I tried several approaches to the introduction for Various Authors. I wanted to avoid the clichéd manifesto-style rant and focus instead on the quality of the stories, but I kept winding up with rather dry catalogues of the contents, essentially repeating what I’d written in the introductions to each individual story.

At the last minute, I found myself writing something a little more personal, which I hope explains a little more about what I’m doing here, and why I’m doing it. Here it is in full:

Back in the late nineties, just around the end of the big boom in alternative British music, I worked for a while as a DJ. I’d moved to a new city and hadn’t found much going on there in terms of good music, so one evening I wandered into a club and somehow talked them into letting me run their Monday nights for them. For the next year or so, I played records from bands like St Etienne, My Bloody Valentine, and half the back catalogue of the 4AD label.

The club wasn’t up to much: the beer was stale (but cheap), and they rarely replaced the bulbs in the lights, so there were times when the dance floor was lit for the entire evening by one meandering purple spotlight and an occasional burst of strobe. Both the turntables were broken and one of the CD decks skipped, so I’d put a long instrumental by Mogwai in the skipping one and use it to fill the silence while I quickly changed songs on the other deck. The crowd got used to hearing fifteen seconds of grinding guitars between each song, and occasionally losing half a Pixies chorus to a skipping disc. If there were complaints, a simple press of a button—under the decks, more or less where you’ll find the panic button in a shop—would make the complainer, the dance floor, and most of the club disappear in a cloud of raspberry-scented smoke.

On some nights the club was packed, while on others it was so empty that I’d put on a compilation CD and sit down for a drink with the regulars. It lasted for around a year, before collapsing during a particularly quiet summer. It had never been a huge commercial success (one night we managed a door take of minus fifty pee), but it had a loyal following, got people listening to new music, and sold quite a few records. A few bands formed among the regulars, and some of those went on to record albums of their own.

Then, a couple of years ago, I started a book blog where I do my best to talk about new fiction. It’s been a bit irregular, with some quiet months and some busy ones, but it’s sold a few books, introduced a few readers to new authors, and given me the opportunity to meet some interesting people.

I like to think that the club night and the blogging both came from the same place: a desire to seek out new and interesting things, the worthwhile but perhaps overlooked, and to share them with as many people as possible.

One advantage that the music had over the blogging is that it was more direct: it was a case of ‘listen to this’ rather than ‘let me tell you about this,’ sharing experiences rather than simply reporting them. Much as I enjoyed rambling to people about why they should like The Magnetic Fields, I found that it was better just to put on the CD.

It’s my preference for that directness that has led The Fiction Desk from blogging about fiction to publishing it: instead of boring you with why you should read Charles Lambert, or telling you to seek out Lynsey May’s stories, or how funny the new one from Jon Wallace is, I’m just going to show them to you.

So go and grab yourself a bottle of out-of-date beer, find somewhere comfortable to sit (not too close to the toilets, if I were you), and get ready to hear some things worth hearing.

Oh, and please bear with any odd noises you might hear: it’s not the music, just the CD player warming up.

Various Authors is available now. You can buy it from us (postage free), it’s available through bookshops in the UK, and there’s also a Kindle version. I hope you give it a try, and if you do, please come back and let me know what you think. Oh… and you can also download a pdf sample by clicking here.

It seems like only yesterday that I announced The Fiction Desk’s move into publishing. In the three months since then (and for quite a long time before then), we’ve been busy putting together our first book. With the proofs being corrected, I think it’s time to reveal all.

Our first publication, Various Authors: The Fiction Desk volume one, contains a dozen brand new stories.

I’ve tried to select a broad range of stories. While it wouldn’t make any sense to publish household names, we’ve been fortunate to get some very talented established writers on board. Regular readers of the blog will be familiar with Charles Lambert, for example. We were also fortunate enough to get a story from Danny Rhodes, the author of Asboville and Soldier Boy. Like Charles, Matthew Licht has published a short story collection with Salt; his contribution here suggests that there’s plenty more where that came from.

We’re based in the UK, and I think that there’s a greater need over here than there is in the US, where there are already a large number of literary journals. However, I’ve tried to include several stories from America, partly to provide context to the British selection, but mostly because they’re really good. As well as Matthew Licht, musician Jason Atkinson makes his fiction debut here. We’ve got a great story from Adrian Stumpp over in Utah, too. Alex Cameron is based in the UK now, but was born and brought up in Australia; I hope we’ll be able to get more stories from that part of the world in future volumes.

With the likes of the Postscripts anthology from PS Publishing and the Nightjar Press chapbooks, speculative fiction is already far better catered for than I could manage, but we’ve got our hands on a few interesting pieces that step outside the boundaries of the normal world. One of these is a new story from Patrick Whittaker, who won the 2009 British Fantasy Society Short Story Competition. I won’t flag the others up here, though: part of the fun is not knowing when things are going to go a little wonky.

I mentioned earlier that we won’t be publishing many household names, and a big reason for that is the importance of providing space for new writers to get their first publication, or to build on earlier successes. We’ve had a submissions page set up from the start, and there’s been a great response: more than five hundred submissions came in for the first volume alone. About five of the stories in this collection were requested—begged—from authors; all the rest came in as unsolicited submissions. (Please keep those submissions coming in!) Among the authors making their fiction debuts here are Jason Atkinson, Ben Lyle, and Harvey Marcus. Harvey’s story is also one of several that made me laugh out loud (LOL!) when I read it; another was Jon Wallace‘s contribution. When you read a lot, it’s easy to become jaded, to just process the words rather than really feeling them. The humour in some of these stories just cut right through that.

Here’s the full list, although the order isn’t yet finalised:

• Charles Lambert – All I want
• Lynsey May – Two Buses Away
• Matthew Licht – Dave Tough’s Luck
• Danny Rhodes – A Covering of Leaves
• Ben Lyle – Crannock House
• Ben Cheetham – Sometimes the Only Way Out is In
• Harvey Marcus – How to Fall in Love With an Air Hostess
• Jason Atkinson – Assassination Scene
• Patrick Whittaker – Celia and Harold
• Adrian Stumpp – Nativity
• Jon Wallace – Rex
• Alex Cameron – The Puzzle

So there we go. A dozen great stories from a dozen talented authors, in a bookshop near you from April 18th. For more information, see our pre-order page. You can also take out a four-volume subscription for £26.99 (a single, worldwide price).

We’re getting there… Pictured above are the galley proofs for Various Authors: The Fiction Desk volume one. The text is being checked over as I write this (or it would be, if I wasn’t writing this). The book contains a dozen new stories from a dozen talented writers. I’ve read them all several times now, as we’ve gone through the selection and editing process, but none of them has lost its ability to entertain or excite me as a reader. This is going to be a terrific collection. No resting on laurels, though: as soon as this one’s off to the printers, it’s time to get to work on Volume Two.

The full contents listing, along with details of all the writers involved, is here. If you haven’t yet signed up for our email newsletter, this would be a good time to do so.

I’m delighted to announce some big news from The Fiction Desk.

We’re relaunching as a publisher, with a list dedicated to promoting new fiction.

Our first project is a quarterly anthology of new short stories, featuring a wide range of stories from both new and established writers. We’re excited – this series is going to be a great platform for a variety of writers, and a great way for readers to get a regular fix of quality short fiction.

Subscriptions are available now, and more details of the first volume, Various Authors, will follow over the next few weeks. (For now, there’s the cover on the right.)

We’ll also be increasing new content here on the blog, reviewing new titles from other publishers, and sharing news from across the book trade.

If you’d like us to keep you updated with our plans, sign up for our newsletter here.

Well, the site still needs a nip here and a tuck there, but I think that the new design is starting to take shape. Essentially, what started out as a business site with a blog has become a blog / magazine site which also offers a service. So, why the changes? (more…)

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