The fiction small press, especially, is all a bit, “It was the worst of times, it was the best of times,” at the moment. It’s the worst of times because the large publishers are amalgamating, Amazon is in the processing assimilating a good chunk of the industry and it’s very difficult to get your voice, or the voices of your authors, heard. It’s the best of time because that difficulty also means freedom to experiment until you find something that works. Adele Wearing, who runs Fox Spirit and published a book by me last year, has done just. She’s developed the Fox Pockets series, anthologies not just of fiction, but flash fiction. As Adele describes them they are:
“Small but perfectly-formed collections of stories by a den full of talented writers, put together by Fox Spirit books for your enjoyment. The stories are flash fiction, giving the reader bite-sized introductions to Fox Spirit and the writers we love to work with. All designed to fit perfectly into the pocket so you can take a little Fox with you everywhere you go. “
There are 10 books in the series, scheduled to be published through 2013 and 2014 starting with Piracy which is available now. Missing Monarchs is next followed by Shapeshifters , with Guardians , Under The Waves , In An Unknown Country , Things In The Dark , The Evil Genius Guide , Reflections and Piercing The Veil scheduled across the next year.
The books are designed to use the title phrase far more than genre to define themselves. This means there’s something for everyone in each book and also gives the authors the most room to have fun. Each book will be available as a paperback through Lulu for 24 months after the release date of each volume. Ebook releases will take place a month after the paperback and will be available for longer, but not forever.
The company will be offering a subscription to the paperbacks as part of a giveaway through their newsletter this summer and you can subscribe to that at: www.foxspirit.co.uk .
As for Piracy , the launch volume features 16 stories from authors like Catherine Hill, Den Patrick, Margrét Helgadóttir, Jenny Barber and Francesca Terminiello. They’re a great selection and start the series off in style. Plus, if you fancy submitting a story yourself, all the anthologies bar Piracy and Shapeshifters are still open and full details can be found on the Fox Books website.
In the meantime, get YARRRRRRRR copy of Piracy, available now.
• Piracy can be found at: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/FoxPockets
Alasdair Stuart
