Scarecrow: Out Now

Back in February, I wrote that one of my stories had been accepted for World Weaver Press’ latest anthology, Scarecrow. Today, I am delighted to announce that this short story collection, edited by Fae’s Rhonda Parrish, has been released.

First of all, here’s a description of Scarecrow, from World Weaver Press’ website:

Hay-men, mommets, tattie bogles, kakashi, tao-tao—whether formed of straw or other materials, the tradition of scarecrows is pervasive in farming cultures around the world. The scarecrow serves as decoy, proxy, and effigy—human but not human. We create them in our image and ask them to protect our crops and by extension our very survival, but we refrain from giving them the things a creation might crave—souls, brains, free-will, love. In Scarecrow, fifteen authors of speculative fiction explore what such creatures might do to gain the things they need or, more dangerously, think they want.

Within these pages, ancient enemies join together to destroy a mad mommet, a scarecrow who is a crow protects solar fields and stores long-lost family secrets, a woman falls in love with a scarecrow, and another becomes one. Encounter scarecrows made of straw, imagination, memory, and robotics while being spirited to Oz, mythological Japan, other planets, and a neighbor’s back garden. After experiencing this book, you’ll never look at a hay-man the same.

My tale in this anthology is called Only the Land Remembers. It tells the story of Grace, a girl who volunteers to be the ‘Scarecrow’- a protector figure who must ward off the ghoulish ‘Crows’ that are haunting her town. Below is a short extract:

The Crows are gathering. 

Grace is curled up on the window seat upstairs, her arms around her knees, her fingers picking at the loose hem of her sleeve. This is the only spot in the house where she can watch them; it is just high enough to see over the town wall.  

They are smudged in the crisscross of panes, the glass distorting the almost-human shape of them, so that if Grace moves her head even a little, they seem to lurch from side to side. But even blurred those dark spirits are unmistakable, and she knows that, for now at least, they stand perfectly still beyond border.   

It calms her to sit here, taking stock of them: three by the gate, eight in the orchard, the rest away in the fields. Yesterday, there were two dozen; now she counts twenty-nine.  

After a while, her vision relaxes and she leans forward, a cold kiss lingering where her brow touches the window.  

‘Shoo,’ Grace whispers, her breath fogging the glass. ‘Get away. Shoo.’

I’d be lying if I said this had been an easy story to write. The plot changed significantly from my initial ideas, which is unusual for me, as I’m a compulsive planner. The number of drafts I struggled through, not to mention the endless hours I spent writing them, doesn’t really bear thinking about (a shout out goes to Joely Badger here, who unpicked the plot with me on multiple occasions, and never grew tired of my asking, ‘But what if…?’).

Needless to say, it was a huge relief to eventually wrestle my thoughts and ideas into a story I was pleased with, and when I received the postcard from Rhonda telling me I’d been accepted for Scarecrow it definitely felt as though all of the effort had been worth it. So today, as I look back on the whole experience - and I look forward to reading the rest of the anthology - I can't help but feel especially proud to finally see Only the Land Remembers published.

Scarecrow is available to buy as a trade paperback direct from the publisher, or as an ebook from the usual suspects. More information can be found here.

Newcastle Writing Conference 2015

Just over a week ago, I attended the Newcastle Writing Conference 2015. Organised by New Writing North and hosted by Northumbria University, it was a thoroughly informative and inspiring event - one I have thinking about ever since.

The day kicked off with a storming key notes address from YA author Meg Rosoff, which was a great ice-breaker for the conference, mainly because Meg is such an entertaining speaker. She brought a lot of laughter to the lecture hall as she told us exactly why she hated her former profession of advertising (it involved instant tea granules), her habit of getting fired from almost every job she’s ever had, and how her first novel – a pony book – was rejected for containing too much sex.

The talk concluded with Meg urging us to think of our brains as colanders: almost everything slips through, but once in a while something especially memorable or interesting gets stuck. When writing, she advised us to consider the contents of our own individual colanders: ‘None of it is the same as anyone else’s,’ she said, ‘and that is your strength and your weapon.’

After a panel event about social media, we split off into breakout sessions. I had chosen How to Pitch Your Work with Steve Chambers, mainly because the idea of talking about my novel-to-be terrifies me. In fact, what I really liked about Steve was that he didn’t deny that pitching was an unpleasant business, though as he reminded us, ‘You don’t really have a choice.’

A few pieces of advice from that session that really stood out for me:

• Build your pitch around the main character – people are interested in people.
• Pitch it like you’re talking to a mate at the pub.
•  It isn’t about the novel’s themes or issues - or why you’re writing it - it’s about telling the story.
• Focus on what is unique about your story. 
•  Not everyone will like your ideas, and that’s okay.
•  Don’t lose confidence, and keep pitching – you will improve.

I also found that Steve, who is the Programme Leader of the Creative Writing MA at Northumbria University, had a lot of writing wisdom to share, not all of it related to pitching. In fact, my notes are full of his offhand little gems, one of my favourites being, ‘You can’t help the kind of writer you are, because who you are keeps coming out of your work, in your voice.’

In the afternoon, I opted to attend Meet the Agent with Jo Unwin. Much like my attitude to pitching, I find the prospect of one day attempting to find an agent rather intimidating - they are, after all, the gatekeepers of the publishing world. Fortunately, Jo turned out to be very friendly, eager to explain what her job entailed, and full of advice on how to approach an agent. Of course, a lot of information about submitting work can be found online – and it varies from agent to agent – but I thought I’d record just a few of Jo’s many wonderful tips below:

• The biggest agents in the business might not have space for new authors, but it’s a good idea to approach their assistants, who will be looking to expand their client list.
• Mention a personal connection to the agent if you have one. This might be meeting them in person, but could just as easily be watching them talk at events on YouTube etc.
•  Have a good sense of the book you’ve written. Pitch the nugget of your story in your covering letter – and be specific, so it’s memorable. ‘Don’t tell me it’s about innocence and loss,’ Jo advised. ‘Tell me it’s about a mother whose daughter was lost at sea.’
•  Your covering letter should be serious, demonstrating that you’re a ‘career writer’ – i.e. someone who has been writing for a long time and is committed to a future in the profession. 

The conference concluded with a fantastic panel event called What’s Hot and What’s Not with Jo Unwin, Francesca Main (Picador), Rachael Kerr (Unbound) and Anna James (The Bookseller). It was great to hear about these women’s respective roles in the publishing industry and their current projects, not to mention the many, many book recommendations they had (my bank balance is about to take a serious hit).

As for the question posed by the name of the panel, although the speakers could identify current themes in publishing (nature writing is ‘having a moment’, women’s voices are popular) they cautioned us against chasing trends, because tastes inevitably will have changed by the time a book has been written and published. Instead, we were simply urged to write the best, most important book we could.

I found this point - which had been repeated one way or another throughout the conference - oddly reassuring. Obviously, writing a high-quality novel is no easy task, but given that the rapidly-evolving publishing industry can sometimes seem like a confusing sort of place, it’s a clear objective – something to get on with. 

In fact, Meg Rosoff summed it up nicely right at the beginning of the day, when she related what her agent had once said to her: ‘Forget about being a good girl and doing it the right way, and [write a book] as fiercely as you can.’

Mslexia Short Story Competition

I am delighted to reveal that one of my short stories, 'Still Life Moving Fast', has been named runner-up in the Mslexia Short Story Competition 2015. It is available to read in the summer edition of Mslexia magazine, which is out now.

For those who don't know, Mslexia is a fantastic publication 'for women who write.' Like the recent Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction, it aims to redress the gender imbalance in the publishing industry - in fact, the current issue discusses how men still dominate the top jobs in publishing. (The Guardian also just ran an article on how books about women are less likely to win literary prizes, which mentions Mslexia's research. Click here for more).

As I've said before, writing can sometimes be a lonely, unrewarding business, so it's a real boost to be acknowledged and published in such a well-respected magazine. Furthermore, judge Alison MacLeod had some lovely things to say about 'Still Life Moving Fast', including calling it 'visually delicious', which is something I may well quote until the end of time.

In addition to work by the winners and finalists of the short story competition, Issue 66 (Jun/Jul/Aug 2015) of Mslexia is chock-full of news, features, reviews, interviews and much more on the subject of writing, books and publishing. If this sounds like your thing - and you want to read 'Still Life Moving Fast' - do chase down a copy.

Coming Soon: Scarecrow

I am totally thrilled to announce that one of my stories, 'Only the Land Remembers', is to be published in World Weaver Press' latest anthology, Scarecrow.

Rhonda's postcard

Scarecrow is being released at the same time as a companion title, Corvidae, so it will be very interesting to see how the stories in each have developed around the theme of these two old foes. And now, both tables of contents are available over at editor Rhonda Parrish's blog (she also put together Fae, so I'm delighted to be working with her again). Scarecrow can be found here, Corvidae here.

I learned this happy news by email, but a few days later a handwritten card arrived from Rhonda, confirming my story's place in Scarecrow. Considering I mostly receive bills and leaflets from Domino's through my letterbox, this was a lovely surprise. I like to think the card was delivered - all the way from Canada - by some kind of corvidae. If I squint, I can just about see the beak marks...

Fae: Out Now

It’s finally here: Fae, World Weaver Press’ fairy-centric anthology, is out now.

I have written about my involvement with Fae here and here, but wanted to mark its release date by posting a little extract from my story, Antlers. I’m reluctant to give away too much about the tale, nor the specific fae-creature it concerns, so below are just the opening lines of Antlers, to give a taster of what's to come in the book:

The garden is a crypt. Vines grasp at the walls, pulling themselves upwards, right towards the throats of the tallest trees, which bow forward to meet one another, branches clasping branches. 

Inside, there is no breeze, and the air is thick with the musk of pollen and damp, dark earth. The birds that remain stand still in the shrubs, their songs low and mournful.  

At the centre, lies the Lady. Under the netting of shadows, her skin seems to shine and shift, like moonlight upon water. The only colour is at her breast, opening up like a red flower thrust forward through time, blossoming around the arrow that has pierced her heart. 

Fae, expertly edited by Rhonda Parrish, is available now in trade paperback and ebook via Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and other online retailers. You can also find Fae on Goodreads.

Finally, here is some lovely advance praise for Fae:

A delightfully refreshing collection that offers a totally different take on your usual fairy stories! I found it difficult to stop reading as one story ended and another began – all fantastic work by gifted writers. Not for the faint of heart, by any means.

          — Marge Simon, multiple Bram Stoker® Winner

Anyone with an abiding love of Faerie and the Folk who dwell there will find stories to enjoy in FAE.

          — Tangent (C.D. Lewis)

The Cartography of Shattered Trees' by Beth Cato and 'And Only The Eyes of Children' by Laura VanArendonk Baugh are shining examples of what could be done with the subject of faeries that surpass tricks on the reader, that build worlds and characters worth knowing and exploring, that have something important to say about the real world.

          — Tangent (John Sulk)

Nibble on this deliciously wondrous collection of stories of fae one at a time or binge on its delights on one night, you'll love the faerie feast this collection provides. I devoured it.

          — Kate Wolford, editor of Enchanted Conversation: A Fairytale Magazine

Update (05/08/14): You can read my (highly biased) review of Fae at Goodreads here. 

Fae: The Cover Revealed

Earlier this year, I wrote that one of my stories, 'Antlers', is to be published in an anthology entitled Fae. Now, I am very excited to share its beautiful cover and the book's description, both of which have just been released by Fae's publisher, World Weaver Press.

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Meet Robin Goodfellow as you’ve never seen him before, watch damsels in distress rescue themselves, get swept away with the selkies and enjoy tales of hobs, green men, pixies and phookas. One thing is for certain, these are not your grandmother’s fairy tales.

Fairies have been both mischievous and malignant creatures throughout history. They’ve dwelt in forests, collected teeth or crafted shoes. Fae is full of stories that honor that rich history while exploring new and interesting takes on the fair folk from castles to computer technologies and modern midwifing, the Old World to Indianapolis.

Fae covers a vast swath of the fairy story spectrum, making the old new and exploring lush settings with beautiful prose and complex characters. Enjoy the familiar feeling of a good old-fashioned fairy tale alongside urban fantasy and horror with a fae twist.

With an introduction by Sara Cleto and Brittany Warman, and all new stories from Sidney Blaylock Jr., Amanda Block, Kari Castor, Beth Cato, Liz Colter, Rhonda Eikamp, Lor Graham, Alexis A. Hunter, L.S. Johnson, Jon Arthur Kitson, Adria Laycraft, Lauren Liebowitz, Christine Morgan, Shannon Phillips, Sara Puls, Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Kristina Wojtaszek.

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Fae is released on the 22nd July 2014. To win an advanced copy through Goodreads, click here.

Coming Soon: Fae

I'm about to take a bit of a break from Writer's Block, as I'm off to do some travelling before starting full-time freelance work in May. However just in the nick of time (my first flight - to New Zealand - leaves tomorrow night), I'm able to reveal that one of my short stories, Antlers, is to be published in a forthcoming anthology by World Weaver Press.

The book, entitled Fae, will celebrate fairy-like creatures of all shapes and sizes. As editor Rhonda Parrish outlined in the call for submissions back in September:

Historically speaking fairies have been mischievous or malignant. They’ve dwelt in forests, collected teeth or crafted shoes. In Fae, we want stories that honor that rich history but explore new and interesting takes on fairies as well. We want urban fairies and arctic fairies, steampunk fairies, time-traveling and digital fairies. We want stories that bridge traditional and modern styles and while we’re at it, we want stories about fairy-like creatures too. Bring us your sprites, your pixies, your seelies and unseelies, silkies, goblins or gnomes, brownies and imps. We want them all. We’re looking for lush settings, beautiful prose and complex characters.

Hot off the press today, Fae's table of contents is now up on Rhonda's blog, and I'm very intrigued by the sixteen story titles that sit alongside Antlers. Fortunately, there isn't too long to find out how my fellow contributors have interpreted the fairy theme, as publication of the anthology is scheduled for this summer.

Plitvice National Park in Croatia, where I'm sure a few faeries dwell

Stories for Homes: Update

Just in time for Christmas, Stories for Homes has been released in paperback. As I wrote in a previous post, the anthology was put together to raise funds for the housing charity Shelter, and features the work of sixty-three authors, all responding to the theme of 'home'.

I am fortunate enough to be one of those authors, and my short story, Unsettled, is a re-imagining of a well-known fairy tale:   

She needs to cut [the branches] back, trim all of the trees that are creeping up on her house. In the early days, the young men used to help her, grumbling all the while about the decision to move so far in. It had been wise at the time: everyone had been running from something, everyone wanted to lose themselves between the branches. It wasn’t until they had built up the little settlement that they realised they weren’t the only ones hiding in the forest.

Both the Stories for Homes paperback and ebook are now available from Amazon (and would make excellent Christmas presents!) All royalties raised go directly to Shelter.

Leaflet by Debs Riccio

Thread

The November issue of the online journal Bookanista went live today, featuring one of my short stories, Thread.

Thread is probably my most experimental piece of fiction to date. I have been playing around with fairy tales and myths for a few years now, but have recently begun to think I can use them more sparingly in my work. With Thread, I started with a myth, but tried to write over rather than around it, hoping the original tale would show through in places, but not distract the course of my new, modern-day narrative.

A little taster:

You don’t choose your own story.” That’s what Mama had said, the real one.
Papa had grunted into his pipe, raised his gaze to the ceiling. “Let the children dream.”
Biting down a response, Mama had pulled the quilt tight over their little bodies, nudging them closer together to warm like coals in a grate. Then she had bent down, kissed their cheeks, stroked their hair, and blinked back the tears that were threatening to spill into the space between them.
“Very well,” she had said, while Papa puffed away in his chair. “But I will choose the story tonight, as I wish I could choose all your stories.”

Bookanista is a fantastic website packed with literary news, extracts, interviews and articles. It places particular emphasis on publishing new fiction, from both fledgling and established writers, and I am very excited to be contributing to it this month.

Guess the myth.

To read Thread, and the rest of Bookanista's November issue, head over here.

Stories For Homes, Homes for Stories

Every so often – though certainly not as often as I should - I go on a serious trawl of the internet for literary journals, magazines, websites and competitions, searching for places to send my short stories. A few months ago, on one such mission, I came across the website Stories for Homes, which was requesting submissions of short fiction for an anthology of the same name on the theme of ‘home’.

Immediately, one of my stories, Unsettled, popped to the forefront of my mind: it concerns a house, a community, and an outsider - themes I thought might sit well in the anthology. However, it is also a retelling of a famous fairy tale, and given that the book was being produced to raise funds for the homeless charity Shelter, I wondered whether the editors might want to stick to more realist(ic) stories to reflect the serious nature of the cause.  

Still it was worth a shot, I thought, so I sent off Unsettled with a rather sheepish this-might-not-be-quite-what-you’re-looking-for disclaimer, and was therefore doubly delighted when, shortly afterwards, I learned it had been accepted for the anthology.

(The story behind Stories for Homes – from its pitch to publication - is rather fascinating in itself, as described by Debi Alper on her website here.)

Given that the book was being put together for charity under significant time pressure, we writers were then paired up over cyberspace by the editors/organisers/superwomen, Sally Swingewood and Debi Alper, and asked to look over one another's work. Although editing is a large part of my day job, at the time of this request I was holed up in a French chateau with sporadic internet access (ghostwriting larks...) and so a little worried about how I was going to find the time/means to pull off a decent editing job.

Fortunately, I was paired with Isabel Costello, who I later discovered runs the excellent book blog On the Literary Sofa. Isabel’s wonderful story, Half of Everything, about a woman coming to terms with the breakdown of her marriage during hurricane Sandy (totally different to my fairy tale piece!) hardly needed any tweaking, so it was a very pleasant editing task indeed. And a useful learning experience for me too, because it's not often my work is edited by someone I don't know. I usually entrust it to a few writerly friends, but Isabel provided some really constructive and thoughtful feedback, which led me to look at my piece afresh and give it a good polish before its publication. 

I am very proud to have been involved in the Stories for Homes book, and in awe of the people who worked so hard to pull it all together. It's strange to think that I stumbled across its website when looking for a home for one of my stories. I couldn't have predicted that search would lead me to such an exciting project, one that will hopefully make a big difference to people in desperate need of a place to call their own.  
  

Stories for Homes promo by Imran Siddiq

Stories for Homes is available now in ebook form on Amazon for just £5 and I’m told there will be a paperback version coming soon. One hundred percent of the royalties goes straight to Shelter.

Vintage Script and Historical Fiction

I recently discovered that one of my short stories, It'll All Be Gone Tomorrow, had been chosen for publication in Vintage Script, 'the writing magazine for all things vintage, historical and retro.' Now, the edition in question - the quarterly magazine's spring issue - is available to order.

It'll All Be Gone Tomorrow describes two chance encounters between a man and woman, one at the end of the 'golden Edwardian summer' in 1913 and one a decade or so later, during the 'roaring' twenties. Both of these points in history have always really interested me, especially when held up against one another. As I wrote for Vintage Script's website: 'The First World War brought about huge social change in Britain, especially for women. In It’ll All Be Gone Tomorrow I wanted to explore the periods directly before and after the war through a female character who has unexpectedly triumphed during the turbulent days in between.'

What I didn't add, however (lest the editor change her mind and take out my story!) is that this is actually my first attempt at historical fiction. I've always enjoyed reading it, but ever since I began playing about with fairy tales during my Creative Writing MSc, most of my short stories have had a magical (or magical realist) feel. When the idea for It'll All Be Gone Tomorrow hit me, I treated it as a bit of writing practice, not confident of its chances of success, so I'm both pleasantly surprised and very excited to be included in this anthology.

Modern Grimmoire

A couple of months ago, I saw that Indigo Ink Press were running a competition to find stories for their forthcoming fairy tale anthology. This weekend, I received the very exciting news that my entry had been successful, and I am to be published next year in Modern Grimmoire: Contemporary Fairy Tales, Fables and Folklore.

Soon to feature... The Mirror Child

My entry, The Mirror Child, was originally written as a response to Snow White. It features a Queen so desperate for a child that she is tricked by a mischievous fairy, who gifts her reflection - and only her reflection - with a baby.

Originally penned in 2008, The Mirror Child formed one third of a trilogy of fairy tales written for my Creative Writing MSc. The first story in the collection, When Winter was Caught, was published a few years ago in English Digest, a Taiwanese English language publication, as part of my stint as their Overseas Writer. The second story, The Sea-Maid Speaks, was shortlisted for the Chapter One Promotions Short Story Competition and published this year in their anthology, The Beginning. 

So it's very nice to find a home for the third and final story in the collection, not to mention the warm, happy feelings that being chosen for publication brings. Plus, the finalists are invited to a launch party called the 'Poison Apple Ball'. I'm not even sure what this entails, but if by some miracle I can afford a trip to America (or to whichever faraway location it happens to be held), I'll be there with wings on.

The Beginning...

… Is the title of a recently released anthology from Chapter One Promotions. It features the winners and runners up of the International Short Story Competition 2009, including my piece, The Sea-Maid Speaks. The link is here. (I am not sure about the cover. I have already likened it to a still from a 1970s sex education video).

Obviously, this is completely thrilling; to be published not only in a proper book, but under my own name too. The Sea-Maid Speaks is a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s heart-wrenching and frankly pretty disturbing The Little Sea-Maid (if you’re only familiar with the Disney version, you’re lucky). As can be ascertained by the year of the competition, this anthology is rather late, and thus the story feels a little stale to me now. However, despite any reservations I may have about its quality in 2012, I have to admit that it was something of a breakthrough when I penned it during my MSc. I remember very clearly feeling that, for the first time, I was digging deep, taking a risk, and writing in the way I had always wanted to. In short, it helped me find my voice (ironic, as the tale centres around the eponymous sea-maid’s inability to speak).

For that reason, the title of the anthology feels rather apt - for both the story and for where I was when I wrote it. That definite article makes all the difference, you see: not just a beginning, but the beginning.