Swoon at our fabulous cover art by the remarkable S. L. Johnson
Submissions for the anthology come to me steadily: sometimes slipped under darkened doors, wiggling up through drains and occasionally, I find them lying on the cheap hotel room dresser after someone slipped me a mickey and left me stranded. In the past week I’ve been staggering from one continent to another, suffering from a throat infection and blood poisoning (yeah, it’s all weird all the time for me; I don’t just edit the stories, I live the life). I’m currently holed up in bucolic upstate New York and getting ready to dive into the submissions pool. I can only guess what dark shudders await me.
Here’s the skinny: in the next two weeks, I’ll make my decisions on what makes the cut. Then there’ll be some tinkering with the tales. When I’ve slapped it all together, I’ll send it to the Fox Spirits who will work their magic on it, producing a shiny book while I’m out hectoring ne’er-do-well bigwigs for shiny blurbs.
In time for the Halloween season and for Noir Con (www.noircon.info) in Philly, the book will hit the virtual streets, casting its irresistible weird spell before you all. You won’t even see it coming when it hits you. But you’ll like it, all right. No doubt about that.
We are still aiming for a 31st August release however because everything has to be perfect we may not be live with the ebook until Monday 3rd September 2012. It’s looking good though and just to whet your appetite here is another of the illustrations, there are five internal illustrations in total by Keiran Walsh and they will all be in black and white in the book.
and the final line up of authors is:
Sarah Cawkwell, Mhairi Simpson, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Jasper Bark, Mark E West, Joan De La Haye, Simon Bestwick, Colin F Barnes, Andrew Reid, Ren Warom, Pat Kelleher, Cat Connor, Peter Ray Allison, S.J.Caunt, Wayne Simmons, Geraldine Clark Hellery, V.C.Linde, Catherine Rogers, Jay Faulkner, Sammy HK Smith, Francesca Terminiello, K.A.Laity, Karen Davies.
Some of them you already know well, some of them I expect you will be hearing a lot more from soon. I can’t wait to unleash it on the world.
There will be a limited edition print run to follow.
A couple of updates on the Tales of the Nun & Dragon
First of all Karen Davies whose story The Last Hunt will be appearing in the book was interviewed over on ‘Tony’s Thoughts‘ about her novel The Red Knight and other stuff.
Also, because at FS we are just too good to you, we had a little teaser done for the anthology, in song form. Sarah Cawkwell’s submission ‘The Ballad of Gilrain’ includes parts of a ballad, which is now complete and has been recorded by the talented Adam Broadhurst (Under a Banner).
You can listen to the track right here or on our ‘Bushy Tales’ page where it will remain.
And because I am so good to you, here are the lyrics:
GILRAIN
Oh come ye now from far and near to hear this tale I tell
A song of courage, dragons, knights and… other things as well
A story of a hero, of a warrior made for greatness
(And even better would he be were he not prone to lateness).
Gilrain, our hero, was a bright young hero to the core
He’d killed such things as unicorns (and saw a minotaur).
But like the best of warriors, our hero had a dream…
A dragon he would slay to be his bestiary’s cream.
So with his faithful friend our hero trod the forest’s floor
In search of dragons he could kill and how the rain did pour!
It positively threw it down and everything was soaking
And Gilrain’s patience wore quite fine… it did! D’you think I’m joking?
Therin and Gilrain did take up shelter in the trees
When suddenly they heard a roar that brought them to their knees
An angry dragon flew near by, and wanted them for dinner
Therin, he began to pray… although he was no sinner.
But Gilrain… well, he knew no fear and soon he was a-fightin’
The dragon roared and fought and scratched and even tried a-bitin’
Our hero though… he stood his ground and just when things got hairy
He stuck his sword right through it’s eye – the sight it was quite scary!
The dragon slain, our hero stooped to fetch once more his sword
Imagine then his horror when the gods of thunder roared!
A bolt of lightning struck the weapon he had used to fight
And Gilrain’s monster dragon rose again! A horrid sight!
Can you imagine such a thing? A slaughtered dragon rising?
Gilrain and Therin stood there for it was quite mesmerising.
Then coming to their senses did the best they’d done all day…
Our heroes turned their backs and from the dragon… ran away.
They made it to the ‘Nun and Dragon’ tavern where they rested
And told their story to the people there whilst they were guest…ed.
The hero managed to procure a dragon’s tooth for gold,
And so they hired me to write this ballad (which I’ve told).
So come ye now from far and near to hear this tale I tell
A song of courage, dragons, knights and… other things as well.
A ballad for our young Gilrain and Therin – aye, him too…
A hero for our times in all the things that he will do.
Artist Kieran Walsh is providing the internal art for the Nun & Dragon anthology and here is a sneak preview of one of those images. There will be six in the book in total.
Yesterday Fox Spirit sealed the deal on publishing an anthology of Weird Noir edited by K.A. Laity, to come out later this year.
Here is K.A. Laity on the concept “The ambience is pure noir but the characters aren’t just your average molls and mugs—the vamps might just be vamps. It’s Patricia Highsmith meets Shirley Jackson or Dashiell Hammett filtered through H. P. Lovecraft. Mad, bad and truly dangerous to know, but irresistible all the same.”
This will be an exciting addition to the 2012 publishing schedule and a wonderfully entertaing read. More to come on this soon.
I’m pleased to announce that Fox Spirit will be publishing, toward the end of the year, an anthology edited by Mhairi Simpson.
This is what Mhairi has to say about the anthology: ‘Weird Science, Stepford Wives, that episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer… Genre fiction abounds with tales of men creating (or attempting to create) the perfect woman.
Now it’s the woman’s turn. But being female, she’s flexible. She doesn’t just want to create the perfect man. She wants the perfect companion, be it man, beast or washing machine.’
I love this concept and am excited to see the results.
We are presently putting together our first anthology ‘Tales of the Nun and Dragon’.
‘The Nun & Dragon is an old pub, although not England’s oldest. Still, even before a pub stood there the site seemed to draw travellers who had a tale to tell. It sits in a small English village with one of those odd names like ‘Barton on the Beans’ or ‘Sheepy Magna’, though it isn’t either of those.
It’s not a place you find by looking, it’s a place you stumble across when your armour is scorched and bent or your hair bleached white by an encounter with an unholy order. There is a reason it’s known as ‘The Nun & Dragon’ after all.
It’s a place that draws stories, the kind no one would believe if you told them somewhere else, but here, where the homebrew tastes slightly of honey and cinnamon and the fire is always blazing, people will take you at your word.
If you collected all the stories ever told at The Nun and Dragon you would see all of history and culture from our world and possibly, if the tellers are to be trusted, beyond it, gathered there. ‘
Tales told include almost traditional slayings, things that won’t stay dead, fables, a PI taking a case from a nun with an unusual problem, and nunsploitation. This is a collection of unusual stories, spanning multiple genres and exploring the theme from every angle.
We have cover art by Vincent Holland-Keen and internal illustrations by Kieran Walsh. The list of authors will be announced after submissions close on 1st July.
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