Here's a new thing. I've plopped out an anthology of short fiction.
Adropiean Galactic Lego Set Blues contains 20 of my stories, including the first UK printing of a piece that was commended in the 2011 Manchester Fiction Prize. It also contains dozens of photographs and illustrations.
The idea had wandered around my noggleblock ever since James Henry self-published a children's fantasy novel and Steven Baxter mused about a monkey. Then Bad Language asked if I had anything to sell at their Manchester Independent Book Market stall and I turned myself into a one-man publishing house.
It does mean I've spent the last million days hiding from this blog so I can make sure all the pages are made of paper and not of penguins, and that the text is made of letters and not of lycra.
I haven't gone through a self-publishing service nor a proper publisher: it's all my own work, my own money, my own imprint - even though a small publisher did offer to publish it for me (thank you kind publisher, you know who you are!).
And messy work it was too: I had pages and pages of scribbled and half-scribbled illustrations, some of which you can see in the picture below. Apart from the cover to Quickies, I'm not exactly known as an illustrator, so I feel quite nervous about having my pencil scribblings out there.
The Manchester writing scene is full of people pimping their anthologies: many of the books are excellent. I hope mine furrows its own wrinkle among the others. Adropiean is, hopefully, dark and funny, bemusing and absurd, a little adult and a little childish.
I think it would be a nice thing to own. You can order it through my fiction writing site Italic Eyeball.
You never know. I may well get back to writing about Squarepusher and Autechre and James Blunt soon....
Tsssch. New things. They get in the way sometimes.
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