Not The Fox News: The Long Con: LonCon 3 Part 1

 

LonCon 3 was the largest convention I’ve been to this year and the one with the most relentlessly varied, and huge, program. In the space of 3 days I recorded a live podcast, moderated a panel, sat in on several other panels, met some of the best people in the field and realized I couldn’t discuss this in a single column. So, below is a look at the structure of LonCon 3, what it did well, and what it didn’t. My personal experiences will be in the next column along.

I’d go get a coffee.

You’ve got time.

What was the shape of LonCon 3? A couple of years ago my friend Pablo Cheesecake described Edge Lit as a little like being inside his Twitter feed. LonCon 3 was a little like holding your twitter feed in front of your face and letting the information smack you in the face for three straight days. It was an intense, for the most part incredibly positive experience.

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Updating all the things.

Aunty Fox Lahiri

Aunty Fox has been busy this weekend updating our book pages for you. Author page updates are also underway, but for a quick check of agreed titles from now till, well quite honestly well into 2016 go here and see what is already available and what is coming up.

I will be updating other parts of the site between now and FantasyCon so check back from time to time and don’t forget to tell us via twitter @foxspiritbooks, our FB page or our contact forms what you would like to see on the site.

Other recent additions to the site include ‘The Approximately True Story of Fox Spirit

FS origin

And ‘Ssh I’m Reading‘ where we flag up other small presses, blogs and podcasts we think are worth your time.

New Titles 

25 Ways to Kill a Werewolf by Jo Thomas, Burning by Joan De La Haye and Breed by K.T.Davies are all now available via amazon as paperbacks and ebooks will be available soon.

Both volumes of The Girl at The End of the World are now available as paperback and ebook.

Look out for updates on King Wolf, Heart of Fire and Only A Dancer all coming soon.

FantasyCon 2014

A number of FS authors will be at FantasyCon in York this September.

Aunty Fox will be attending that and doing the following:

FRIDAY
4.00pm – Rejectamentalist Manifesto
The gory details of building an anthology and why stuff gets rejected
Terry Grimwood (m), Jonathan Oliver, Adele Wearing, Ian Whates, Peter Coleborn
8:20pm Joan De La Haye Reading from ‘Burning’
 
and 
 
SATURDAY
11:00am – BREED LAUNCH with K.T.Davies
Breed Poster
12.00 Noon – Charlaine Harris in Conversation
Adele Wearing interviews one of our literary Guests of Honour
6.00pm – We’ve Got It Covered
What are the elements of great cover design? From artwork and design, through to cover copy and author blurbs.
Larry Rostant, Jim Pitts, Marc Gascoigne, Helen Marshall, Adele Wearing (m)

A number of the skulk will also be attending the awards ceremony as we have been shortlisted for Best Small Press and Best Anthology.

Shortlisted for Best Small Press & Best Anth 2014
Shortlisted for Best Small Press & Best Anth 2014

 

 

Starfang Chapter 12

So here we are at the conclusion of our superb web serial. Joyce’s novel ‘Heart of Fire’ will be out soon with Fox Spirit Books and if you’d like to see StarFang available as a novel please let us know. You can tweet @FoxSpiritBooks or use our contact page on the website. We are also keeping the giveaway open until the end of August, send us your fan art to be in with a chance of a copy of Heart of Fire in paperback. – Aunty Fox

***

Chapter Twelve

I spent a month recovering in Noah’s Ark. Of course, I was reprimanded by Mother and Father. I let my quarry get away. What happened to the blood feud? Why wasn’t I chasing him? They were shocked by the news of my craz addiction. Father wanted to pull me off-duty, but I fought and argued with him. I lost Mariette. I wanted revenge. It was more than clan honor now –  it was truly blood feud now. Yeung Leung had effectively drugged and killed Mariette, in spirit and in body. He had her blood – and countless others – on his hands. He had killed kin. My hatred for him burned like a white star.

Dr Myint and his colleagues worked on my right arm and hand. Some flesh was restored, but my right arm was

now crooked and unable to move. Even turning now was agony. My body was broken. Looking at my arm made my heart lurch. It was never easy, trying to reconcile t the shrunken arm with its former healthy version. With luck, Dr Myint reassured me, the arm would regain some tone.

In the midst of all this, Yeung Ma and her brother were kept in the clan prison for high-level criminals. They were given adequate food and water.

Lien was surprisingly welcomed by my clan, given her feral status and an Amber Eyes-Pariah child. She played with my younger cousins and cousins’ children, Mog play-bowing and happy to have play mates. Yet I caught Mother’s glance a few times, that calculating gleam in her eyes. She had something in mind and I didn’t like the taste of it.

Help her, the message had said. Help her.

When the month was over, I was ready for the hunt. The hunt for Yeung Leung.

Starfang slipped out of dock, like a silent predator.

 

 

Not The Fox News: The Long Con 1: Nine Worlds

For the longest time, conventions were Valhalla for me. Growing up on a small island in the middle of the Irish sea meant that culture, certainly pop culture, was something that washed up on the shore in fits and starts. The closest we had to a multiplex was two whole screens, there were three bookshops, a couple of video shops and every year the same four metal bands would play during TT week. Nothing wrong with a bit of The Almighty, or even Status Quo, but when your cultural options are as bounded as your geographical location, it can get old.

So, conventions, for me, were the place I would eventually end up. It would be like Cheers, I’d walk through the door into an infinite, yet somehow intimate, room full of fellow geeks and they’d all say my name and the audience would cheer and then Kelsey Grammer would get a spinoff show. It would be easy. It would be GREAT. It would happen as soon as I went to the mainland.

None of those things turned out to be true.

 

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’25 Ways to Kill a Werewolf’ in the Wild!

I am delighted to announce that 25 Ways to Kill a Werewolf will be available in print this week from Amazon.

August titles will be available as ebooks in September from Amazon and Spacewitch

‘My name is Elkie Bernstein. I live in North Wales and I kill werewolves.’

When Elkie finds herself fighting for her life against something that shouldn’t exist she is faced with the grim reality that werewolves are real and she just killed one. Part diary, part instruction manual Elkie guides the reader through 25 ways you can kill a werewolf, without any super powers, and how she did it.

25 Ways Front 72ppi

Jo Thomas is also one of the Editors on ‘European Monsters’ coming out at the end of this year.