As you can see this lovely cover is for Wendy Nikel’s forthcoming time travel novella, The Continuum, which I had the pleasure of acquiring and editing for World Weaver Press.
The official description for The Continuum is:
Elise Morley is an expert on the past who’s about to get a crash course in the future.
For years, Elise has been donning corsets, sneaking into castles, and lying through her teeth to enforce the Place in Time Travel Agency’s ten essential rules of time travel. Someone has to ensure that travel to the past isn’t abused, and most days she welcomes the challenge of tracking down and retrieving clients who have run into trouble on their historical vacations.
But when a dangerous secret organization kidnaps her and coerces her into jumping to the future on a high-stakes assignment, she’s got more to worry about than just the time-space continuum. For the first time ever, she’s the one out-of-date, out of place, and quickly running out of time.
Does that intrigue you? Of course it does 😉
The book isn’t available for pre-order yet, but you can add it to your ‘Want to Read’ shelves at Goodreads and trust that I will keep you updated on news about it as we progress toward its January 23rd release date!
There’s also a Goodreads giveaway (US only)… but you don’t like free books, do you?
Dream Eater is an urban fantasy with a difference — K. Bird Lincoln didn’t rely on vampires and werewolves for her mythical creatures. Nu-uh. She includes awesome Japanese, Middle Eastern and Native American mythological creatures. Love!
Koi Pierce dreams other peoples’ dreams.
Her whole life she’s avoided other people. Any skin-to-skin contact—a hug from her sister, the hand of a barista at Stumptown coffee—transfers flashes of that person’s most intense dreams. It’s enough to make anyone a hermit.
But Koi’s getting her act together. No matter what, this time she’s going to finish her degree at Portland Community College and get a real life. Of course it’s not going to be that easy. Her father, increasingly disturbed from Alzheimer’s disease, a dream fragment of a dead girl from the casual brush of a creepy PCC professor’s hand, and a mysterious stranger who speaks the same rare Northern Japanese dialect as Koi’s father will force Koi to learn to trust in the help of others, as well as face the truth about herself.
When Dream Eater came into the World Weaver Press slush pile there was more than one editor who was interested in it. I had to elbow and arm wrestle* ’em to be the one to acquire it. I’m forever grateful to be the one who got to edit it because I freaking love this book.
I love the concept.
I love the characters.
I love the setting.
Reading Dream Eater has made me want to visit Portland, Oregon so bad. You don’t even know–the struggle is real! I intend some day to go there and visit all the places from the book… okay, maybe I’ll skip the professor’s office (because trespassing) but all the other places. Yup, yup, yup!
And it’s out today! You can get your own copy right now!
World Weaver Press has an open submission period coming up very soon — February first, to be exact — and I am ridiculously stoked about it! Reading submissions for novels and collections is a whole different ballgame than reading short stories or poems, and falling in love with a book and then being able to help improve it and share it with the world? It’s amazing. I can’t even begin to tell you. I love it!
When I’m reading submissions the #1 most important thing to me are the characters — they need to be three-dimensional, of course, but beyond that I also need at least one character in the book that I can cheer for. They don’t need to be perfect (please God, don’t let them be perfect) but it’s vital that I want them to prevail. Everything else — plot, world-building, pacing, all of that — comes secondary to this. I can help fix plot problems, or offer suggestions to improve pacing, etc. etc. but if I don’t have a character to cheer for I’m not going to make it through my first read of the manuscript.
Writing a manuscript wish list is really difficult because really what I want most is something that I’ve never even considered asking for. I want to be surprised. That being said, since I only have room in my schedule to acquire one title during this window (at most) I’d like to try and offer some small idea of what I would most like to see and right now I’m all about the -punk.
I’m fascinated with the World Wars and the years between them so it is probably not a huge surprise that the absolute #1 thing I would love to see in the WWP submissions inbox next month is a gritty dieselpunk novel. In case you’re not familiar with dieselpunk one of the best descriptions I’ve found of it so far comes from DailyDot.com:
“…Hallmarked by the advent of diesel engines for major machinery, particularly war machines, dieselpunk begins roughly around the time of the first World War, and finds its apotheosis in the second.
If steampunk’s calling card is a dazzling spectacle of brass, clockwork, and earth tones, then dieselpunk’s is steel and chrome mixing with the grime and grit of modern machinery, the nostalgia of unironic patriotism, and a touch of the misery and existential dread that accompanies modernism.”
Think Dark City. Think Mad Max: Fury Road. Think Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Think Snowpiercer*. And if you’ve got a dieselpunk novel, think of World Weaver Press LOL. We don’t do super duper dark titles for the most part, but we’re good with gritty. I love gritty. Send me all the grit! 🙂
And remember that all countries have patriots, not just North American ones (hint, hint).
Art by Miss Olivia Louise
As much as I love grit, these days I find myself hungry for optimism as well. For hope. That’s where the second thing on my wishlist comes in.
Somewhere on the other side of the -punk spectrum from dieselpunk is solarpunk. Solarpunk is much more optimistic and envisions an eco-friendly future “focused on envisioning a positive future beyond scarcity and hierarchy, where humanity is reintegrated with nature and technology is used for human-centric and ecocentric purposes.” (Source: Wikipedia.).
I’d love to acquire a lush solarpunk title that uses interesting characters to explore the kinds of conflicts that would exist in a utopian world through an optimistic (not saccharine) lens. That might include conflict types that exist now (interpersonal, criminal, political) as well as ones that might come about because of the new state of things. What kinds of conflicts would those be? I don’t know. Surprise me!
And sandwiched between those two comes the third thing on my wishlist — steampunk. I think everyone knows what steampunk is, and yes, there has been a lot of it produced and published in recent years, but I’m not done with it yet. If you’ve got a fresh take on a steampunk-type tale I would love to see it. Bonus points if your story takes the core steampunk aesthetics and technology but places them somewhere other than the American West or Britain. Got an arctic steampunk tale? I’d love to see it. Something equatorial and steampunk-y? Yes, please.
And remember, if your title is nothing like what I’ve described in this wishlist don’t let that hold you back. First of all, I’m open to all sorts of things I haven’t listed here — like I said, my favourite thing to find in a submission is something I never would have thought to ask for. Secondly, I’m not the only person reading the submissions — there are several Editors at WWP and we all like different things, so even if a project isn’t right for me it might be perfect for one of them. We all read all the submissions so you don’t even have to try and guess which one of us would be most likely to be a good fit for your manuscript.
See you in the slush?
🙂
*Wrong time frame to technically be dieselpunk but right aesthetic. And labels exist to be defied :-p
About couple years ago I made the very difficult decision to shelve my novel, Shadows. Not because I didn’t love it (I did) but because while it still needed work I was far too close to it to be able to see exactly what direction that would should take, and how to fix it. Then, not so long ago, I dusted it off a little in my “spare” time and tweeked it a bit. After two years away from it I was much more able to see what needed to be changed. So I made the changes, got it as good as I could on my own and then submitted it to World Weaver Press.
They liked it!
In fact, they bought it 🙂
I’m super stoked. My novel, Shadows*, has been accepted for publication by World Weaver Press in 2015!
I’ve got my editorial letter for it, and the manuscript is due in November so between editing Shadows, transcribing Hollow, promoting Fae & A is for Apocalypse and reading for Corvidae and Scarecrow I am going to be freaking busy for the next few months, but I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am about it. It’s a good kind of swamped. The best kind of stressed.
Also, did I mention I’ve already received my editorial letter? It’s my very first one ever, which makes me a little giddy and the suggestions are dead on. Just reading it got me totally excited about working on Shadows again and making it even more amazing than it already is 🙂
For those of you who are familiar with my Aphanasian stories, you’ll be pleased to hear this book includes all your favourites (Colby, Xavier, Shadow, Bayne & Teyat). Michael (from Sister Margaret) is back, and there are some characters who may become new favourites as well. You’re going to love it. But you don’t get to read it until sometime in 2015. In the meantime, just be very happy for me… and forgive me if I’m even slower than usual at replying to emails. It’s gonna be crazy around here for a bit LoL
🙂
*We’re looking at changing the title to better reflect the changes in the story. I’ll keep you updated 😉
I am incredibly excited to announce that Fae has officially become the first in a series of anthologies I will be editing for World Weaver Press!
Though submissions are not yet open for our next titles we announce their existence this afternoon on WWP’s month #SFFlunch chat on Twitter so I’m able to share the news with you.
Corvidae and Scarecrow will be the second and third titles I will be editing for WWP (and there may be more in the future, wait and see!)
Corvidae is going to be dedicated to stories about corvids, all kinds of corvids. Crows, ravens, magpies, bluejays, nutcrackers, treepies, choughs… you name ’em, I want to see ’em. I’m looking for fantasy stories (horror is okay as long as it’s not gratuitous) that span the spectrum of light to dark.
Scarecrow is going to be all about scarecrows. Having seen them in everything from The Wizard of Oz to Doctor Who I’ve developed quite a taste for the range of ways scarecrows have been portrayed in the past and want to explore even more new and exciting ones in this anthology. Again I’ll be looking for stories that cover a large spectrum in terms of mood.
Scarecrow and Corvidae are meant to be companion anthologies, in conversation with one another. One of the ways to make my job easier in that regard (and I’m always looking for ways to make my job easier) will be to have overlap between the authors included in the two anthologies. With that in mind I am encouraging people to submit to both anthologies. Not the same story, you understand, but if you happen to have a great idea for a corvid story and an incredible scarecrow story I would very much like to see them both. Also, before someone asks, it is not required to submit to both and submitting to only one will not hurt your chances of acceptance.
Submissions won’t open until July but I was too excited to keep this to myself any longer, and I figured the sooner I shared it the sooner people could start brainstorming stories for these two books.
Anthologist: Rhonda Parrish
Publisher: World Weaver Press
Corvidae are the family of birds which include such iconic species as crows, ravens, magpies, rooks and nutcrackers. They are known for their high intelligence (they use tools and recognize themselves in mirrors!) and appear in fiction and mythology all through the ages and in a great many different cultures as well.
Corvids are seen as mystical creatures, known to be companions to both Odin and Apollo, believed by the Haida to have created the earth and credited (in the form of Raven the Trickster) for stealing fire and bringing it to earth, but they are also associated with death, disease and madness. According to legend, the Kingdom of England will fall if the ravens leave the Tower of London and so are a kind of good luck charm, but they are also associated with battle and war through their connection with The Morrigan and Badb from Irish mythology. Such paradoxical creatures, it’s easy to be fascinated by them, and a great many of us are.
We are looking for fantasy and well-written horror stories (nothing gratuitously gory or violent) of up to 7,500 words long.
Corvidae will be published alongside a companion anthology, Scarecrow. We intend for the two books to be in conversation with one another and so would like some overlap between the authors included in each title. Thus we encourage writers to submit to both anthologies. Please do not submit the same story to both books (if the anthologist believes a story is more appropriate for one than the other she will let you know).
Rights and compensation: Payment: $10 and a paperback copy of the anthology from World Weaver Press. We are looking for previously unpublished works in English. Seeking first world rights in English and exclusive right to publish in print and electronic format for six months after publication date, after which publisher retains nonexclusive right to continue to publish for the life of the anthology.
Open submission period: July 1, 2014 – October 31, 2014
Length: Under 7,500 words
Submission method: Email story as a .doc or .rtf attachment to fae [at] worldweaverpress [dot] com. Subject line: Corvidae Submission: TITLE
About the anthologist: Rhonda Parrish is driven by a desire to do All The Things. She has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of Niteblade Magazine for over five years now (which is like 25 years in internet time) and is the editor of the forthcoming World Weaver Press anthology Fae.
In addition, Rhonda is a writer whose work has been included or is forthcoming in dozens of publications including Tesseracts 17: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast and Mythic Delirium.
Anthologist: Rhonda Parrish
Publisher: World Weaver Press
Scarecrows have been portrayed as everything from empty-headed geniuses to malevolent demons. They’ve appeared in literature and mythology, from as far back as ancient Japan where Kuebiko, the god of agriculture is represented as a wise scarecrow who cannot walk, to more modern representations in Doctor Who. They are supervillains and storybook heroes, hapless and powerful. Wonderfully paradoxical creatures, much like the birds they are (in their most practical forms) meant to scare away. It is no wonder they capture our imaginations the way they do. It’s time the world had an anthology filled with scarecrow stories.
I will be looking for fresh twists on these ancient characters, exotic locations (both real and imagined), three-dimensional characters, and engaging voices.
Scarecrow will be an anthology of well-written fantasy and horror stories (nothing gratuitously gory or violent) of up to 7,500 words long.
Note: I feel somewhat bad using this particular picture alongside this blog because I’m not only looking for dark stories. In fact, though I definitely want some stories on the dark side of the spectrum I will be sad and disappointed if I don’t receive lighter pieces as well.
Scarecrow will be published alongside a companion anthology, Corvidae. We intend for the two books to be in conversation with one another and so would like some overlap between the authors included in each title. Thus we encourage writers to submit to both anthologies. Please do not submit the same story to both books (if the anthologist believes a story is more appropriate for one than the other she will let you know).
Rights and compensation: Payment: $10 and a paperback copy of the anthology from World Weaver Press. We are looking for previously unpublished works in English. Seeking first world rights in English and exclusive right to publish in print and electronic format for six months after publication date, after which publisher retains nonexclusive right to continue to publish for the life of the anthology.
Open submission period: July 1, 2014 – October 31, 2014
Length: Under 7,500 words
Submission method: Email story as a .doc or .rtf attachment to fae [at] worldweaverpress [dot] com. Subject line: Scarecrow Submission: TITLE
About the anthologist: Rhonda Parrish is driven by a desire to do All The Things. She has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of Niteblade Magazine for over five years now (which is like 25 years in internet time) and is the editor of the forthcoming World Weaver Press anthology Fae.
In addition, Rhonda is a writer whose work has been included or is forthcoming in dozens of publications including Tesseracts 17: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast and Mythic Delirium.
It’s been quite a journey since World Weaver Press and I first announced that I’d be editing an anthology of fairy stories. Fae has grown from a vague idea to a solid manuscript over the past few months and become even more amazing than I’d hoped. We have seventeen fantastic stories that are going to blow you away.
Allow me to share the table of contents from my forthcoming anthology, Fae:
These stories run the gamut from high-tech to old-fashioned and will sweep you away to settings as varied as modern day Indianapolis, the American civil war and mystical medieval kingdoms. They have, as I requested in my call for submissions, lush settings, beautiful prose and complex characters, and come this summer, if you’re a fan of fairies and folklore, you are going to fall in love with this book.
Ten minutes ago I emailed the completed manuscript for Fae to Eileen at World Weaver Press!
It’s fantastic and I can not wait to share it with you.
What’s more, working with WWP has been incredible. We’re far from done yet, of course. Sending in the manuscript is only about the middle point of the project, but still… It feels like a great match, you know?
Now, I need to go start writing the proposal for the next anthology I want to do with with WWP. Because that is how I roll. Cross your fingers for me.
I adore fairy tales, but it occurred to me not so long ago, that a remarkably large number of fairy tales don’t actually have fairies in them. I want to bring more fairy stories, modern fairy stories, to the world and that goal is the heart of my latest anthology project: Fae.
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.
Rights and compensation: Payment: $10 and paperback copy of the anthology from World Weaver Press. We are looking for previously unpublished works in English. Seeking first world rights in English and exclusive right to publish in print and electronic format for six months after publication date, after which publisher retains nonexclusive right to continue to publish for life of the anthology.
About the anthologist: Rhonda Parrishis a master procrastinator and nap connoisseur but despite that she somehow manages a full professional life. She has been the publisher and editor-in-chief of Niteblade Magazine for over five years now (which is like 25 years in internet time) and is the editor of the forthcoming benefit anthology, Metastasis. In addition, Rhonda is a writer whose work has been included or is forthcoming in dozens of publications including Tesseracts 17: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast and Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing. Her website, updated weekly, is at http://rhondaparrish.com/archive
Open submission period: September 1 – November 30, 2013
Length: Under 7,500 words.
Submission method: Email story to fae [at] worldweaverpress[dot] com.
Please note, for this anthology I am looking for stories aimed at an adult audience. Not adult as in erotic, but adult as in not children.
Also, I prefer to receive stories as a .doc or .rtf attachment rather than in the body of your email, but I won’t turn away the latter so if you’ve already submitted, don’t panic. 🙂
Updates:
September 3, 2013 – Submissions are Open!
September 4, 2013 – Edited to add note requesting submissions be aimed at adults & specifying that I prefer stories as attachments rather than in the body of the email.
October 1, 2013 – Blog post “Update from the Slush Pile: Fae Anthology”
November 12, 2013 – Blog post “Editor’s Update from the Slush Pile”
December 1, 2013: Submissions are currently closed. I am reading through all the stories I received. I hope to have passed on or shortlisted all the stories submitted by December 14th and have a final table of contents to send to my publisher by December 21st. If you don’t hear from me before Christmas, please query.
January 2, 2014 – I have responded to all submissions. If you submitted and have not heard back from me, please query.
January 9, 2014 – Blog post “Fae Anthology Submission Stats”
February 3, 2014 – Blog post “Fae Submitted”
February 12, 2014 – Blog post “Fae Table of Contents“
![[Call for Submissions] Corvidae](http://rhondaparrish.com/archive/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/raven.jpg)
![[Call For Submissions] Scarecrow](http://rhondaparrish.com/archive/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/scarecrow.png)
