Fox Blog

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A Foxy Fellow

Growing up the book I read most often, more than my favourite Narnia books (The Magicians Nephew and The Horse and his Boy), more than the Jungle Books whose poems I could recite by heart (and some I still can), more even than the Just So Stories, was Fantastic Mr Fox. It was my quick fix read. Full of cunning and humour and people it was easy to dislike. I grew up on a small holding, we lost our chickens to foxes over a couple of weeks and the whole thing was so messy and upsetting we never replaced them.  Yet this fictional fox was so full of charm and wit and cleverness I was very firmly on his side. I still have my original copy. The cover is missing. It fell off with over use.

As an adult (technically if not always in behaviour) of 35, there are many books I love. Many tales I’ve reread a dozen or more times and every time found something new to surprise and delight me. I still read Fantastic Mr Fox. He is still my favourite literary hero.

The stories in Fox & Fae celebrate the fox for all the wonderful attributes they share with Dahl’s creation. The book also explores the downsides of being beautiful and clever. It also visit the flip side of that, in ‘A Crackling Fart’ for example our foxy fellow’s superiority and cleverness are his downfall as much as his greed. It’s a wonderful collection of stories and I hope someone somewhere will take one of our foxes to their heart as much as I did Fantastic Mr Fox.

Tales of the Fox and Fae will be out this summer in the mean time there are plenty of other Fox Spirit titles out there.

If you check out the rest of the site you will find a small number of foxes caught on camera around the world. Fox photos are by Phil Knott.

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Happy Birthday To Us.

Happy Birthday the Fox Spirit Skulk

The process of getting up and running took place over May and June last year with the first book going live on the 4th July 2012, but our first blog post went up on the 2nd June 2012, so we were officially a year old yesterday. You should all get yourselves a cake and pop a candle in it to celebrate. I will be.

I spent the birthday doing the 2012/13 year accounts so I thought today I’d give you all a bit of a round up of the year. Lessons learned and a few highlights from the figures, that sort of thing.

I have learned that things do not go to plan. Even if I control every thing perfectly (which I don’t) then there will still be delays and hiccups and more changes to make.

I’ve learned that no matter how many people go through a document and no matter how many times there will always be one or two errors that sneak in. The largest of which was half the final story in Nun & Dragon being missing when the ebook first went live. If anyone who bought it never got the updated download (Kindle were supposed to make this available automatically) then let me know and I will send it to you btw.

I’ve learned that I will always take a bad review personally, even if I can find nothing of truth or merit in what it says. It is a fact that while I am being all cool and telling my authors to shrug it off, I am taking it out on pads or an opponent later. These books are your babies, but I believe in them and love them like my own.

I’ve learned that there are a huge number of amazingly talented people who are willing to be incredibly generous with their time and talent for whatever the budget will allow, just because they like the project, or the people or just feel like it. I believe very strongly that people should be paid for their work, but I am eternally grateful that people are willing to negotiate to help a start up like this get going.

Fox Spirit wouldn’t be anything but an idea without all the people but time and talent into it, submitting, formatting, creating artwork, editing, reviewing, just talking about our books, and so on. Thank you.

I’ve learned there is a much greater appetite for writing and reading short stories than I had imagined.

There are plenty of other things, but those are always at the top of my list.

Now the years figures.

Well Fox Spirit is running at a significant loss at present. That’s ok, I knew it would in the first year or so. The upside is I shouldn’t have to pay any taxes. Happy Days.

In our first year we published nine books. Two Novels, four novellas, one non fiction and two anthologies. We’ve had one guest editor published and two more in the works.

So far the best sellers have been Weird Noir and Pseudopod, level pegging at the end of the financial year  and both Weird Noir and Pseudopod have had a small number of sales in Euros as well as £ and $. Nun & Dragon sold the most physical copies.

The anthologies and essays are overall moving faster with the novels and novellas going more slowly. I presume this is due to more people being involved in spreading the word. So folks, help spread the word we have starving authors who need your love.  Not to mention starving artists and Editors.

We have had lots of positive reviews and I will update the press page shortly, so if you’ve reviewed something and it’s not up already let me know and I’ll add it. If you’d like to review us also drop me a line on adele@ foxspirit. co.uk

Our second year will be just as busy if not more so. There are three titles waiting in the wings to break into the world any moment a couple of novels committed to, Fox Pockets, more Noir, more Bushy Tales and general mayhem to unleash.

Keep an eye on our submissions page for what we are up to and follow us on twitter @foxspiritbooks or facebook to make sure you don’t miss anything.

 

 

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Piracy Teaser

For your delectation, the first few hundred words of the opening story from Piracy.

Becalmed
Den Patrick
‘We’ll live like kings,’ the captain said. ‘We’ll not want for anything. Even death will turn his face from us.’
That’s what the captain said.

No one has seen him in three days now. He retired to his quarters and locked the door. The first day was all crying. The second day there were voices tangled in dispute, then a scream. We’ve not heard anything since. No one wants to go in there.

We’re becalmed. The sea is as flat as any mirror, reflecting the dull grey of the sky. The sun is a smudge of white light behind indistinct clouds that stretch to the horizon in every direction. Rotting fish float in the water, unholy flotsam, and I know in the marrow of my bones we’ve brought this on ourselves.

The Absent Friend isn’t like most ships, certainly not most pirate ships. Not that I’m an expert. This is my
first time signed on under that shady profession. Still, how many ships willingly let women aboard? Much
less three of them. And the none-too-small issue of them being witches. The captain calls them theurges,
and I dare say there are prettier names, but we all know they’re witches. They were part of the captain’s great
plan.

‘We’ll go ashore at night,’ he said, ‘only small towns mind.’ He was a hearty man in his fifties with a tangle of dun brown hair and a beard touched with grey. He wore a patch, but only to cover his cock eye and protect his vanity. His parrot had shed most of its feathers, always sick and withdrawn. ‘The theurges will scale the rooftops and position themselves by the chimneys,’ he looked around, daring us to speak out. ‘Your job will be to carry the dreams back to the ship.’

We all laughed at that. The parrot flapped its stunted wings and shat, jetting foul grey liquid across
the captain’s frock coat. ‘Dreams? What use have we for dreams?’ snarled Horgan. He was as sour as they came; his crimes didn’t stop at pillaging. They said he had cruel tastes to match his temper. ‘You’re all here because you lost something,’ replied the captain with one hand on the hilt of his cutlass. ‘Some of you have a name for the thing you lost, and some of you don’t.’ He eyed Horgan and there was an uncomfortable pause. ‘Some of you might even deny your loss, but no man becomes a pirate unless he’s missing something. Maybe you never lost it,’ his eyes settled on me, ‘perhaps you lacked it from birth.’

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Fox Pockets Shapeshifters

FS Shapeshifters3 72

The line up in no particular order

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.

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You are a Time Lord

I will be attending the Futura event in Wolverhampton this June and it has got me thinking about reading and the appeal of the speculative fiction to me and obviously others. I came to the conclusion that I am a Time Lord and so are you.

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I have travelled to other worlds, fought a million battles, won and broken a thousand hearts, lived endless lifetimes, changed age, gender, race, religion, sexuality, even species more times than any Time Lord. I have both ridden, fought and been a dragon. I’ve watched worlds created, pass through their evolution and burn out. I’ve mastered the broadsword and the lazer canon. I have matched wits with Moriarty and I have been Nemesis. I have read.  

Every work of fiction is in its essence a portal fantasy. Every book, whatever genre, offers the reader an opportunity to lose themselves utterly in another mind. It’s more obvious is the fantastic genres than in literary, because who really thinks of someone else’s mundane and slightly depressing life as portal to another world. It is exactly that though, simply by merit of not being your life, your thoughts and your actions. All fiction is fantasy to some degree, but not all fiction is the fantastic! Personally I prefer to zap myself into lives I could never really live, something truly beyond what I could expect to experience in my every day.

It’s a choice too, whether to experience a book immersively or as a spectator.  Some people simply read a book and walk away, but I prefer to fall into it, to let my imagination conjure it around me and to be a part of it for a while. I know a lot of passionate readers do the same.  I think it partially explains the hoarding mentality of many book lovers (this one included). All those shelves don’t just hold wonderful stories, they hold open the doors to other worlds. They allow us to travel through time and space. On the outside they are a few inches of paper, on the inside they contain whole worlds and systems we can visit at will. They are, in short, our TARDIS. You don’t need a madman in a blue box, you need books. With books instead of travelling with a Time Lord you become one.

No wonder so many spec fiction fans watch Dr Who when readers are all Time Lords!

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Welcome to the Carnival

The line up for Noir Carnival has just been confirmed. Edited by the redoubtable Kate Laity and with cover art by the formidable (and lovely) S.L.Johnson, welcome to the Carnival.

WEB Final Noir Carnival

NOIR CARNIVALTable of Contents

Introduction: Caravan ~ K. A. Laity

Family Blessings ~ Jan Kozlowski

In the Mouth of the Beast ~ Li Huijia

Idle Hands ~ Hannah Kate

The Things We Leave Behind ~ Chris L. Irvin

She’s My Witch ~ Paul D. Brazill

The Mermaid Illusion ~ Carol Borden

Natural Flavouring ~ Rebecca Snow

Madam Mafoutee’s Bad Glass Eye ~ Chloë Yates

Buffalo Brendan and the Big Top Ballot ~ Alan Watson

Carne Levare ~ Emma Teichmann

Leave No Trace ~ A. J. Sikes

Fair ~ Robin Wyatt Dunn

Things Happen Here After Dark ~ Sheri White

Mister Know-It-All ~ Richard Godwin

Trapped ~ Joan De La Haye

The Price of Admission ~ Neal Litherland

Take Your Chances ~ Michael S. Chong

Young Mooncalf ~ Katie Young

The Teeth Behind the Beard ~ James Bennett

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Very exciting updates!

The second Bushy Tales Anthology, ‘Tales of the Fox and Fae’ is nearly ready for press. It may be a little later than originally intended but it will be a volume worth waiting for. We have a fantastic line up of stories for you (copy across).

We’ve also made the slightly unusual move of including a comic strip in the book. For those of you viewing digitally, the story ‘Outfoxed’ written by Jasper Bark http://jasperbark.net/comics/,http://www.youtube.com/user/jasperbark , with fantastic artwork by Soussherpa www.soussherpa.com , http://soussherpa.deviantart.com and lettering (and additional formatting) by Bolt-01 http://www.futurequake.co.uk/will be at its best viewed on media such as a tablet rather than phones.

I’m particularly excited to see this story included as it was always the purpose of the Bushy Tales to go a little beyond the expectations of a traditional anthology. In Nun & Dragon we mixed genres and included some illustrations and even recorded a song for the Ballad of Gilrain so to bring the comic book form into the pages is very much in keeping with what these books set out to do.

Kieran Walsh has provided incredible internal illustrations and has outdone himself on his wonderfully creepy imaginings of a world that could hold these tales.

Cover art once again by Vincent Holland-Keen who reports that fur is much harder than scales, but who has delivered another gorgeous cover.

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For those of you waiting for ‘Tales of Eve’ our own anthology of weird science for/by women, it is almost ready for release, with some final correction to the book being agreed as I type.

Finally ‘Piracy’ is also well on its way to completion, edits almost done and then it will be off to formatting. Piracy will be released in May.

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Release Announcement

It’s in!! If the hamsters that run Amazon do their job properly then I am pleased to announce that Blood Bound by Sarah Cawkwell will be available on Monday! This dark little fantasy story will be available as epub, mobi and paperback via our usual outlets (currently Wizards Tower and Amazon) next week.

front-back-cover-final

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A reminder about Fantastic Treats

We are still open to submissions for Fantastic Treats our charity cookbook.

We are seeking flash or short fiction, in any genre that has a loose tie in to a recipe for a dessert, treat or snack. We also need the recipe. Writers and cooks are encouraged to team up on this one. Every one included in the book will receive a contributors copy but we are not offering payment. All proceeds go to Cancer Research. More information is available on our submissions page.

Get yourself involved!

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Tracking Submissions

Ok, I’m entirely human so I have recently discovered I missed a couple of submissions. It’s been perfectly correctable in these instances but rather than take the risk I will be regularly updating tracking sheets you can access via the submissions page. Each books details will be taken down when I notify the authors of whether or not they have been successful but in the run up you can check that I’ve had your story and that you and it are correctly titled. In the case of the Fox Pockets where I may occasionally consider a story for a book other than the one you planned to submit to, you can also see where I think your story is a good fit.

I hope it helps.

 

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