In Print, May, June and July, 2020 (and Progress)

I can hardly believe it's been months since I posted! I'm not sure what happened, though the caveat of “I've been busy” certainly applies.

Picking up from my hundredth placement, reported a post or two below, I can say I'm currently on 115, seventeen at pro rates. Now, several of these are non-paying reprints in a series of anthologies from the Australian outfit Black Hare, the “Lockdown” series created to provide a wealth of reading material for fans of the speculative genres in this time of global pandemic. Folks need something to read while they're indoors, and though in many parts of Australia the lockdown has eased, there are others where the reverse is very much true and the series of anthologies is continuing apace. Here is the sales page for all the Black Hare volumes: https://www.blackharepress.com/publications-2/

Back on April 21^st, three of my pieces were accepted for Lock Down Sci-Fi, these being reprints of Rex, Dreamworld and North of 25, the latter two being “Middle Stars” stories, and the first appearing in the third volume (not yet out). Then a week later, my Victorian mystery The White Calf and the Wind was picked up by the pro market Hybrid Fiction (due for publication in September), bringing me to four for the month.

May opened with my flash The View from Dystopia being picked up by Shelter of Daylight from Hiraeth Books, formerly Alban Lake, edition still forthcoming. Then I promptly placed two more reprints with Black Hare, this time for the Horror series, The Forgotten Supremo and Fury Never Dies. Toward the end of the month I placed an extra with their Sci-Fi series, Dreamlogger. This was another four placement month in a row.

June turned out to be my best month ever, with six placements. The month kicked off with the pro market Little Blue Marble picking up my flash Solitude, in Silent Sun, and asking for a rewrite which almost doubled its length. The story went live on July 17th, read it free here: https://littlebluemarble.ca/2020/07/17/solitude-in-silent-sun/ . Ten days later, No Sleep Podcast picked up a reprint of my SF/horror piece Fear of the Dark, which will be assembled as an audio recording. Then I had placements every couple of days, first Andromeda Spaceways picked up my “Middle Stars” piece Strangers on the Shore, which was published today, August 1^st 2020. Click here to find the sales page https://andromedaspaceways.com/product/asm-79/ . Next, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly closed the deal on my fantasy piece The Silver Light of Forever, which had gone through a couple of rounds of rewriting with them and is due to appear in their 47^th edition, in February next year. One day later the anthology Unbound IV picked up The Purslane Menace, my John Wyndham tribute piece, and a few days later an SF piece on a pseudonym found a berth with a US outlet, these latter still to appear

July was quiet, to balance out all that action, just a single score, my Lovecraftian piece A Dream of Swords and Blossoms was taken on by Lovecraftiana for the Walpurgisnacht edition next year.

Deep Sea, from Black Hare, which took my story Prophecy of the Beast on March 1^st, has also been released, you can find the order page here: https://www.amazon.com/DEEP-SEA-Journey-Cosmic-Horrror-ebook/dp/B08D36HHTZ

Pole To Pole's anthology Twenty Thousand Leagues Remembered also released in July, with my story The Silent Agenda, you can find the volume here: https://poletopolepublishing.com/books/20000-leagues-remembered/

And last but not least, Eldritch Dream Realms, from Hiraeth was released in July, featuring my story The Golden Land, placed in October last year. Here's the sales link: https://www.amazon.sg/Eldritch-Dream-Realms-Tales-Lovecrafts/dp/108785637X

After all that momentum it feel a bit like “the wheels have fallen off” again, but I'm sure the situation is temporary. I've not written as much this years as I would have liked, and the emphasis is starting to shift toward novels, to take this enterprise to a new level. I'll still be marketing the short stories and inevitably contributing to the ongoing arcs I've established, but long-form work is overdue!

Stay tuned for developments!

Mike