‘Piracy’ Tasters Day 1

Moiron struggled to his feet and stumbled acrossPiracy the rocking deck to join a team heaving on ropes. He no longer noticed the calluses that marred his pale skin. He ignored his rough, malodorous shipmates and lost himself in thought.

He yearned for the soft-swaying, green tranquillity that had once been so dull to him. The allure of the sea, with its exotic scents and dramatic blues and greys, had been killed by months of toil, mockery, grime and the salt-tinged stench of close-packed, unwashed bodies. The wood of the planks and mast was stiff and silent under his hands, like a carcass. Moiron had learned the bitter lesson, that daydreams are for enjoying, not living.

from ‘The Trouble with Daydreams’ by Catherine Hill

It’s all about the story

It has to be really.

I was always a reader because I love stories. I love watching them, reading them, listening to them, even playing them. I reviewed so I could find new stories and tell people about them. Now I get the ultimate dream for anyone who doesn’t write, isn’t a creator of stories, I get to put stories out there that you might otherwise never get the chance to read.

The thing is books, even ebooks are just one medium for stories. Stories can be told in a multitude of ways and I love that! I love that changing the method of telling changes the story. I quite deliberately don’t seek audio rights from authors and I keep exclusivity periods short because I believe this:

It’s all about the story.

Selling or giving the story to a podcast doesn’t devalue an anthology or novel. It’s a new entity and it supports the telling and retelling of the tale. Stories that appear in FS anthologies appearing in other anthologies or magazines doesn’t devalue our anthologies. A Fox Spirit anthology is a particular collection on a particular theme, collected according to our values and preferences. It’s an entity that is more than the sum of its parts. Besides, it’s generally standard to note when reprinting where the first print was and that helps spread the name of Fox Spirit Books, a thing I approve of.

I mention this now for a couple of reasons, to remind my wonderful skulk of writers that they are free to submit their stories to podcasts and for audio and that Nun & Dragon’s exclusivity period is a month or so past now, so they should be looking for other opportunities to spread those tales too.

The other reason is that on the 13th July at Edge Lit in derby we launch Noir Carnival and Spacewitch will be launching as a part of that event. The brains behind Spacewitch, Del Lakin-Smith shares this view and we will be seeking new and interesting ways of engaging with readers and making it about more than selling books. It’ll be about sharing stories, growing them, being part of them. You don’t have to write for us to be part of what we do. We love getting reader photos, we would love to support people in sharing our stories so if you have ideas contact me on adele @ foxspirit.co.uk and lets see what we can come up with together.

Avast Ye Scurvy Dogs!

…or something like that.

Piracy is now available as an ebook. Amazon (all) can provide it direct for kindle and if you have a different type of ereader then the epub or mobi files are available from Wizards Tower Press. Later this month Spacewitch will be officially launching and the ebook will be available there too.

A quick reminder you can also buy the book on Lulu by clicking the button on the right hand sidebar of this page.

We will be giving away one complete set of Fox Pockets print editions by subscription (get yours as the author copies go out) with a competition in our newsletter. Simply enter your email address in the subscribe link in the toolbar. The newsletter will never be more than quarterly and often isn’t that frequent so you don’t have to worry about being bombarded.

Finally, Fox Spirit will be launching Noir Carnival with Spacewitch, the books editor K.A. Laity and writers James Bennett and Chloe Yates at Edge.Lit on 13th July at Derby Quad. There will be plenty of other members of the FS skulk there happy to chat and sign things so come along.

We would love your pictures!

Fox Spirit and our authors love to see people enjoying our books so if you have one we’d be really delighted if you’d send us your pictures of you, your pet or whatever with the books.

We have Gallery’s under the publicity page like the Fox Pockets one for your pictures. Our authors sometimes send them in too.

We would also be delighted to receive fan art and will pop it up with your name and url, if you want to sketch out favourite characters and scenes.

Author Post: Ruth Booth

Desert Islands

A few weeks ago I went to see an exhibition by Toby Phips Lloyd called Desert Island. Known for exploring self-conception, Lloyd had recreated his childhood bedroom, right down to the painted over-wallpaper and drawing pin holes in the wall. This sat in a giant wooden box in the centre of the exhibition, while on footage played in the background, Lloyd took the role of interviewer and interviewee to ask himself about his life and the records in the style of Desert Island Discs – also supposedly broadcast from the radio in the corner of the bedroom.

As a fellow teen in the nineties, I got a kick out of the possessions on show (Pitchshifter CD, Red Dwarf on VHS, Hunter S Thompson clippings…) – but what made me think was the contrast between what Lloyd-as-interviewee remembered, versus Lloyd-as-interviewer’s analysis of his teenage years. The bullying wasn’t as bad as he recalled it, and he considered that perhaps some of the choices of song or reading material reflected how he wanted to be seen more than anything else.

Most of us look back on our teenage years with mild embarrassment – things that we said or did. More often it’s that we so readily used XYZ to dictate what we thought or who we made friends with. Often we forget how important it was to us to have that grounding in common culture, a sense of community, when the ways we regarded ourselves and the ways we were regarded by others were first ripped from their moorings, and set in perpetual motion.

Yet we also forget that little has changed since then. Log on to your social network feed, and you’ll find friends linking to cool things they have found, sharing their opinions of this and that, demonstrating support of causes and struggles around the world. We share photos and videos of ourselves looking sexy and exciting – and hide the ones we don’t like so much. In many ways, engaging in social media is a lot like is a lot like decorating your teenage bedroom – hell, they’re even called walls. We communicate in books and movies and games. We present a picture to the world of a version of ourselves, and this is ever changing. Just as we did back then, we are still making ourselves, every single day.

With this in mind, it’s little wonder we fear control and monitoring of our online profiles. It’s not only about personal information getting into the open, it’s a violation of our sanctum, abusing and using the face we show without our permission. Think about the word­ we use to describe posting as someone else on Facebook – “frape”. And identity fraud isn’t just about stealing your credit, or your money. It’s about stealing you.

Memory is a fluid thing. We rewrite the stories of our lives as we go along. Often the use of cultural tropes as shorthand is considered a bit teenaged, or indicative of a lazy brain. In some creative contexts, sometimes it’s even frowned upon, or considered vulgar to be referential in this way. Some forms of art are considered “lesser” for doing this. But why is that? Cultural tropes are ways of exploring and sharing the world and how we interpret it. Like pirates, we should always treasure our own desert islands.

Author Post : Catherine Mann

How the Fox Pocket was Named

Once upon a time there was a woman called Adele who had many excellent friends and could summon the ferocity of a honey badger. Using her ingenuity she became leader of a den full of creative, and somewhat geeky, people and together they produced fine books. She wanted to create small anthologies of short stories that could be read quickly and easily carried in a pocket, but what to call them?

One of Adele’s friends was a woman called Catherine who was watching DVDs with her husband just after Christmas…

…actually this isn’t working. DVDs don’t quite fit folkloric feel I was going for. Plus writing about myself in third person feels distinctly weird.

So, my husband and I were watching the 1967 musical version of Doctor Dolittle, starring Rex Harrison. It is in many ways a strange film, for example the most romantic song is sung by a human to a seal, a married seal. I am not even kidding. There is an early scene in which a mother fox comes to Dr Dolittle to hide from the local hunt. She entrusts her cubs (actually played by puppies) to the doctor who tucks them into pockets sewn onto the front of his lab coat.

I was amused by the idea of pockets specifically designed for carrying foxes. I checked with a friend who’s a vet, and she confirmed that fox pockets were a thing. I decided to assume this was the truth and not her humouring me. It sounded like the kind of thing that would amuse Adele as well, so I text her to let her know that vets have pockets for foxes. Much merriment ensured.

In early February Adele said that she was planning some ‘quick pick’ anthologies of flash fiction, and she asked if anyone could think of a snappy title for them. That evening, while in the shower (which is often a good place for ideas), I remembered the fox pocket conversation we’d had in December. I half-jokingly suggested it to Adele and she decreed that it was happening.

And so it came to pass.

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Author Post : Rahne Sinclair

The Wolf in Fantasy by Rahne Sinclair

Regardless of where or what historical epoch a fantasy novel is set, there is a very specific subset of animals usually contained therein, and there is a high chance that the wolf is among them. There is something about the wolf that makes it an enduring part of our myths and legends.  Whether anthropomorphised to a loyal or magical being, or demonised to an evil adversary, this creature has played both hero and the villain in our stories.

Our early hunter-gatherer ancestors invited the wolf to his fireside and utilised its natural abilities to aid in their own survival. Overtime, further domestication and selective breeding turned the wolf into the dog we know today.

Man-kind then turned on its four-legged friend’s wild cousin. Medieval kings were known to offer great reward or pardons for a sack of wolf pelts. They were derided and hunted to extinction in many countries. The last wolf in the UK was killed in 1743. Conversely, many lords and knights would take the wolf as their emblem, signifying their strength in battle, their ferocity, and a warning to their enemies they were not to be tangled with.

As stories and fairy tales began to emerge, this hatred was reflected in the stories told and for many centuries, the traditional role of a wolf in fiction was as the enemy. Little Red Riding Hood was a story that used the wolf to represent the dangers of the forest, as opposed to the safety of the village, but by no means was it the only story to feature a big bad wolf. In J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, white wolves terrorise The Shire, and the Orcs hang out with Wargs. Maugrim of C S Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a shining example of how wolves were thought of as sly, cunning, and ferocious.

As mankind re-learns the truth about this contender for our apex predator status, our perception of wolves has changed drastically in the past few decades, undergoing something of a 360 degree reversal to portray the wolf in a more positive light. Different aspects of the wolf’s personality are focused on. Their pack mentality epitomises some of the aspects of ‘family’. They share child care duties, and are fiercely protective of their young. In books like Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, the orphan Mowgli is raised by a she-wolf. In G.R.R. Martin’s Songs of Ice and Fire, the dire-wolves are given as pets to the Stark family’s children, who become companion and protector. Even YA and children’s stories have reflected this new admiration for the wolf. Michelle Paver’s Chronicles of Ancient Darkness show the wolf as a constant companion to the young hero as he battles evil during the Stone Age.

The newest trope for wolves has to be as the ‘love interest’. More accurately, this pertains to werewolves, rather than wolves, and is greatly at odds with its origins in Greek mythology and horror. With TV shows like Buffy and Being Human, the werewolves are still violent and bestial, but their human counterpart is a figure we are meant to empathise with. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaba, Remus Lupin is a greatly admired teacher who has to endure his curse. This is countered by Fenrir Greyback in The Half Blood Prince, who revels in his wolf nature. In the case of books like The Southern Vampire Chronicles (True Blood), plus countless erotic fictions, the human form of the werewolf represents the ultimate alpha male character. A character whose is strong, confident, protective and assertive, yet at times gentle and loving.

Similar to its real-world inspiration, the wolf in fantasy is still evolving. Like the best type of hero, the wolf has had a shady past, but is now a much reformed character.

Odin_and_Fenrir

Something Awesome has Happened!

While I am a publisher of books, have been and to a very small degree still am a reviewer and even occasionally get to be a judge of books, what I am first, foremost and always is a reader.

As a reader I too have been one of the people who has grumbled about samey or misguiding cover art, the synopsis that bears little reflection to the text and the difficulty of finding new authors to enjoy when I’ve thoroughly plundered the back catalogue of favourites.

Well something awesome has happened. John Rickards who is the crime writer John Rickards and also the crime writer Sean Cregan and a very lovely and clever chap, followed up the general grumblings of the populous and a very intelligent and sensible article by Suw and created something marvellous.  For it to work all you writerly types need to get involved in the process just a little bit and all you readerly folk can start your journey of discovery.

So without further ado I shall pass you over to John who does a much better introduction to ‘No Names, No Jackets.‘ a new adventure in book browsing.

 

‘Girl at the End of the World’ a call for submissions

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.

Author Post : Margret Helgadottir

Why do I write in English?

“You should sign up for this writing course in Norwegian now that you’ve started writing,” a friend told me a while ago. She’s not the first to assume that I can easily switch between writing fiction in English and Norwegian. Many think my main desire is to write in Norwegian, for Norwegians, and that I write in English for obscure reasons – a confirmation of my strangeness perhaps. And each time, I try to explain: That I want to become better in my English writing, so I need to practise as much as I can – and since I have so little time to write, I want to spend it on this. That I don’t think in Norwegian, then translate it—I think in English when I write – it’s my writer voice. My writing would be totally different in Norwegian. I’m not sure they understand. Then again, I’m not sure I understand it myself.

It’s not like it’s a bed of roses. My English may be good, but my Norwegian is light years better. I struggle with all the things a person combats when dealing with foreign languages: the search for words, synonyms, grammar. You know the feeling when someone tells a joke and everybody laughs, but not you, because you didn’t understand the twist in the joke? Yes, that feeling. Not to mention how difficult it is to write a natural dialogue, maybe even using slang, or to instantly see the difference between US English and UK English.

But you know what? I´ve struggled many years with starting to write. And I do wonder if choice of language was the key all the time. When I write in Norwegian, I can be dramatic in my choice of words and how I express feelings, almost as if the harsh Nordic landscape and climate lurk between the lines. English flows differently. Its lexicon is so vast. I feel my writing becomes a smooth river, rather than a bumpy road. But I wonder if something gets lost in that river. Maybe I write in English because I can be distant. Could it be that my Norwegian voice still feels too up close and personal? Will I need to tackle this at some point?

Then there are the practical reasons, of course. The Norwegian publishing market for new writers is limited. There is little room for writing speculative, weird and dark fiction. Not much room for experimenting as a new writer either, unless you have inside contacts. And Norwegian works are unlikely to get translated into English, so the potential amount of readers is low. And you’ll miss the opportunity to build an international network with other writers, publishers and readers.

I’m so happy and humbled that people like my stories. Thank you so much to the editors who have wanted to publish this fledgling writer, and thanks so much to the kind and patient people who have read my drafts and helped me achieve my goal.

http://margrethelgadottir.wordpress.com