Tag Archives: fantasy fiction

Creating Short Fantasy Fiction from Dartmoor Myths and Legends – A free workshop

Posted
Filed under workshop

Creating Short Fantasy Fiction from Dartmoor Myths and Legends – A free workshop led by Myfanwy Cook www.myfanwycook.com as part of the 15th Tavistock Festival www.tavistockmusic.co.uk

Come along and be inspired to write the opening to or a mini-short story based on a selection of the myths and legends such as Old Dewer’s ‘Wisht Hounds’ and cream eating pixies.

Venue: Tavistock Library

Start time: 10.30 am am till 12.15 pm

Date: 25th of April, 2018

Booking is essential through: tavistock.library@librariesunlimited.org.uk

Telephone: 01822 612218

St. John’s Well, Tavistock

Normal Deviation: Seeking Short Stories Based on One Weird Pic

Posted
Filed under Anthology

It all started with a weird pic and a throwaway tweet:

I want to do a fiction anthology where everyone writes a story just based on a weird ass picture. And then use that pic as the cover.

And then enough people cheered the idea that we decided to make it our first major project at Wonderbox Publishing.

Normal Deviation is seeking “Third Option” short stories based on the following image, up to 6000 words (deadline: 31 Aug 2017). “Third Option” is our shorthand for digging a little deeper into that writerly creativity bucket: we’d like everyone to cast aside (at least) the first two ideas that come to you, and instead focus on the third (or fourth or fifth…) idea to develop. The goal here is to avoid the obvious, to generate fresh ideas, to get at deviation.

We want stories in any genre, from any perspective, any time period and setting. As long as the story is good, and based somehow on this image, we want to read it!

image for inspiration

We’ve launched a Kickstarter to fund the anthology, as we think all authors deserve professional rates (starting at least at a penny per word). Support us, support authors, and please submit and become one of our authors!

Full details and author guidelines are on our website. Subscribe to updates from our weekly blog, get a feel for what we’re like and what we like, and join us in this bizarre story adventure!

Lyle Skains & DeAnn Bell, Editors
Normal Deviation anthology
Wonderbox Publishing

StrangeBooks Event

Posted
Filed under live lit

2016-bombanes-poster

Double Bill: Jane Bom-Bane & Mike Russell
An evening of stories and enchantments.
Brighton author and storyteller Mike Russell will be reading strange stories interspersed with various surreal shenanigans followed by mechanical hats and stories from Jane Bom-Bane.
Reviews for Jane Bom-Bane:
“Utterly refreshing – unlike anything I’ve ever seen or heard before” Dave Gorman
“The best show I saw in Edinburgh Fringe this year (2012)” Stewart Lee
Reviews for Mike Russell:
“The stories will take you to places within your mind you never knew existed.” Gerard Bianco
“I always look forward to Mike Russell’s work, he’s so out there that it’s refreshing.” Nancy at Oddly Weird Fiction
We anticipate a magical evening. For more information on author Mike Russell and to see how to book please visit www.strangebooks.com

Afterlives, when death is just the beginning… Read Paper Republic new series of shorts

Posted
Filed under Fiction in translation

zhang_xinxin-dragonworld

Following the first year of Read Paper Republic weekly stories, we present a new mini-series of six stories, “Afterlives”, in which death is merely the beginning of the story.

On 27.10.16, we posted Dragon Boat, about ghost sex! The protagonist, Yuye, wanders around coastal areas of Hong Kong at Dragon Boat Festival, encounters a ghostly girl, and meets an unfortunate end when he sleeps with her.

On 3.11.16, the story was Dragonworld, in which video games addict Zhaishao finds his town has been infested with concrete-guzzling dragons – but is unsure whether they actually exist, or are figments of digitally-stimulated imagination.

Next Thursday, 10.11.16, our story will be Where Did I Lose You? Wang You reflects on how that ubiquitous item of social intercourse, the name card, can take on a weird life of its own. He is contacted by an old lady who says that her deceased husband often talked about him. Wang has no memory of him whatsoever, but he invents some stories to satisfy her….Go online to read what happens next.

We at Paper Republic are a collective of literary translators, promoting new Chinese fiction in translation. Read Paper Republic is a free online publication initiative for readers who wonder what new Chinese fiction in English translation has to offer and would like to dip a toe in the water. The first run of 53 stories, posted June 2015 to June 2016, are still available to read. You can download a full table of contents as a PDF here.

Holdfast print anthology#2 and call for submissions!

Posted
Filed under Fundraising, literary magazine

HOLDFAST_TIME_2

We need your help to print the second holdfast print anthology!

All you creatives out there will understand the importance of being paid for your work, even if it is great to get your work out there on any platform possible. The holdfast magazine anthology will not only be a beautiful paperback, but all profits after printing and postage go directly to the writers and artists that make the magazine possible. As our team edit holdfast in their free time just for the passion, we need to raise funds in order to pay our contributors.

After winning the British Fantasy Society award for best magazine last year, we’re determined to make this issue even better than volume 1, with more fiction, articles and illustrations. The content is ready to go, all we need is YOU to make this happen!

Go check out our awesome perks that include paperbacks, tote bags and art prints!

10599500_677389305693780_7245299654996361620_nholdfast tote bags being hand screen-printed by our logo designer Faye McNulty!

And don’t forget the deadline for our Brexitlit fiction supplement is coming up on 15 August! So go over to our submissions page for more details!

Call for submissions and British Fantasy Society best speculative fiction magazine nomination

Posted
Filed under award, call for submissions, Lit mag

hold_fast_largewithtextalt-smallerFiction supplement Brexit edition

 Deadline 15 August 2016

 Holdfast magazine is an award winning speculative fiction magazine, that explores our world, minds, hearts, dreams, (anything really) through the lens of weird and wonderful writing.

We are looking for speculative fiction drawing from all of the themes from issues 5 – 8, but also specifically inspired by the UK’s recent decision to leave the EU. Where can you see this going? Are we headed for dystopia or utopia? What would the ghosts of people that died in our two world wars think? What would a secret supernatural underworld be feeling right now? How would this affect witches, robots, fairies? Is there a terrifying lizard monster wearing a human’s skin and leading a certain political party that really doesn’t like immigrants? Perhaps someone can go back in time to alter the result? Or maybe someone is mind-controlling the population?  We want your most imaginative speculative fiction to explore your thoughts and feelings concerning this historic time.

Please remember this is a speculative magazine, so we only accept fiction which falls under this umbrella – fantasy/horror/science fiction/magic realism etc:

  Themes to hang your Brexit fiction on:

Issue #5 Of Land, Sea and Sky
(think place/borders/ownership/migration/refugees/origins)

 Issue #6 Gods and Monsters
(think politics/manipulation/power)

 Issue #7 Looking Forward Looking Back
(think dystopia/utopia/time travel/origins of EU)

 Issue #8 Love Sex Romance
(think relationship/friendship/heartbreak/ unity)

 The fiction supplement will be published online on the magazine site and sent out as a newsletter to subscribers.

 Please read our submission guidelines before submitting.

 All submissions to: submissions@holdfastmagazine.com

We are also excited and very thankful to be shortlisted for the British Fantasy Society award for best magazine again, after we won it last year! (Still super amazed at that)

Unsung Live #3, 27/04/16

Posted
Filed under live lit

 

unsung-ident-HIGH_h-COL

Unsung Live #3

Wednesday 27th April, 7pm

The Star of Kings

126 York Way, London N1 OAX

After the success and all-round fun of Unsung Live #2, Unsung Stories are happy to announce our return to The Star of Kings for our third evening of storytelling for fans of speculative fiction.

The lineup this time includes:

• Stephanie Saulter writes what she likes to think is literary science fiction. Born in Jamaica, she earned her degree at MIT and spent over a decade in the United States before moving to England in 2003. She’s best known as the author of the ®Evolution trilogy: Gemsigns, Binary and Regeneration are set in a near-future London, and use the lens of an altered humanity to take a new look at the old issues of race, class, inequality and social conflict. Stephanie’s short story ‘Audiovisionary’ deals with mental illness and possibly aliens, and was  published in 2014 in the anthology Paradox. She lives in London, blogs unpredictably at stephaniesaulter.com and tweets only slightly more reliably as @scriptopus.

• Ian Whates launched independent publisher NewCon Press in 2006, quite by accident (buy him a pint sometime and he’ll tell you about it). Through NewCon he has been privileged to publish original stories from some of the biggest names in genre fiction. He is the author of, among others, the novels City of Dreams and Nightmare and The Noise Within.

http://www.ianwhates.co.uk

@NewConPress

+ MORE TBC

 

The event is FREE and all are welcome, but space is limited RSVP at the Meetup event to avoid missing out. Doors 7pm.

Make sure to sign up to Unsung Shorts and receive a brand-new piece of short fiction delivered to your inbox once a fortnight.

 

Here are some nice things people have said about our previous event:

At a time when publishing is struggling to make sense of the new world order, live events like this feel like the way forward. Go to the next one so in five years’ time you can say you were there.

– Andrew Wallace

The readings were a brilliant blend of touching, troubling, imaginative and comic tales.

– MegloBlog

 

Hope to see you all there!

Unsung Live #2: 20th October, RSVPs open

Posted
Filed under event, live lit, short story reading club

Cast your mind back to the heady days of June, when the sun was shining, the drinks were flowing and one evening people gathered around a microphone to hear tales of worlds that don’t exist. They were fun, right?

Well after a near nearly filling the venue at the last Unsung Live event we couldn’t resist doing it all over again. Only this time it won’t be so incredibly hot, which is all that an Englishman ever wishes for. Am I right?

We are very happy to announce that Unsung Live #2 will take place on 20th October at the Star of Kings, Kings Cross.

Our readers this time include another Shirley Jackson Award nominee, a live-lit vet of the north and one of the most striking new writers this humble publisher has seen since Desirina Boskovich. With a combined distance travelled of over 7000 miles, and a formidable list of publication credits we’re planning on offering you a night of the best kind of surprises.

  • David Hartley – David is a writer of strange stories, his fiction having appeared in numerous places including Structo, Dark Fiction, The Alarmist and two Boo Books anthologies; After the Fall (2014) andWe Can Improve You (2015). He has two collections of flash fiction, Threshold (Gumbo Press, 2015) and Merry Gentlemen.
    @DHartleyWriter
    www.davidhartleywriter.com
  • Cassandra Khaw – Cassandra is Ysbryd Games’ business cat and an Ars Technica UK contributor. Her short fiction can be found at Unsung Shorts, Terraform, Shimmer, The Dark, and a variety of other places. She has a novella coming up with Abaddon Books sometime soon.
    @casskhaw
    about.me/khawcassandra
  • Robert Sharp – Robert is Head of Campaigns & Communications at English PEN, and author of the Shirley Jackson Award-nominated novella The Good Shabti.
    @robertsharp59
  • + more TBC

This event is completely free and open to all. Just remember space is limited, so RSVP at the Meetup event to avoid missing out.

Issue#6 Gods and Monsters is out! Call for submissions for issue#7: Looking Forward Looking Back

Posted
Filed under Lit mag
holdfast_godsandmonsters_lowres
cover art by Faye McNulty​
Our latest issue of holdfast magazine, “Gods and Monsters“, on the themes of religion and politics in SFF is now live! We recommend opening up the gospel-themed playlist in a new tab and then settling in to take a read of all the amazing stories and articles we have for you.
We are more than thrilled to bring you this issue’s featured author interview; Lucy was lucky enough to interview the amazing Lois McMaster Bujold, author of the Vorkosigan Saga. We also have new stories in the fiction section, essays and articles in the non-fiction and cross media sections and some great book recommendations in the Bookshelf.
Also, submissions are open for issue 7: Looking Forward, Looking Back. Basically, anything that’s in any way influenced by time. This includes science fiction, dystopia, alternative history and fantasy that draws inspiration from the past. So pretty broad! Please go to our submissions page and read through our guidelines before submitting.

Issue#4 of holdfast magazine, Diverse Reflections, is live! Plus call for submissions.

Posted
Filed under Lit mag

Issue4headerIssue#4 of holdfast magazine, Diverse Reflections: Seeing yourself in speculative fiction, is now live!

We are very proud of this issue, marking a whole year of holdfast! It’s been a very exciting first year, with four issues examining different aspects of speculative fiction.

This issue is an examination of and celebration of diversity in speculative fiction. We speak to featured author Stephanie Saulter about her books, life and thoughts on diversity in our featured author interview. Read about odd, animal growths that affect a lesbian relationship, about a Cameroonian lover’s line magic, and see the preview of a new comic by Carol Hood in our fiction section. In our non fiction section, check out the first installment of a new column Rendezvous with Rare Books, a personal letter to Octavia Butler, an argument for better portrayals of trans folk, and our attempt to convert a new Unbeliever. Read a personal account of the animated series Avatar, an appreciation of the TV programme Sleepy Hollow and our liveblog of the Blade trilogy in the cross media section. And why not listen to our Afrofuturism playlist in another tab (or cosmic plane) and get some great book recommendations from The Bookshelf.
Call for Submissions: Issue#5: Of Land, Sea and Sky

Deadline: January 15 2015

In this issue we will look at the themes of location and landscape in speculative fiction. Interpret this how you wish – it includes urban fantasy, rural epics, alien terrains, creatures of the deep, exploration, psychogeography, eco-apocalypse and anything else where a sense of place, whether in this world or another, is important to the text.

Have a read through our guidelines and email submissions@holdfastmagazine.com

 hold_fast_text