Congratulations Thoraiya!
I was delighted last night to see Thoraiya Dyer be awarded the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story for her wonderful After the Rain contribution, “Fruit of the Pipal Tree”! Well deserved, and well done!
Epilogue – cover revealed & pre-order special!
Thanks to the astonishingly talented Amanda Rainey, Epilogue, which goes to print TODAY, has a cover! Tah dah!
Isn’t it amazing? The creative process that Amanda goes through for covers is something of a wonder to me – this is in no way where this cover idea started out, and she puts up with annoying publishers who keep saying, hmm, perhaps more this than that, or what about if… And she doesn’t even curse at me (well, not to my face at least!) 
But I hope you’ll agree, the final product is something pretty special, and perfect for the stories in the book. Speaking of which…
Table of Contents – Epilogue
To be released at Continuum, June 2012.
“A memory trapped in light” by Joanne Anderton
“Time and tide” by Lyn Battersby
“Fireflies” by Steve Cameron
“Sleeping Beauty” by Thoraiya Dyer
“The Fletcher Test” by Dirk Flinthart
“Ghosts” by Stephanie Gunn
“Sleepers” by Kaia Landelius
“Solitary” by Dave Luckett
“Cold comfort” by David McDonald
“The Mornington Ride” by Jason Nahrung
“What books survive” by Tansy Rayner Roberts
“The last good town” by Elizabeth Tan
Sound good? Trust me, it is! And you can give your future self a lovely gift, by pre-ordering now at the super special pre-order price! (RRP will be $22.95 + P&H).
To Spin a Darker Stair is out in the world!
People have been tweeting about receiving their copies of To Spin a Darker Stair, and they are saying such lovely things!
Faith Mudge, one of the authors, sent me a beautiful note, and I hope she won’t mind me quoting her description: “The book is gorgeous – so small and sweet, a bookling really!” I LOVE it – bookling indeed!
Artist Kathleen Jennings talks us through the process of the cover art on her blog – so PRETTY.
DarkMatterzine has already reviewed it! Nalini says: ”I’m charmed by the book … these are re-imaginings from the dark side.” (among other nice things).
And on Twitter, Tansy Rayner Roberts called it, “a fairy cobweb of a … book.” Beautiful!
And finally (for now!), author Catherynne M Valente also had some things to say on Twitter – I’ve captured it as a picture to have forever! My favourite bit? “… a beautiful, delicate, strange book…”
If you’d like a copy too, pop over to the Shop and pick one up!
Goodreads giveaway – To spin a Darker Stair!
Congratulations to the 2011 Aurealis Awards shortlistees
The shortlists were announced tonight and there are some wonderful works on the lists. We’re delighted to see Thoraiya Dyer’s fabulous story “Fruit of the Pipal Tree” from After the Rain shortlisted for Fantasy Short Story. Well done Thoraiya! The shortlists can be found here. Congratulations all!
Bonus competition for pre-orders of To Spin a Darker Stair
Sneak peek at part of the gorgeous cover art for To Spin a Darker Stair (art by Kathleen Jennings)
It occurred to me today that I have a marvellous opportunity to give readers (even more) incentive to pre-order their copy of FableCroft’s forthcoming gift book, To Spin a Darker Stair. The book features stories by Catherynne M Valente and Faith Mudge, and is illustrated by Kathleen Jennings.
Last month I accidentally ended up with an extra copy of Sea Hearts, the newest novel from the marvellous Margo Lanagan (I reviewed it here). I highly recommend it, so I’m offering it up as a pre-order prize! One lucky person who pre-orders To Spin a Darker Stair before March 15, 2012, will win Sea Hearts as well (drawn randomly from all pre-orders).
So, for just $7.95 (Australia), $8.95 (New Zealand) or $9.95 (rest of the world) you have the chance to get not just one but TWO awesome (beautiful) books! Don’t miss out on your chance to win - pre-order now! **
** Winner will be drawn from all pre-orders prior to March 15, 2012, including those already placed.
Announcement: Epilogue table of contents
It is with great pleasure that I announce the table of contents for Epilogue (the anthology formerly known as Apocalypse Hope). I had more than 200 submissions for this anthology, many of a very high quality, and it was difficult task to sift through them to pick out the finest gems. I present the final lineup, and look forward to bringing these stories to you in print.
“Time and tide” by Lyn Battersby
“Fireflies” by Steve Cameron
“Sleeping Beauty” by Thoraiya Dyer
“The Fletcher test” by Dirk Flinthart
“Ghosts” by Stephanie Gunn
“Sleepers” by Kaia Landelius
“Solitary” by Dave Luckett
“Cold comfort” by David McDonald
“Mornington ride” by Jason Nahrung
“The last good town” by Elizabeth Tan
“A memory trapped in light” by Joanne Anderton
“Only the books survive” by Tansy Rayner Roberts
Thank you to every author who sent in submissions, which came from all around the world – some rejections were very difficult to make, and I wish those authors the very best in finding their stories a home.
For those interested, the final contents include 12 stories, eleven by Australians and one from Sweden. There are seven female authors, and five male. The stories are all original to the anthology.
I’m delighted with the line up for Epilogue, and can’t wait to show it to you all!
And the winner is…
Thank you to everyone on Twitter and Facebook who made title suggestions for renaming Apocalypse Hope. There were some wonderful titles put forward, and I loved a number of them (just so you know, After the Apocalypse wasn’t a contender because Maureen McHugh had a collection titled that this year. After the End was another popular suggestion, but there’s a 2005 zombie movie by that name!). The voting was tight as well, so obviously the titles put forward were appealing to many people – makes it tough to figure out a decision! However, after a long and thoughtful process, culminating in a face to face discussion yesterday, the winner has been decided! The anthology formerly known as Apocalypse Hope will be published as…
EPILOGUE
Thank you to @RattusAsh on Twitter (shared by @debkalin) for the suggestion – as promised, I’ll send you a free copy of the anthology when it comes into the world! Thanks again to everyone who made suggestions and voted – your input was appreciated more than I can say
Have a say in choosing a title!
While the table of contents for the anthology previously known as Apocalypse Hope is almost finalised, I am struggling to decide on the new title that more accurately reflects these new contents. With the help of Twitter and Facebook, I have shortlisted some wonderful title suggestions and would love for you to pick your favourite! Vote here.
And remember, the FableCroft Massive Moving Sale ends in just one week – don’t miss out on the best book bargains for Christmas!
Slush stats for Apocalypse Hope
It took me a little longer than I’d intended (illness and other family matters intervened for a few weeks, holding up the process), but I’ve just completed the first round of slush reading for Apocalypse Hope. Here’s some interesting facts from my submissions pool:
213 submissions in total. 212 by email, 1 by snail mail (guidelines stated email submissions only)
Total word count (e-subs only) approximately 903,641.
GENDER of authors
86 female (40.38%)
122 male (57.28%)
5 unknown (2.34%)
COUNTRY of origin
78 Australia (36.62%)
2 Austria (0.94%)
1 Bulgaria (0.47%)
9 Canada (4.22%)
1 China (0.47%)
1 Denmark (0.47%)
2 Greece (0.94%)
1 India (0.47%)
1 Ireland (0.47%)
1 Malaysia (0.47%)
1 Singapore (0.47%)
1 Sweden (0.47%)
1 Thailand (0.47%)
1 The Netherlands (0.47%)
9 UK (4.22%)
103 USA (48.36%)
ACCEPT/REJECT/HOLD
1 submission withdrawn as it was accepted elsewhere (guidelines stated no simultaneous submissions) (0.47%)
2 held with rewrite requests (0.94%) (both female)
4 accepted on first round reading (1.88%) (all Australian; 2 male, 2 female)
36 held for second round reading (16.9%) (11 Australian, 17 US, 2 Canada, 1 Denmark, 1 Ireland, 1 Singapore, 1 Sweden, 1 Thailand, 1 UK; 14 female, 22 male)
170 rejected (79.81%)
OTHER STATS
13 stories were rejected for not meeting the guidelines (6.1%) – these included reprints without query and stories outside the word count without query.
6 authors queried for outside word count (2.82%) – of these, one was accepted in first round, and one was held for second reading.
3 stories were submitted in formats unable to be read by the editor (1.41%)
ETA: I had quite a lot of queries to submit reprints. Most of these I decided not to consider, as they were published very recently. I had eight reprint submissions I looked at (some not queried – these were not read. I also had one that was not queried, and the author did not even advise me it was a reprint. It was pure chance I googled the story before replying to the author, and discovered the story provenance). Of these, two are on hold for second round.
I also forgot to mention I had one poem submitted (after query) – it too is on hold.
A reminder that my area is editing, not mathematics