There seems to
be an unwritten rule with regard to writing. As time passes we edit and polish
our work, submit it, and await the acceptance (hopefully) or rejection (sadly
inevitable sometimes). Then we sit back and wait for publication.
And that’s where
this rule comes in.
You can have
stuff accepted over a period of a year or more, then – because of the vagaries
of the publishing world (and the last couple of years has seen more vagaries
than usual) – nothing for months. Then, like buses, everything turns up at once
(which is fine in a way, because if people aren’t paying attention, it can look
like you’re really prolific).
Which is a
roundabout way of explaining why three short stories of mine are all seeing publication
within a short time of each other, when they’ve been accepted over quite a
range of time.
“All I Ever See”
was accepted for The Mammoth Book of Folk Horror (Skyhorse, ed. Stephen
Jones) back in 2020, but due to the pandemic the book was delayed for a year or
so. The Kindle edition is now available, while the paperback will be out in
October (and is available to pre-order here)
“Echoes of Days
Passed” is the second salty tale of the submarine USS Oswin (first encountered
in “Cradle of the Deep”, Startling Stories magazine 2021 [Wildside, ed.
Douglas Draa]) and was accepted for The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors 3: A Miscellany of Monsters (The Alchemy Press, ed. Peter Coleborn & Jan Edwards) at the
beginning of the year. This anthology is also due out in October, and is available
to pre-order here.
“Hall of Dreams”
is the baby of the bunch, conceived during a couple of nights’ stay in
Blackpool in July. It will be seeing the light of day in Gruesome Grotesques
Vol 6: Carnival of Freaks (TK Pulp, ed. Trevor Kennedy) in – you guessed it
– October. You’d think there was some sort of festival celebrating spooks and
other horrors at that time of year. Details for this as and when.
Three tales, acceptances
spread over more than a twelve month period, being published within a few weeks
of each other.
Odd business, this writing one.