever does get e-bookified.) 

So then the Amazon/Hatchette thing happened.  Marie Brennan does a summary here with handy linkage - so where does this leave the average e-book buyer if they want to keep feeding their habit but would kind of like to not screw over their beloved authors by their shopping choices?  

Happily, as far as the indies and smaller presses are concerned, there’s the option of buying direct from the publishers or from the lovely online Indie stores.  This is something I’ve been trying to do for the last couple of years – not so much because of Amazon’s policies (because I’ve not dug deep enough into them to make a fully educated decision and explain exactly why big corporate = bad), but more because I’m not a huge fan of the file format they do.  I want to have my e-books in DRM free epub or mobi formats that I can keep copies of on my own storage devices and easily chuck at whatever reading device I happen to be using.  I don’t want to be locked into Amazon owning my books or fiddling with them or generally losing them if I use a device without the kindle app. I want control of my books.

Previously I’ve bought smaller press books from Smashwords, Weightless Books, Book View Cafe, and Spacewitch, and also the sadly missed Wizards Towers Books when it was up and running.  I also buy direct from the Angry Robot Trading Co.  who do a few indies as well as their own books; and I keep meaning to try out the Rebellion Publishing store for all things Solaris/Abaddon and the Tor Books store for all things Tor! 

All of which is great, but if you want something from one of the bigger publishers, Amazon has always been the easiest go-to.  But after the AmaHatch grudge match, I decided to finally get around to checking out some of the other options for e-book buying – Nook and Kobo I’d heard about, and discussions on one of Juliet E. McKenna’s facebook posts brought Waterstones Online and Google Play to my attention, so I’ve been book-buying and downloading reading apps and here’s my not-very-technical-and-has-a-short-attention-span results!

The books: The first four books in The Mysteries of the Greek Detective series by Anne Zouroudi (buying 1 per venue!) – available from Amazon UK for £1.54

Comparison points: Price of book, file formats available, reading apps available, readability on the app-readers

General notes: At minimum I want to be able to read the e-book on either my kindle or iPad, and also my laptop as a back up if possible.  Therefore a downloadable and accessible file format I can convert to mobi is going to be preferable.  I’m not that bothered about the look of the store - so long as it has a basic search widget I can find my way to what I want.  And if there’s too much hassle in downloading reading apps or syncing content between devices I’m done with that venue.

Kobo
Price of Book: £2.63
File Format: Adobe DRM epub
Reading Apps: Kobo app for PC – easy to install and use; Kobo app for iPad – easy to install, a bugger to use and still hasn’t synced up to my account after 3 hours so no book has appeared in my library; iPhone – auto installed when I picked up the iPad app and the purchases sync up! Yay!
App Readability:  PC - short pages but readable.  Bit like a landscape PDF.   iPad – still hasn’t synced with my Kobo library so have no book to test it on!  iPhone – if you don’t mind the titchy screen with not a lot of content per page then definitely readable.
Will I use it again?  Probably not.  No auto sync to the iPad or quick solution to fix that is a big turn off. 

Nook
Price of Book: £1.54
File Format: Erm.. Adobe DRM epub?
Reading Apps:  PC – need Windows 8.0/1 – which I don’t have; iPad – app easy to install and instantly syncs to purchases; iPhone – auto installed when I picked up the iPad app and purchases sync up nicely.
App Readability:  iPad - Very readable, like it.  iPhone – again, if you don’t mind the titchy screen with not a lot of content per page then definitely readable.
Will I use it again? Probably.  Easy to shop, easy to read on the iPad but the lack of compatible PC app is annoying, and I’d quite like an open file format.

Waterstones
Price of Book: £2.99
File Format: Adobe DRM epub licensed for 6 devices
Reading Apps: PC – uses the Adobe Digital Edition – easy to install and use; iPad – uses Overdrive Media Console – easy to install, total bugger to actually use as it’s not syncing to my account; iPhone - ditto the iPad comments.
App Readability:  PC – readable, like the Kobo app you get that squashed landscape page feel but it’s clear and easy to use.  iPad – still hasn’t synced to my account and there’s no easy way to work out why and fix that.  iPhone - ditto the iPad comments.
Will I use it again? No.  Twice the price of the other stores and the mobile device sync failure is a pain in the ass and will take too much time and fiddling to sort out.

Google Play Books
Price of Book: £2.48
File Format:  erm? Dunno. Kept in the google cloud.
Reading Apps:  PC - online via Google Play website; iPad – easy to install and use; iPhone – auto installed when I picked up the iPad app
App Readability: iPad – very easy to read with easy navigation and easy typeface alteration options.  iPhone – easy to read, like it.
Will I use it again? Actually, probably.  Though the cloud access only thing will be a problem next time my internet connection goes down so it’s not ideal, but can see it as a good one for phone reading.

In conclusion – it’s likely that given time and further investigation the Kobo/iPad app problems and Waterstones/Overdrive app sync issues can be fixed but for a quick and easy option I’m erring towards Nook apps or Google Play.  Would still prefer a store that lets you download actual DRM free epub/mobi files though, so neither the Nook or Google Play are completely ideal. 

Wicked Women Call for Submissions

Darlings! The awesome team of Jen & Jan are doing a Fox Spirit anthology and we are open for submissions!

Official blurb type thing - 

Wicked Women

 Edited by Jan Edwards and Jenny Barber 

Regular readers of Fox Spirit books know that women are pretty bad-ass - be they evil queens, goddesses, super-villains or anti-heroes, warriors, monsters, bad girls, rebels, mavericks or quietly defiant - so with that in mind, we’re looking for stories of women who gleefully write their own rules, women who’ll bend or break the social norms, skate along the edge of the law and generally aim to misbehave.

Genres: any variation of fantasy, SF, horror and/or crime.
Length: 4000 – 8000 words
Format: doc/docx/rtf files – see the Fox Spirit house style guide for formatting requirements
Email as an attachment to: wicked@majorarcana.demon.co.uk
Please put ‘Submission: Wicked Women/story title’ in the email subject line
Deadline: 30th June 2014
Payment: £10 on publication, copy of the paperback and profit share for two years.

Odd notes -
[1] Yes, we're accepting stories from men too! Just make sure your lead is a woman.
[2] A leading woman can be cisgender or transgender or any person who chooses to self identify or present as a woman in the space of the story.

Urban Mythic 2 Call for Submissions

So, yes then, we're doing Urban Mythic #2!  Can I get a woohoo?  (Woohoo!)

Official Blurb!

We are seeking contemporary tales with all the magic and wonder of myth and legend, blending modern life with the traditions of folklore from around the world. Whether lurking in dark alleys or brash shopping malls, ensconced in upscale riverside penthouse lofts or humble suburban semis, we want to see the fantastic woven into the everyday. We want fiction that entertains but also pushes beyond the usual urban fantasy boundaries – action, folk tales re-imagined, mythic creatures adapting to the urban environment – be it noir, humour, dark, literary or light, there must be a recognisable mythic thread. Fully realised characters are a must and solid plots extremely desirable.

We don’t want: secondary worlds, steampunk, SF, zombies, human sacrifice, magic help-lines, paranormal romance love-triangles, erotica, religion, gore, and absolutely no poetry.

Electronic submissions only to Jan Edwards and Jenny Barber at tapboum@gmail.com. Send manuscript as an email attachment in standard manuscript format (in RTF/doc/docx). Both the email subject line and the manuscript file name must include: submissions – title – author’s name – word count (e.g., Submissions – My Great Story – Jane Doe – 5000 words). Full contact details must be included on the manuscript’s front/first page as well as in the email. Submission window closes 30 April 2014. No acceptances/rejections will be made until after this date.

We are seeking original fiction between 3,000 and 8,000 words. Payment is £10.00 for the first 5,000 words, then 0.2p per word on publication, plus a copy of the book. Payment is made via PayPal or UK cheque (overseas’ contributors must have a PayPal account).

The Alchemy Press intends to launch this book at FantasyCon in September 2014.

-x-
Right, official stuff having been said, here's the extra editor Jen bit that I said last year, and mean doubly this year.

Do not assume the guidelines don't apply to you. Seriously. The wordcount is firm (I repeat, the wordcount is FIRM.  Don't ask, just rewrite to fit.) and we're really serious about those things we don't want to see because, honestly, some of them don't apply to the theme, and some of them are things we've seen so many times in the slushpile our brains automatically shut down as soon as we see a story with them in.

So - to repeat, this is not an anthology for your poetry, secondary worlds, steampunk, SF, zombies, paranormal romance or erotica. We don't want to see human sacrifice, magic help-lines, heaven/hell as a corporation, mythic-beastie love triangles or relentless gore.

Also - do not send us fan fiction with the serial numbers filed off, main characters who spend the entire story in denial of the supernatural elements around them, anything remotely resembling a mid-life crisis, someone in the midst of writer's block (or other artist's block), anything with an obvious twist or dream endings (they rarely work). In fact, check out the Strange Horizons page on what they see too often, that pretty much covers a lot of the stuff that makes us cringe too!

And avoid anything vaguely epistolary. Due to excessive experience in multiple slushpiles, I can't read any story that's set out as letters/emails/diary entries/tweets etc.

Don't go overboard with the covering email - keep it short and to the point. If you use Word, don't forget to turn off your track changes and accept all changes before you send the doc, because it is very distracting when it all shows up. :-)

Don't waste your first page. Open strong, don't waffle, don't smack us in the face with an epic infodump on your story's version of the world or the complete history of your protagonist. We can work these things out as we read. Give us an interesting character and situation to make us keep reading.

Diversity is good.  No, scratch that. Diversity is awesome.  We're actively encouraging diversity in all elements of the anthology and are particularly interested in settings and cultures not traditionally covered in urban fantasy - just make sure they're well researched and not exoticised. Picking a location just because it looks shiny is a no-no - give us depth and a respectful understanding of the local culture and folklore. Likewise with your choice of protagonist - we're very open to diverse perspectives and hearing the stories of people who are traditionally underrepresented in urban fantasy.  See the Resources page for links to useful articles on avoiding cultural appropriation etc.

I like humour and satire and generally fun stories. A bit of subtle social commentary never goes amiss so long as it doesn't get overbearing or preachy. I like stories that are fast and to the point, with plenty of plot-related action. I like things that introduce new concepts and that mash up genres. I also like stories that are slower and create an atmosphere, things with a decent plot that are also mood pieces. I've a soft spot for a gorgeously turned phrase, though watch out that it doesn't go purple.

Mainly it's all about the characters. I can forgive a lot in a story, but if the characters are thin or cliche or generally unpleasant assholes with no story logic behind their personality, then I lose interest. I have very low tolerance for obsessively racist/sexist/homophobic characters, even if they meet a grisly end. I like characters whose choices move the plot along, characters who have a strong voice and obvious personality. I prefer characters with a bit of experience in their profession and/or with the mythic element of the story, as I've read far too many stories where a newbie is just discovering the weird things and spends the whole story having everything explained to them. 

But other than that, we're flexible.  ;-) 

The Cool Reads (and other shiny stuff) of 2013 Post

And lo, there were many funky stories read in 2013....

Though I didn't read nearly as much online fiction as in previous years, recommended shorts from the year-that-was include:
Abyssus Abyssum Invocat by Genevieve Valentine - Lightspeed (February 2013)
As Large as Alone by Alena McNamara - Crossed Genres (July 2013)
The Crimson Kestrel by Leslianne Wilder - Beneath Ceaseless Skies (February 2013)
Death Comes Sideways to the Mall by William Alexander - Apex Magazine #46
Dreams of Peace by Dana Beehr - Beneath Ceaseless Skies (May 2013)
The Drowned Man by Laura E. Price - Beneath Ceasless Skies (May 2013)
A Family for Drakes by Margaret Ronald - Beneath Ceaseless Skies (March 2013)
Forgiving Dead by Jeff Stehman - Daily Science Fiction (May 2013)
From the Book of Names My Mother Did Not Give Me by Christine V. Lao - Expanded Horizons (April 2013)
In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind (part 1) (part 2) by Sarah Pinsker - Strange Horizons (July 2013)  
In Metal, In Bone by An Owomoyela - Eclipse Online (March 2013)
A Little Sleep by Melissa Mead - Daily Science Fiction (May 2013)
Mermaid's Hook by Liz Argall - Apex Magazine #46
Of Ash and Old Dreams by Sarah Grey - Daily Science Fiction (June 2013)
The Princess and Her Tale by Mari Ness - Daily Science Fiction (May 2013)
Pythian Games by Tom Doyle - Daily Science Fiction (March 2013)
Singing Like a Hundred Dug-up Bones by Alex Dally MacFarlane - Beneath Ceaseless Skies (May 2013)
Swan Song by Melissa Mead - Daily Science Fiction (April 2013)
With Tales in Their Teeth, From the Mountain They Came by A.C. Wise- Lightspeed (January 2013)
Town's End by Yukimi Ogawa - Strange Horizons (March 2013)

Anthologies:
There were some cracking anthologies published in 2013, if you haven't already picked them up, go check out:
Glitter and Mayhem, John Klima & Michael Damian Thomas (eds) (Apex Book Company)       
Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond, Bill Campbell, Edward Austin & Edward Hall (eds) (Rosarium Publishing)       
Noir Carnival, K. A Laity (ed.) (Fox Spirit Books)       
Tales of Eve, Mhairi Simpson (ed.) (Fox Spirit Books)       
Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction, Mariano Villarreal (Editor), Sue Burke (Translator), Lawrence Schimel (Translator) (Sportula) (First English translation edition in 2013)       
The Book of the Dead, Jared Shurin (ed.) (Jurassic London)       
The Other Half of the Sky, Athena Andreadis & Kay T Holt (Candlemark & Gleam)       
We See a Different Frontier: A postcolonial speculative fiction anthology, Djibril Al-Ayad and Fabio Fernandes (Futurefire.net Publishing)       
What Fates Impose, Nayad Monroe (ed.) (Alliteration Ink)       
Winter Well: Speculative Novellas About Older Women, Kay T. Holt (ed.) (Crossed Genres)       

Collections! (Because you can never have enough short stories!)
Across the Event Horizon, Mercurio D. Rivera (Newcon Press)
Conservation of Shadows, Yoon Ha Lee (Prime Books)       
How the World Became Quiet, Rachel Swirsky (Subterranean Press)       
Kabu Kabu, Nnedi Okorafor (Prime Books)
This Strange Way of Dying, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Exile Editions)

Artists who did beautiful beautiful art! 
Alexandra Knickel (Assorted covers, including this Lightspeed one)       
Amy Mebberson (Pocket Princesses web comics)   
Edvige Faini (assorted covers, including this Lightspeed one)
Halil Ural (this Lightspeed cover)
Julie Dillon (assorted covers - I am an unashamed fangirl of her work!)       
Mats Minnhagen (assorted covers)       
Renee Nault (assorted illustrations and web comics)       
Sarah Anne Langton (assorted covers)       
Sara K. Diesel (cover of This Strange Way of Dying)       
Sutthiwat Dechakamphu (assorted covers, including this Lightspeed one)       
Tina Marie Lane (assorted covers)       
Zack Fowler (assorted covers)       
Zsófia Tuska (assorted covers, including this Beneath Ceaseless Skies one) 

The 2013 round up post

... because why not.  ;)

Sooo (as all great blog posts are wont to start...) 2013 then.  That was a year.  Quite a good one for me actually.

I had two short stories published in two very excellent Fox Spirit anthologies:
Past Lives in Piracy - this one being a spin off of the mermaid-pirate stories I keep writing, though it's more about the human pirate that's hunting them and how that is a very bad idea... 

To Fox Tor Mire in Shapeshifters - this one being a Maddy Cain story where the sins of the mother come back to bite the daughter on the ass... (one day I will finish a novel length urban fantasy thing with my beloved fox-mage trickster girl, until then, there will be many shorts...)

Speaking of - there's another Maddy Cain story due out at some point from Elektrik Milk Bath Press in their Urban Fantasy anthology - no idea when though, probably sometime in late 2014.

With my editor hat on (it has sparkles and feathers and room for spare red pens) the big one was The Alchemy Press Book of Urban Mythic which I'm well chuffed about. I always have a lot of fun co-editing with Jan Edwards, and Urban Mythic managed to get a fantastic line up and launched quite well too.

In fact, so well did it go, that we're doing Urban Mythic 2 in 2014!  Full guidelines will be up shortly for that!

Oh, and, Alchemy did a quickie interview with us about the anthology here.

And, not only that, but we'll also be doing a rather wicked little anthology with Fox Spirit Books towards the end of the year.  More news on that lovely thing another time...

Convention wise, there was, of course, WFC.  Which was all work.  And as mentioned previously, 2014 is going to be convention play year - I'm  definitely going to Nine Worlds Geekfest and Fantasycon (unless next-cousin-to-be-married picks that weekend for the festivities), and am hoping to get to BristolCon and EdgeLit, depending on time and finances.

With my academic hat on (extra pockets for emergency chocolate) I started my penultimate module for the history degree - Myth in the Greek and Roman worlds - which continues to be an awesome course.  Oh, and there's also the book keeping course thingy I'm doing alongside it as the family business keeps inventing new ways to challenge me and generally drive me insane and someone needs to understand the all new complicated numbers stuff...

Cool fiction read I'll cover in another post, because the short fiction list will probably go on a bit... and according to Goodreads I read 104 books last year.  ::blinks:: 

Other than that, there was little sister's wedding, of which I'm just about over the trauma of wearing a bridesmaid dress, though the psychological scars from being trapped with that many relatives in one go will likely last a while longer...  ;-P