Anthology Archives - Page 5 of 7 -

November 21, 2014April 20, 2016

Drag Noir: Tracy Fahey

Richard Dadd’s The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke

Fairy Drag: Or, How I Wrote The Changeling by Tracy Fahey

You don’t mess with the fairies in Ireland. They are malignant force, older than humanity, who live by their own laws. Unlike their elegant Victorian English counterparts, the Irish fairies are Other, different in every way; both in looks and in character. They’re tall and pale, with a warlike approach to life and an immense propensity for revenge. Country life, until well into the 20^th century was ruled by a series of invisible boundaries –folk who lived there didn’t cut down the whitethorn, didn’t build a house on a fairy path, didn’t meddle with the forts. These sites, demarcated by fairy behaviour became forbidden zones

As with all stories, the writing of this started as a result of several unaligned thoughts coming together – the persistence of supernatural rituals in rural Ireland, a gruesome murder in Northern Ireland, and the old belief that you needed to disguise the sex of a baby to save it from been ‘swept’ or ‘fetched’ by the fairies. The fairies, it was said, would steal away an unprotected baby and replace it with a sickly fairy child who would dwindle and wither away, despite all human efforts. I became fascinated with the idea of ‘infant drag’, where clothing, hair and adornment function as a protective, gender-masking disguise. The idea of drag in this story is a double-edged sword. It is a catalyst for concealment, transformation, but also for revenge. I began wondering how this experience might translate into later life…and so this story came to life.

The story has an unhappy ending, but then, all fairy stories do. They end in tears, in partings, in kidnappings, desolation and death. Our poor changeling fares no differently.

DRAG NOIR is out now.

November 13, 2014April 20, 2016

Drag Noir: Jack Bates

Jack Bates: How I Came to Write LUCKY AT CARDS

Two things happened at once. I saw the call for submissions for Drag Noir in a Short Mystery Fiction Society newsletter and a young lady announced to me that she was transgender. Pretty soon her long, curly blonde locks were gone. She swore off wearing dresses. All she wore was men’s clothing. Sports jerseys, mostly. She asked to be called Paul. It gave her a sense of control. She openly pursued a couple of young women at work. She showed up at a wedding with a very cute young woman. Paul wore a vintage three piece, pin stripe suit. Paul had a black eye. I didn’t ask her about it but I knew I had the start of a story. I have no idea if Paul ever played blackjack in her life or if she even went to any of the Detroit or Windsor casinos.

What Drag Means to Me

I have a very good friend who operates a very successful stage theater here in Detroit. When we were kids, we did a Saturday Night Live type of variety show at our high school. I wrote sketches that put Joe in drag quite often. He seemed very comfortable in a dress. Now, thirty years later, he’s graced his stage several times in shows like Die, Mommie, Die and Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy where he out Close-s Glenn Close. When I think of drag I think of my good friend Joe and his campy, hilarious performances. He’s so comfortable in that skin you forget he’s Joe and not actually Joan- as in Crawford. I put on a dress and just look ridiculous. Joe comes alive.

DRAG NOIR out now in ebook or paperback!

November 5, 2014April 20, 2016

Drag Noir: Chloë Yates

Kiki and Me
Chloë Yates
One night in the dim and distant long ago, I was working the graveyard shift at that notorious punk drag dive, Axolotl Snot, on the grimy lower east bank of The City. The night outside was cold and inside the clientele wasn’t much warmer. One moment I was wiping down the ever-sticky bar for the hundredth time, the next I was slack jawed with awe as the infamous drag queen Kiki Le Shade sashayed into my world. She was a dame and she had balls. One look into those hypnotically glacial peepers and I was spellbound. She bent me to her will and I thanked her for every displaced vertebrae… At least that’s how I wish it had gone, but I’ve never worked in a bar and I’ve only ever admired drag queens from afar. I have, however, been in love with them since I was a kid.

Ideas of gender have always fascinated and appalled me. The way we step into the construct of gender identity at birth and then stick to it as though it’s all perfectly natural and right when it’s clearly absolute bollocks has plagued me my entire life. Arbitrary rules of behaviour and “deportment” (ugh) that depend upon whether or not you have a tallywackle or a witch’s cackle have never made the least bit of sense to me. I never understood why I was supposed to do this or that because I was a “girl” or why my friend couldn’t wear this or act like that because he was a “boy”. I just wanted to do the things I wanted to do because I wanted to do them. I believe that’s how everybody feels, deep down at least, but all too often life teaches us that stepping out from the baaing masses is fraught with castigation and derision – those wicked sharp whip licks of social control. Well, fuck, as they say, that shit.

The long and the short of it is I’m a fan of chutzpah, if you’ll allow me the indulgence. Bold, in-your-face, no apologies types are my number one poison, my idols and my role models, and who’s better at in-your-face than drag queens? Undoubtedly I have a romanticised view of them, but it certainly seems to me that drag queens make no apologies. More often than not it is their opportunity to act out, play up and throw their besequinned shit in the face of folks with wild abandon – and they seize it. Drag has never seemed like a mask to me. It is, rather, a medium for liberation. An excuse to be fearlessly bold, a ticket to kick the world in the tits while sticking your tongue out and wiggling your glitter-encrusted arse at it. That beautiful bright light of subversion being thrown so boldly in the face of a generally conservative world that pouts and frowns at “otherness” like we don’t all have secrets, fears, desires and frustrations that torment and thrill us, tickles me in all the best places.

Needless to say, I really wanted to write a story for Drag Noir but, after whacking my brain into inanimate object after inanimate object, I was stumped. Not because I couldn’t think of a million and one scenarios, but because I couldn’t think of the right one (some might argue I didn’t do that anyway but they can kiss my big fat bellend). Then I came across the song ‘Let’s Have a Kiki’ by Scissor Sisters. I can’t remember if it was on the telly or if someone posted it on Facebook, but it stuck in my head like only the most vicious of earworms are wont to do. It did the job though, one of those mental switch thingummies. I listened to that fucking song about eight million times while sitting in front of my screen and not once did my fingers stop typing. Kiki was pretty much born in one go, but she felt like she’d always been with me. First came the image of the faded drag queen, a shadow of her former self that long ago night at the Axolotl, sitting in a parking lot on one of those awful white plastic chairs, inches long ash clinging to a still blazing cigarette, lipstick smudged, wig askew. And I wondered what she was waiting for, because she was definitely waiting for something. Turns out, it wasn’t what I expected… which is just how I like it.

Click to buy!

November 3, 2014April 20, 2016

Drag Noir: Paul D. Brazill

Paul DeLiberace Brazill relaxing at home (thanks to S. L. Johnson for the photo)

How I Wrote A Bit Of A Pickle for Drag Noir

Paul D. Brazill
It goes like this: A rainy night in Soho, thrown out of The French House and off to Ronnie Scott’s til dawn. Then a gypsy cab driven by an Islamic fundamentalist over to the East End and a dodgy pub near a meat market. Go for a slash on in an alleyway near Crucifix Lane and get lost just off Druid Street. Follow a group of old women into a pockmarked terraced house and realise that they’re having a séance. A tall Polish woman with a turban gives me a message from beyond. And that message becomes A Bit Of A Pickle.

Pick up Drag Noir today by clicking on the picture below and get your glad rags on.

October 31, 2014October 27, 2014

Double Trouble at the Fox Den

Double release day!

Today we are delighted to announce we have unleashed a mass of femme fatales on the unsuspecting public. Available now from Fox Spirit Books are two exciting volumes of high heels and deadly doings!

The third in our Noir series of anthologies edited by K.A.Laity is ‘Drag Noir‘ where the drag scene meets the seedy world of Chandler and Hammett, where glamour meets grit, where everyone wears a disguise.

And from Alchemy Press editors Jan Edwards and Jenny Barber we are delighted to bring you ‘Wicked Women‘! Women who write their own rules, skate along the edge of the law and generally aim to misbehave.

So join us for double trouble!

If you would like review copies or to interview the editors please contact adele@foxspirit.co.uk

October 29, 2014October 29, 2014

Drag Noir: Becky Thacker

How I Came to Write ‘Geezer Dyke’

Becky Thacker

A port stop during a cruise disembarked us in Mexico, facing a row of tour vans and buses. Most of these were staffed by sign-wielding native folks with weary, worldly-wise faces; obviously they did this job for the living it provided and not because they found it fun. One of the tour guides was a lesbian, white-skinned, aging none too gracefully, and it was evident from her accent that she’d begun life as a North American Midwesterner. She looked and clearly felt, however, more akin to her brown-skinned career associates than to the flocks of North American tourists who surrounded her. We wondered what, or who, had led her to this path. And of course, romantics that we are, we wondered whom she went home to when her day of tourist-wrangling was over.

DRAG NOIR: Out this Halloween!

Winter Tales

Winter Tales - coverFINAL for WEB

Winter Tales edited by Margrét Helgadóttir
Cover Art by S.L. Johnson

Winter is coming. Frost pierces through everything, harsh winter storms rage and the sun is leaving, not to return for many months. Winter is gruesome and cold a dark time that seems to never end. But it’s not the whole picture. There is beauty and magic. There is the deep dark forest where pine trees reach for the sky, mountains looming under the green northern lights, wolf packs who howl to the moon, and the vast plains covered by deep snow, the ice crystals glinting like stars in the pale moonlight.

When the temperatures drop, people and creatures gather around the camp fires to share warmth, friendship and tales, to chase away the frost and the knowledge of the terrifying creatures lurking in the darkness.

We are collecting these winter tales, to chase away the grim winter and bring you the wonders and magic of the winter.

Contents

Mat Joiner: The frost sermon
Su Haddrell: The Bothy
Sharon Kernow: The Wolf Moon

Ruth Booth: The love of a season

Masimba Musodza: When the trees were enchanted

Fiona Clegg: Sunday’s Child

Tim Major: Winter in the Vivarium

Lizz-Ayn Shaarawi: Snow Angel

Amelia Gorman: Under your skin

B. Thomas: Among Wolves

Eliza Chan: Yukizuki

DJ Tyrer: Frose

G.H. Finn: Cold-Hearted

David Sarsfield: Voliday

Kelda Crich: Coldness Waits

K.N. McGrath: The Siege

Jonathan Ward: Spirit of the Season

James Bennett: The Red Lawns

Anne Michaud: Frost Fair

Jan Edwards: Shaman Red

Adrian Tchaikovsky: The Coming of The Cold

Verity Holloway: The Frost of Heaven

Buy this book

Opening Paragraphs of Winter Tales

Midwinter. North and ever north Dromgoole goes, walking the lonely roads; a man in the greasy black suit of a priest and what looks like a Punch and Judy rig on his back. It isn’t, but he’s squawked through a swazzle in his time, thrown a baby or two from the stage. Punch earns him a crust, gets him through the green months, but it isn’t his true calling. The wind that nips at his heels now is better than any Toby dog.
Dromgoole is as bald and freckled as a wren’s egg, his eyes bright grey, and he’s lost several fingers to frostbite. He flaunts the blackened stumps quite proudly, claims they make him a better puppeteer. He takes a room at an inn decked with evergreens for the oncoming solstice, and in the taproom chooses a seat well away from the fire.
‘I’m worried,’ he says, ‘that my players will burn.’ He means his puppets, though the heat seems to pain him too.
He says no to mulled wine and a steaming pie, taking instead a few cooled scraps of meat. He asks for a cup of water. They have to crack the ice on the fountain to draw it. He drinks with gusto, though surely his teeth must sing with pain. For all his oddness he isn’t a difficult guest.
He sets up his theatre in the town square. The stage is only small but has curtains that are sometimes snow-white,
then ice-blue, and if the wind picks up they turn tremulous colours like an aurora. There’s a crescent moon at its top;
he covered a Punch-head in silver foil to save some pennies. He’ll show nobody his puppets till it’s time. In his room he fusses and frets over them, unsnarling strings.

Eve

The ‘Eve’ series puts women right up front. In ‘Tales of Eve’ the authors explore women seeking the perfect partner, ‘Eve of War’ it’s the battlefield both personal and literal filtered through multiple genres and a mix of new and well known writers.

Tales of Eve
Edited by Mahiri Simpson
Cover Art by Daniele Serra
Shortlisted Best Anthology by BFS in 2014

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.

Newton’s Method by Paul Weimer
Ellie Danger, Girl Daredevil by Alasdair Stuart
Father’s Day by Francesca Terminiello
The CompaniSIM, The Treasure, The Thief and Her Sister by C.J. Paget
Kate and the Buchanan by Andrew Reid
Game, Set and Match? by Juliet McKenna
In Memoriam by Rob Haines
Unravel by Ren Warom
Mother Knows Best by Suzanne McLeod
Fragile Creations by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Buy this book

eve of war sample 2

Eve of War
Edited by Mahiri Simpson & Darren Pulsford
Cover Art by Vincent Holland-Keen

Sharp of mind and instinct; with poise and grace and power – Eve's Daughters are a match for any opponent. Whether seeking out a worthy test or assailed by brave (but foolish) foes, she is determined and cunning, and will not fail.

Here are fifteen tales from across the ages; full of prowess both martial and magical, from an array of unique voices.

Miranda’s Tempest by S.J. Higbee
The Devil’s Spoke by K.T. Davies
Himura the God Killer by Andrew Reid
The Bind that Tie by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Et Mortuum Esse Audivit by Alasdair Stuart
Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick by Juliet McKenna
A Veil of Blades by R.J. Davnall
In Amber by Rob Haines
Skating Away by Francis Knight
Ballad of Sighne by Rahne Sinclair
The Crossing by Paul Weimer
Lucille by Alec McQuay
Born by G Clark Hellery
Repo by Ren Warom
One Sssingular Sssenssation by Chloe Yates

Buy this book

Opening paragraphs of Tales of Eve
Newton’s Method by Paul Weimer
‘At last,’ she whispered, as she looked over her handiwork. The house gave silent answer, as it had for far too long. Truth be told, she had finished an hour ago, but then she had taken a long shower to wash away the grease, sweat, and tension she’d felt at completing her invention. She was eager to test it out, of course, but she forced herself to relax, to wind down, and to think about what she had built. Years of practical mechanical engineering learned at her mother’s knee, combined with the theoretical physics of her father’s work, had come to fruition.
Is it selfish of me? Noys thought, to use this for such a personal purpose? She shook her head, denying the thought. She wasn’t changing the world with her device, just the world she was in. Noys regarded the front display. She could have used digital readouts and touch screen inputs, making it look more 21st century than 20th century retropunk. Steve Jobs instead of IBM. But the red segmented numbers on the display, reminiscent of an ancient calculator, and the white dials to set parameters, gave it charm and a very tactile note. Mother would approve, Noys thought. She felt a pang in her chest at the memory of the drunken driver who took both of her parents on that icy January night.

Reviews

Weirdmage : The quality of the storytelling is very high here, above what can be expected from any anthology. It really is consistently very good throughout. Every author in here has delivered something that they can be proud of, and something which I have really enjoyed.

Tony Lane : Unravel by Ren Warom is a downward spiral that really does provoke an emotional response in the reader. I’d buy this book just for this story. It has a level of anguish and level of pain that is not very common.

Tales of Eve on Amazon

Tales of Eve on Goodreads

Buy Tales of Eve

July 23, 2014July 23, 2014

About the girl at the end of the world

There was supposed to be an introduction to Girl, I wrote it but I never sent it to the formatter with the rest of the book. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to share it yet. Now Book 1 is out, Book 2 is almost finished and I think perhaps this is a better place for it. The apocalypse can happen to anyone & I never saw it coming.

***
‘It’s all over and I’m standing pretty
In this dust that was a city
If I could find a souvenir
Just to prove the world was here.’
Nena – 99 Red Balloons

‘The Girl at the End of the World’ is undoubtedly the most personal collection for me that Fox Spirit has done. Maybe that is why I let it get totally out of hand. It was supposed to be one volume of around 20 stories, it’s now two volumes and because there were too many great ideas for covers each volume gets two cover options as well. A total of over 40 stories but I have no regrets, it was hard cutting the submissions down even that much.

The brief was ‘pre, during, post and personal apocalypse’. I wanted a wide range of interpretations and I got them! From the kick off with James Bennett’s ‘Antichristine’ to the far future sci-fi finish I hope it is obvious to readers that although you may find the odd zombie shambling among the pages there is a lot more scope to the end of the world than just natural disasters (which also feature) and the walking dead. There is some humour in there, in particular Carol Borden’s ‘Sophie and the Gates of Hell’ made me laugh out loud while reading through the submissions. The volumes include some wonderful treatments of traditional themes like the post apocalyptic urban survivor stories and some less well trodden routes are also explored. There was no genre specified for these volumes, so you’ll find fantasy, horror, sci-fi, crime and genre-bending playfulness within these pages. There are authors who will be familiar to regulars at Fox Spirit as well as plenty of names that are new to our tables of contents.

Why these books are so personal to me, why this project was inevitable really from the moment Fox Spirit was registered as a publisher is two-fold. One is my own love for these sorts of heroines: Ripley, Sarah Connor, Resident Evil’s Alice and of course Buffy the Vampire Slayer to name a few. Women and girls fighting for their own survival, to hold back the end of the world and in some cases just to be normal and live in the world again for a moment. The same love for these characters and for exploring what goes into their survival that led to the collaborative project ‘The Girls Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse’ stayed with me once that came to an end. It just took a little time to work out what I wanted to do with it.

It was more than that though. Fox Spirit would never have happened if my world as I knew it hadn’t ended. When I realised that my marriage was never going to work I had to let go of the shared life we had planned and suddenly I had no idea what my future was going to look like. It was a painful, frightening and sometimes just numbing experience. I got to spend some time as a zombie, mostly looking for my own brain rather than eating anyone else’s. A lot of the time I was just trying not to fall apart, to keep going every day and then I started to put myself back together and move on. It was while I was moving on from that I ended up agreeing to do ‘Nun and Dragon’ and through that Fox Spirit emerged. I am very fortunate that so many of my close friends, of the people who propped me up through it all are writers and artists and let’s be honest about it, a bit insane.

‘Sorry to barge in. I’m afraid we have a slight apocalypse.’ – Rupert Giles BTVS

July 16, 2014

The Girl at the End of the World Vol 1

The end is nigh!

The first volume (city cover as shown) of Girl at the End of the World is now available via amazon worldwide. The alternate ‘girl’ cover and ebooks will be going live over the next few days so keep an eye out!

Volume 2 is due for release at the end of July.

It’s the end of days. The sky is falling, the seas are burning and your neighbour is a zombie. It’s brutal out there. It’s every man for himself and these heels are going to have to go; you simply can’t run in them!

Across two volumes, The Girl at the End of the World offers forty-one striking visions of the apocalypse and the women and girls dealing with it. From gods to zombies, from epic to deeply personal, from the moment of impact to a future where life is long forgotten; bestselling authors and exciting new writers deliver tales you’ll still remember when holed up in a fallout shelter with one remaining bullet and a best friend with a suspicious bite mark on their neck.

The two volumes feature a number of new and established authors including Adrian Tchaikovsky and best selling crime novelist James Oswald.