And it’s off!

The final files for the print version of Tales for Canterbury are now with the printer! It was an exciting, and slightly nerve-wracking moment when Anna hit the send button, but we’re thrilled that it’s off. Hopefully it will only be a few weeks before we have the books back, but we will keep you updated along the way.

The digital version should be ready for release shortly. The final touches are just being put in place, and we will let you know as soon as it’s available for download.

It’s so exciting to have the ‘putting together’ part of the anthology work done, and we’re looking forward to getting stuck into promotion. More than anything though, we’re looking forward to getting it into your hands 🙂

Don’t forget that we need your help to spread the word! Check out our last post, which had some suggestions for ways in which you can help.

We Need You!

As we get closer to release date, some of you have been asking if there’s anything you can do to help. So we’ve put together a few ideas:

1) Spread the word! Face to face, twitter, carrier pigeon – whatever works for you. We’ve even made a handy button for your blog or website – just copy and paste the html in the box below:

<a href="http://randomstatic.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&amp;cPath=1_10&amp;products_id=51"><img src="http://annacaro.org/images/blog_button_Tales_for_canterbury.jpg" alt="Tales for Canterbury Blog button" /></a>

2) Interview us. We know many of you have your own blogs, and we’d love it if you can help us get the word out through them. Rather than a traditional blog tour, our preference is if you could send us a few (five or so) questions to which we’ll email you some responses. They can be on Tales for Canterbury, our own writing, or anything else you think your readers may be interested in. Please note that we’re unlikely to start answering these until TfC is at the printers, and will probably spread them out over a few weeks.
If you’re keen, email marketing AT randomstatic DOT net, remembering to state which of us you’d like to interview, including your questions and a link to your blog. And if there’s something a bit different you’d rather do please let us know – we’re not wedded to one particular format.

3) Display our poster. If you work – or even live – somewhere that gets a lot of foot traffic you can download and print this pdf.

Introductions, the last

We have the proof reading back! We’re just waiting to hear from a couple of authors, and finalize a few small things – so close now!

We have our last lot of introductions today, so without further ado…

Jesse Bullington is the author of the novels The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart and The Enterprise of Death. His short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in various magazines, including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Chiaroscuro, Jabberwocky, and Brain Harvest, as well as in anthologies such as Ekaterina Sedia’s Running with the Pack, James Lowder’s The Best of All Flesh, and Robin Laws’s The New Hero II. He currently resides in Colorado and can be found online at www.jessebullington.com.

Philippa Ballantine is the author of Geist with Ace Books, with another three books in that series coming out shortly; and Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel, coming out from Harper Voyager this Spring. She is New Zealand’s first podcast author, and a Sir Julius Vogel winner for her podiobook Chasing the Bard. You can find out more about her at pjballantine.com

RJ Astruc’s fiction has appeared in like a billion places including Abyss & Apex, Strange Horizons, and Basement Stories. Her latest novel is A Festival of Skeletons; her new novel, Harmonica + Gig, is coming out in 2011. You can find RJ (and piles of free fiction) online here: www.rachelastruc.com

Have you ordered your copy?

Hi folks! As we approach the point at which we can release the digital version, we also get closer to sending the print files off to the press. So far sales have been great, and we’ve got a nice sized order to place. That said, there is always room for more!

The bigger our initial print run, the less expensive the cost of printing is, so if you haven’t placed a pre-order yet, now is the time to do so. Remember, the cheaper the cost of printing, the more money makes its way to Christchurch, and that’s what this is all about.

If you could please spread the word this week – send links, talk to friends, make your pre-order – that would be fantastic!

The last section is out with proof readers and we’ll be getting that back over the weekend – it won’t be long now!

Thanks for your support 🙂

Welcome to May

We had hoped to have the e-book version live by now, but it won’t be too much longer. We just have one section left to be proofread now – it’s so close! Thank you all for your patience with this. It was a huge task to undertake, but we’ll be there soon.

We only have a few more introductions to go, so without further ado:

Brenda Cooper is a Seattle-area futurist and writer, and also the CIO for the City of Kirkland. Brenda writes a monthly column for Futurismic called Today’s Tomorrows, and is the author of the Endeavor award winner for 2008: The Silver Ship and the Sea, and of the sequels, Reading the Wind and Wings of Creation. She co-authored Building Harlequin’s Moon with Larry Niven. Her next book is Mayan December, coming from Prime Books in August 2011. See her website at http://www.brenda-cooper.com.

Brenda wrote the story, “Phoenix Dogs,” during the response to the Haiti earthquake, and is pleased to see it included in an anthology dedicated to helping Christchurch.

Cat Connor left her native Christchurch when very young and now lives in Wellington. This blue eyed, brunette mother of 7 and nurse maid to Missy the cat and a rabbit called Milly, has found the time to author 11 novels. Her latest being The Byte series featuring FBI agent Ellie Conway and published by Rebel e Publishing, South Africa. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and ezines in the USA and the UK. If you were to ask Cats family and friends about how they feel about her taking on the writing industry they will tell you that they are not surprised. She has an attitude that is never neutral and that means never being satisfied with just one accomplishment.

Cat is a member of Backspace.org, International Thriller Writers, Inc, Masters of Horror, and Kiwi Writers.org. She is active on Twitter and Facebook and blogs frequently at http://catconnor.blogspot.com

Anna Caro lives and writes in Wellington, NZ. Her short fiction has been published in M-Brane SF, Full of Crow, Antipodean SF and Khimairal Ink and she is the co-editor of A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction. Her blog is at http://blog.annacaro.org

I’ll put the last ones up in the next few days, and then we’ll hopefully be able to give you some more information about release dates. Take care and thanks again for all your support 🙂

Introductions: Bumper Issue

Hi folks! I just thought I’d let you know that two sections of the anthology are currently out with proof readers. We’ve also started sending stories back to authors so they can take a look at the final layup. It’s looking good! We can’t wait to share it with you.

I’ve been a little slack in the posting department, so we’re doing a bumper issue of introductions today.

Neil Gaiman has long been one of the top writers in modern comics, as well as writing books for readers of all ages. He is listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers, and is a prolific creator of works of prose, poetry, film, journalism, comics, song lyrics, and drama. You can visit his official website at www.neilgaiman.com

Janis Freegard was born in South Shields in the UK and grew up in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. She writes fiction and poetry and is a past winner of the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award. Her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Landfall (NZ), the New Zealand Listener, Home: New Short Short Stories by New Zealand Writers (Random House), Takahe (NZ), Brittle Star (UK), Cadenza (UK), the Momaya Press Annual Review 2009 (UK) and Harlem River Blues (Fish Publishing, Ireland).

Several of her stories have been broadcast on radio. Her poetry collection, Kingdom Animalia: the Escapades of Linnaeus, will be published by Auckland University Press in May 2011. She lives in Wellington and blogs at http://janisfreegard.wordpress.com ‘The Magician’ was first published in Cadenza (UK).

AJ Fitzwater resides in Christchurch, New Zealand, knows no hobbits, and has recently become adept at skipping cracks. The author blogs at pickledthink.blogspot.com about attempts to be published and other mind detritus.

Merrilee Faber lives in Australia, when she isn’t living in her head. Her fiction has appeared in Hint Fiction and Shock Totem, and is upcoming in Shimmer and Space and Time Magazine. She is an avid naturalist (not the ones who run around in the nuddy, the other ones), a humanist and a pessimist, and staunchly defends her right to be so whenever she likes. She blogs about writing at notenoughwords.wordpress.com

Matt Cowens is a high school English and Media Studies teacher and writer. He has illustrated and designed card games, self-published several comics, recorded podcasts for Every Day Fiction and Librivox, and is an enthusiastic amateur film-maker. He occasionally blogs at http://mattcowens.livejournal.com

Debbie Cowens lives on the Kapiti Coast of New Zealand with her husband and son. She is an English teacher who has taught in Japan as well as in New Zealand high schools. Her stories have been published in the New Zealand School Journal, Enchanted Conversation, Every Day Fiction, Prinkipria, Sentient Online and Andromeda Space Inflight Magazine.

Table of Contents – Future

1. Shore Leave by Matt Cowens
2. Disoriented by Kate Mahony
3. The Delightful Maiden by Debbie Cowens
4. Desperately Seeking Darcy by RJ Astruc
5. Navigations by Anna Caro
6. The Proposition by Leigh K. Hunt
7. The Bear and the Sea by Jesse Bullington
8. Greensleeves by Jeff Vandermeer
9. Looking for Daddy by Patty Jansen
10. The Voyage Out by Gwyneth Jones
11. The Bus to Nostalgia by Ripley Patton

Quick update + more intros

Hi folks! Just a quick update to say that we are still making sure everything is perfect behind the scenes, but hopefully it won’t be too much longer until we can release the digital version. We’d like to thank everyone for being so patient – putting together an anthology is a huge task, and while we want to do it as quickly as possible, we also want to make sure that the end product is as good as it can be.

In the meantime, here are some more introductions from our contributors.

Leigh K. Hunt considers herself a dreamer. She disappears into worlds created within her head, and every now and then she’ll re-enter the real world for a little while before delving back in again. Leigh writes for the love of writing, the creation of new worlds, and creating new characters that she eventually considers as her ‘internal friends’. Leigh has written a number of unpublished novels, and some short fiction. Leigh supports her passion for writing by working in the world of New Zealand Treaty Settlements. At home, she is based on the Kapiti Coast, in the lovely world of marriage and the motherhood of a lonely oversized tomcat. To get to know Leigh a little more, please visit her world: http://parchmentplace.wordpress.com/

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Karen Healey is the author of GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD and the forthcoming THE SHATTERING. She attended the University of Canterbury for five and a half years, and would like to dedicate “The Unicorn Bell” to the University of Canterbury Drama Society. You can read more about and by her at her website, http://karenhealey.com

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A.M. Harte writes twisted speculative fiction, such as the zombie love anthology Hungry For You. She is a writer and practical joker, is excellent at missing deadlines, has long forgotten what ‘free time’ means, and is utterly addicted to chocolate. Find out more at http://amharte.com

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Cassie Hart is a full time mother and part time writer living in New Plymouth. She has been published in A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction, and the Masters of Horror Anthology. She is the vice-president of kiwiwriters.org, and a founding member of SpecFicNZ. Cassie blogs about life, writing and whatever else takes her fancy at just-cassie.com

Table of Contents – Hope

1. Sign of the Tui by Tim Jones
2. The Seventh Letter by Sean Williams
3. The Unicorn Bell by Karen Healey
4. The Fountain by Helen Lowe
5. Pipsqueak by Angel Leigh McCoy
6. All I Wanted was You by Cat Connor
7. Eggs for Dinner by Jay Lake
8. The Daughter of the Khan by Mary Victoria
9. Ring of Fire by Kim Koning
10. The Magician by Janis Freegard
11. Monarch by Linda Niccol
12. Shapeshifter by Tina Makereti
13. Juggling Silver by Juliet Marillier

We’ve effectively finished editing – just clearing up one or two small things – and the layup’s well underway. We’ll be getting proofs out to proofreaders and authors shortly – at the moment we’re looking at a late April release for the ebook and early May for the paperback – a little later than we hoped, but these things are never entirely predictable. And we’d just like to remind you that whilst many of the stories are science fiction and fantasy, there are several other genres represented, something for everyone!

More Introductions

Hey folks 🙂 Hope this post finds you all well. We have here a few more bios from our contributors, and are now more than halfway through them! We’re currently working on the layup, and getting the proof reading done. Things are still progressing well, and hopefully it won’t be long until we can give a more firm date on release.

Gwyneth Jones, writer and critic of science fiction and fantasy, is the author of many novels for teenagers, mostly horror and thrillers, using the name Ann Halam, and several highly regarded sf novels for adults. Her critical essays and reviews are collected in Deconstructing The Starships, 1999 an Imagination/Space 2009. Among other honours, several of her novels have been nominated for the Arthur C Clarke award, the latest being Spirit, 2009. She lives in Brighton, UK, with her husband and son, some goldfish and two cats; likes old movies, practices yoga & has done some extreme tourism in her time. Hobbies include gardening and cooking, and playing with her websites.

Websites: http://www.boldaslove.co.uk and http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gwynethann

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Besides a writer of crazy fantasy and hard Science Fiction, Patty Jansen is slush reader and editor at Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. She blogs at http://pattyjansen.wordpress.com/, about writing, about science and about editing and slush piles. Patty is a winner of the second 2010 quarter of the Writers of the Future Contest and has published in the Universe Annex of the Grantville Gazette and has a story forthcoming with Redstone SF. She is currently expanding the story in Tales for Canterbury into a novel.

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Lynne Jamneck lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Short listed for the Sir Julius Vogel and Lambda Awards, she has published short fiction in various markets, including Jabberwocky Magazine (ed. Sean Wallace), H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror (ed. Marvin Kaye), So Fey: Queer Fairy Fiction (ed. Steve Berman) and Spicy Slipstream Stories (ed. Jay Lake & Nick Mamatas). For Lethe Press, she edited, selected and introduced the SF anthology, Periphery.

Lynne is currently doing her MA in English Literature at the University of Auckland, unlocking the secrets to Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, madness and the occult. Alongside, she is writing her first speculative novel, a conglomerate novel featuring a lost protagonist and a city of secrets.