I’m delighted to announce that something which has been bubbling in the background for a while is now opening to submissions.
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.’
Details posted on the Submissions page but please note that submissions go directly to wickedATmajorarcana.demon.co.uk in this instance not the usual address.
‘Drag Noir’ has now closed for submissions and I am looking forward to seeing what K.A.Laity produces from the third in the Noir series of books. Once again we have artist S.L.Johnson working on the cover.
After the reception to Tales of Eve Mhairi Simpson is back on board editing an invitation only follow up ‘Daughters of Eve’ loosely inspired by women of HEMA (historical european martial arts) and the release of The Lost Giganti.
Fox Spirit Books secret origin story begins with music…
“Fortune favours the bold.”
It’s typical that what I learned from cult TV is a little wrong. I never get quotes right. I gave that quality to the main character in one of my novels (Owl Stretching) because it amused me. Fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer may recognise this mangling of the line from the chilling episode Hush, “Fortune favours the brave.” I like the Latin version which has been attributed to Virgil, Audaces fortuna iuvat. I say it to my students all the time.
They think it’s one of my ‘very intellectual things’ I try to cram into their heads.
The smarter ones soon realise that I am as likely to quote from Buffy as I am from Beowulf. In the end they’re similar narratives (hmmm, new course idea…): Heroes coping with monsters, calling on friends, fighting evil to make a better world. While the Anglo-Saxon poem may have more gravitas in our shared culture, more people are likely to have been inspired by the television series — partly because Beowulf is often so badly taught, but hey, tv+DVDs+streaming=a whole lot of fans.
Even in academia, the study of popular culture has a long history. It used to be primarily a way of feeling the pulse of the populace, but now as scholars embrace their own geekiness, they delve into the depths and breadth of popular culture across the world. But it’s the personal effect that matters most to me: all the times I have muttered to myself, “Fortune favours the bold,” when I hesitated from taking a step or putting myself out there. I wasn’t thinking of Virgil, I was thinking of Buffy. And I did it — I was bold. I dared. Thank you, Buffy (and Joss and Sarah Michelle and everyone).
Fox Spirit Books was founded on the power of cult TV: we suspect you know its power, too. So we had this idea to crowdsource a little guide from the skulk, THINGS WE LEARNED FROM CULT TV.
Have you got a little story or anecdote for us? Have you felt the power of cult tv? Share it here. Don’t be shy. After all, fortune favours the brave. Just add something short in the comments below (be sure we have a way to contact you) and we will be in touch.
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Note from Aunty Fox.. We will be running blogs under the ‘Things we learned from Cult TV throughout 2014 with a view to collecting them in an ebook in 2015.
Drag is a broad concept; noir is a fairly narrow one. Drag can be a way of playing with gender or it can be a matter of survival. In the noir world, it can be almost anything: camouflage, deceit, truth — or a skin to be shed at will.
Otto Penzler has always been really strict in his idea of noir:
Look, noir is about losers. The characters in these existential, nihilistic tales are doomed. They may not die, but they probably should, as the life that awaits them is certain to be so ugly, so lost and lonely, that they’d be better off just curling up and getting it over with. And, let’s face it, they deserve it.
Pretty much everyone in a noir story (or film) is driven by greed, lust, jealousy or alienation, a path that inevitably sucks them into a downward spiral from which they cannot escape. They couldn’t find the exit from their personal highway to hell if flashing neon lights pointed to a town named Hope. It is their own lack of morality that blindly drives them to ruin.
I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, but I think noir ends up being a fairly bleak place — one where any bit of glamour or adopted power can be worth the gamble of discovery. It may even be worth flaunting it.
Can you tell who’s Dressed to Kill?
As RuPaul advises,”When the going gets tough, the tough reinvent.”
That’s what we want for DRAG NOIR: this is a call for stories where glamour meets grit, where everyone’s wearing a disguise (whether they know it or not) and knowing the players takes a lot more than simply reading the score cards. Maybe everyone’s got something to hide, but they’ve got something to reveal, too. Scratch the surface and explore what secrets lie beneath — it’s bound to cost someone…a lot.
Mercedes McCambridge in ‘A Touch of Evil’
An anthology is not a democracy; it’s a benevolent dictatorship. All editors have their tastes or quirks: if you want a clue to my sensibilities, check out my extensive bibliography and of course, read Weird Noir and Noir Carnival.
Stories should be:
Previously unpublished anywhere
Not submitted anywhere else
Length 3-8K
Formatted: Times New Roman, regular, 12 point; 1″ margins; 1 space after full stop; lines spaced 1.5; use paragraph formatting to indent first line not tabs; no header/footer
Identified with a title, your name (and pen name identified as such), working email address on the first page: file name should include your surname & the title
Submitted in RTF format via email to katelaity at gmail with your name, the story title and total word count included in the body of the email; make sure the Subject line includes “Submission: Drag Noir” + your name
Due by March 20, 2014.
We will ask for world-wide print & ebook rights for a year and pay £10 via Paypal plus a copy of the paperback. The fabulous Stephanie Johnson has been persuaded to create another fabulous cover image! We plan to launch the book in July 2014.
Nearly at the end of November and Fox and Fae just has a couple more minor processes to go through before we get it out to you at long last.
In the mean time the Second Fox Pocket ‘Shapeshifter’ has been released. It’s a dark little volume full of grim twisty tales. Grab it now at lulu!
We’ve also released our first Vulpes publication, ‘The Lost Second Book of Giganti’ which is available from amazon for an absolute bargain price. There are also a few of the hand leather bound limited editions available over at Spacewitch. We will be able to show you the gorgeous cover going on those very soon.
We also wanted to draw attention to a submission call over at Spectral Press. Spectral create gorgeous books that are a joy to own and read and we thought this one might be right up your street as writers and readers. After all, who can resist Industrial Horror!
‘You know how chance remarks made by someone often spark off ideas? This is just such a case. Over the weekend, horror writer extraordinaire Adam Nevill posited the idea of industrial horror, which set off a chain-reaction in the sparking brain matter of Simon Marshall-Jones and, after his twitching, writhing body had stilled, he proclaimed that he was going to put together and publish an anthology of such stories. ‘ Read more over at the Spectral site.
Ummm, Apparently I never did a line up for Guardians announcement, very remiss of me, so here is the line up in no particular order for Fox Pocket three.
Running order will be available nearer the release date.
Alasdair Stuart – Fat Angels
Geraldine Clark-Hellery – The Guardian
Jack Gaunt – Dreaming
Chris Galvin – Arabesque
Rahne Sinclair – Warden of Valdr
Chloe Yates – Well our feeble frame he knows
Colin Sinclair – Phased
Jonathan Ward – Gateway
Margret Helgadottir – Lost Bonds
Paul Starkey – Swung
Den Patrick – Wrecked
Alec McQuay – Of the Glare
Emma Teichmann – Re-Semblance
James Fadeley – Favours the Prepared
Christian D’Amico – Defiant
Catherine Hill – My guardians guardian
Shapeshifters edits are back from authors so I shall be pulling the running order together in the next week or so. Looking forward to this, some really excellent and unusual stories in there.
I will be updating the website with details of our latest signings including Leicester author Hardeep Sangha and everything else we are up to, with the exception of our new non fiction imprint which will be unveiled later this year. It’s a little different for us but exciting none the less.
Submissions for ‘Girl at the End of the World’ close on the 31st August and I will then be making decisions as quickly as possible on which stories will be included. We have had a very high standard of entry and there are lots to choose from. ‘Missing Monarchs’ is now closed and I will announce the next closing date soon but it will be near the end of the year as Monarchs is the last pocket we expect to produce in 2013.
I have at least one remaining author post and some interviews on Joan’s blog to share with you all too. So busy days in the den.
Ok foxy folk we have a new anthology call for Christmas Release.
‘Girl at the End of the World’.
What we want: pre, during, post and not remotely related to apocalyptic stories, in the SF, Fantasy, Horror and Crime genres. Clearly female lead characters who pack a punch. Roughly speaking 5,000-10,000 words per story.
It’ll be £10 token payment, a copy of the finished book and if it clears it’s costs profit share for the first two years sales.
The closing date is 31st August 2013 so we can get it sorted in time for a Christmas release, because nothing says Merry Christmas like the end of the world.
These details will be added to the submissions page, where you can already find details of house style etc for your story submission.
If you’ve submitted in the last week or so to any of our other books I will be updating the tracker soon, sorry for the delay.
Also we are still accepting author posts for the blog.
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
Shapeshifters is going through editing and I will release the running order and some teasers as soon as I possibly can. In the mean time, Pirates is imminent.
Dark’s Carnival has already left town, but it’s left a fetid seed behind. There’s a transgressive magic that spooks the carnies and unsettles the freaks. Beyond the barkers and the punters, behind the lights and tents where the macabre and the lost find refuge, there’s a deformity that has nothing to do with skin and bones. Where tragic players strut on a creaking stage, everybody’s going through changes. Jongleurs and musicians huddle in the back. It seems as if every one’s running, but is it toward something—or away?
Carnival: whether you picture it as a traveling fair in the back roads of America or the hedonistic nights of the pre-Lenten festival where masks hide faces while the skin glories in its revelation, it’s about spectacle, artificiality and the things we hide behind the greasepaint or the tent flap. Lead us on a journey into that heart of blackened darkness and show us what’s behind the glitz.
Touchstones (to give you a sense of the breadth of the net cast):
John Webster’s “skull beneath the skin” • Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love • Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus • Gargantua & Pantagruel • Pinocchio (the novel! Not the Disney atrocity) • Papa Lazarou • Doctor Lau • Ray Bradbury’sSomething Wicked This Way Comes • Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal • Leonor Fini
Surprise me, delight me, make me afraid of the shadows of a warm summer night, rip my guts out and stuff them back in again. Just don’t bore me. All editors have their tastes or quirks: if you want a clue to my sensibilities, check out my extensive bibliography and of course, read Weird Noir.
Stories should be:
Previously unpublished anywhere
Not submitted anywhere else
Length 3-8K
Formatted: Times New Roman, regular, 12 point. 1″ margins. 1 space after full stop. Spaced 1.5 lines. Use paragraph formatting to indent first line nottabs. No header/footer.
Identified with a title, your name (and pen name identified as such),working email address on the first page: file name should include your surname & title
Submitted in RTF format via email to katelaity at gmail with at least your name, the story title and total word count included in the body of the email; make sure the Subject line includes “Submission: Noir Carnival” + your name
We will ask for world-wide print & ebook rights for a year and pay $10 via Paypal as an advance against the royalties to be split with the publisher. We plan to launch the book at EDGE-Lit in Derby in July 2013.
Ok foxes, Dark Fiction Magazine which is an audio magazine, is looking for stories. Here is the call in their own words.
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For 2013 we’re taking a slightly new approach. There will be themes, and we will be telling you about them beforehand – the first new episode of the year will be coming in March, and the broad theme is “Folklore and Fairy Tales”. Now, we’re still hoping to cover our genres of choice – namely Fantasy, Science-Fiction and Horror – so feel free to be as wild as possible with your fiction-weaving. Can you write a story about the Seelie Court and make it science-fiction? Can you conjure an epic fantasy from the earliest of stories? Do fairy tales lend themselves to horror? (I suspect they do; in fact I suspect they are the very roots of horror).
For the first time we’ll be looking at original stories as well as reprints, so send us your tales of stone, feather and iron by Thursday the 28th of February to be considered for the March episode, and if you have any questions please do contact me on jen@sennydreadful.com
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