The following was emailed to our mailing list today:

Welcome to another instalment of Elastic News!..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

This newsletter is a bit of a watershed for us, because it contains the announcement that we'll be closing to future publications with immediate effect. Our final publication was the "Subtle Edens" anthology, published on ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />1^st November 2008, and during the course of 2009 I'll slowly be running down the company with the focus on attending conventions to sell our remaining stock. This hasn't been a snap decision, and isn't the result of any 'credit crunch' or financial difficulties. In fact, I've known for two years that 'Subtle Edens' would be our final book. The main reason for closing is that I've increasingly found Elastic is becoming a burden rather than a pleasure. I've run it mostly in my spare time over the past six years (and occasionally part-time and full-time), and I've decided that I now want to focus on my own writing and spend more time with my family. Not only that, but I feel I've taken Elastic as far as it can go. We've had some great successes – in terms of reviews, awards, and sales – with, perhaps ironically, 2008 being the best year to date; however I feel I've hit a wall in my ability to expand the press further and my enthusiasm is starting to wane. Rather than wait until such time that I start to do a disservice to the authors, it seems better to quit whilst I'm ahead.

 

As I said, the company is solvent and our authors have already been informed and are aware that any royalties due to them will be paid. I envisage selling stock throughout 2009, continuing to promote the books already published with dealer's tables at Redemption, EasterCon and probably Alt.Fiction. Throughout the year there may be special offers on some of our titles, and during the month of January I'm extending our December offer of a copy of "Extended Play" free with all UK orders.

 

Whilst I'm here, let's reflect on the achievements of the press over the past six years:

 

1.      We published 31 books in total, and stuck to a three monthly schedule without default;

 

2.      We won five awards. The British Fantasy Society (BFS) award for Best Small Press in 2005, plus BFS awards for Best Anthology 2005 ("The Alsiso Project"), 2006 ("The Elastic Book of Numbers") and 2007 ("Extended Play"). In addition, "Other Voices" by Andrew Humphrey won an East Anglian Book Award in 2008;

 

 

3.      Our books have on the whole received positive reviews from The Guardian to The Fix to Time Out to various SF/F/H websites;

 

4.      We have prided ourselves in sticking to our mixed genre, short story, mostly unknown writer mandate, flying in the face of commerciality;

 

 

5.      We are one of the few UK independent SF/F/H publishers with bookstore distribution;

 

6.      We conducted some downright bizarre book launches. Here are a selection: myself wearing a cow mask on the streets of Norwich ("The Virtual Menagerie"), bingo ("The Elastic Book of Numbers"), a nature table ("The English Soil Society"), cast members of Coronation Street doing adapted readings ("The Last Days of Johnny North"), a gig featuring legendary New Wave singer Lene Lovich ("Extended Play"), and a live art show ("Subtle Edens").

 

I've personally had great fun over those six years, and have enjoyed working with all our authors and artists. Special thanks must go to Marie O'Regan (website design and typesetting), Dean Harkness (cover layout design since 2004), Sandie Hook (for her love and support), and Allen Ashley (as well as editing two of our anthologies he has been a stalwart campaigner of Elasticity!).

 

As for myself, I'll still be attending conventions as a writer after 2009. Forthcoming work from me includes a collection of short stories co-written with Allen Ashley due from Screaming Dreams sometime in 2009, and a novel that's also seeking a home. I'm also continuing my editing role with the BFS for their New Horizons magazine. More information on all my projects can be found at www.andrew-hook.com.

 

Finally, please continue to support us throughout 2009. Our 2008 titles are still eligible for forthcoming awards so don't forget us on your ballot sheets, and please feel free to snap up our remaining titles before they go out of stock. In addition, our e-books will remain available on Fictionwise, and audio books are also in the pipeline.  Of course, there's always a possibility that I'll want to resurrect Elastic Press at some point, and I'll continue with news updates containing other offers throughout 2009. Until then, Happy New Year to all our readers and many thanks for supporting us over the past six years. It really has been very much appreciated.

 

All the best

 

Andrew Hook

www.elasticpress.com

 

 

Having completely forgotten to ask any MySpace friends to the launch yesterday of "Subtle Edens: An Anthology of Slipstream Fiction" would it be too much to now ask you to buy a copy?! Remember, all copies purchased directly from us get Geoffrey Maloney's lovely little hardback, "Six Silly Stories", absolutely free! Blurb is here:

What is Slipstream? Slipstream may use the tropes and ideas of science fiction, fantasy and horror but is not bound by their rules. Slipstream may appear to be conventional literary fiction but falls outside the staid boundaries of the mainstream. In short, Slipstream is the most important, innovative and relevant fictional response to the challenges of the twenty-first century. Genre is dead; long live the genre that is not a genre!

In this anthology, award-winning editor Allen Ashley has collected 21 brand new Slipstream stories from across the globe from both established and up and coming writers. This is the fiction to thrill, puzzle, excite and disturb. You have nothing to lose but your preconceptions.

Featuring stories by: Nina Allan, Neil Ayres, Daniel Bennett, Scott Brendel, Toiya Kristen Finley, Gary Fry, Jeff Gardiner, Ari Goelman, D. W. Green, S. J. Hirons, Joel Lane, Josh McDonald, Mike O'Driscoll, Marion Pitman, Kate Robinson, Ian Shoebridge, David Sutton, Steve Rasnic Tem, Richard Thieme, Douglas Thompson, Andrew Tisbert, and Aliya Whiteley... -->/Text-->

Sheesh! Forgot all about this place and have missed posting details of some of our recent titles!

Just to back track to May, we published "Another Santana Morning" by Mike Dolan and "Binding Energy" by Daniel Marcus. Both SF collections and both getting good reviews - particularly the Marcus book which has taken off like a house on fire.

But back to the present, the 1st August saw publication of "The Last Reef" by Gareth L Powell and "The Turing Test" by Chris Beckett. Again, these are two SF collections by authors published many times in Interzone and other outlets. Both books will be launched on Saturday 9th August 2008 from 2-6pm in London at the Citte of York pub, 22 High Holborn and we urge you to be there! Free entry - you don't even have to buy a book if you don't want to, but we hope you might.

So, come along!

The launch of Andrew Humphrey's collection of short stories, "Other Voices", will take place on 1st March 2008 from 7:30pm at Jurnets Bar, Wensum Lodge, Norwich. It's a fantastic little venue, and if you can't be there in person you could be there in spirit by buying the book and reading it simultaneously as the launch commences!

Andy's novel, "Alison" (TTA Press), will also be launched at the same time.

Here's some information about "Other Voices":

Andrew Humphrey follows up his acclaimed first collection, "Open The Box", with another twelve stories of loss and abandonment, fear and greed. Moving through the genres of urban horror, science fiction, crime and slipstream, Humphrey examines the effects of the fantastic upon the personal, whether through future dystopias, a missing child, climatic change, or repeated infidelity. His characters live in edgy realities and shifting fantasies, their existence tied to the inevitability of fate: something they struggle against as much as they embrace.

 

The book features an introduction by Eric Brown.

Praise for "Open The Box":

Everyone's trying to escape their fate in some way - maybe through an affair or a drug deal or just another pint of lager. This is an often gripping debut collection – The Third Alternative

An impressive first collection – Ellen Datlow, Co-Editor of Year's Best Fantasy and Horror.

Unclassifiable, and often quite brilliant – Eric Brown, Infinity Plus

An astonishingly good writer – Mystery Scene

 

This coming Sunday we'd like to see as many of you as possible at the book launch for our 24th title, "The Cusp of Something" by Jai Clare. This book marks exactly 5 years of publishing, and I never expected it all to be as overwhelming as it has been!

To celebrate the launch, Jai will be reading from her collection between 2-4pm at Filthy McNasty's Whiskey Cafe, 68 Amwell Street, London, EC1. If you can't come along, then buy the book anyway. This is what it's all about:

Jai Clare's stories are filled with the disaffected, those who kick against their everyday lives, who crave the mystic when seeking their spirituality, and who are desperate to be alone as much as they are desperate to be with someone. Whether in North Africa, Greece, or Britain her characters' concerns remain the same. To find meaning in the universal and the personal, through transient sex or emotional depth. All told with a fluid intensity of prose that cuts to the heart of them, lays them bare to misfortune and fortune, and stands them waiting on the brink of discovery.


"Jai Clare is a courageously inventive writer whose short pieces are clever, ambitious, delightful and always surprising." – Jim Crace, author of The Pesthouse.

"Jai Clare has understood the secret of the short story: lyricism, brevity, consequentiality. She brings to her writing an easy and deep-reaching grasp of character and a lovely open eroticism. She is a serious writer whom we are lucky to have." Sebastian Barker, editor of London Magazine.

Jai Clare's short stories have appeared in The London Magazine, Agni, The Barcelona Review, Absinthe New European Writing, Fiction International and various international anthologies. She has taught creative writing and English literature at University College Falmouth and many other places. Her areas of interest are the short story, European fiction, and the non-realist poetic novel. She writes to surprise herself with words and find out things unknown to her, putting words together to form new ideas and emotions. Once she even tried to sing in a goth band! Her novel, Paradox Junkie, is represented by John Jarrold of the John Jarrold Agency. Her website is at www.jaiclare.com

Check out www.elasticpress.com for purchase info.

Thanks!

Andrew

Just a quick note to mention that "Extended Play" won the British Fantasy Society's "Best Anthology" award for 2007 last weekend. This is the third time we've won the best anthology award for three consecutive years, so it's a real achievement and an indication of how quirky our anthologies have become to capture the public's imagination. Why not buy a copy now?

Our next Elastic title, "That's Entertainment" by Robert Neilson will be published on 1st August 2007. This is the blurb:

"Superman was always a bastard."

"You can't say that."

"It's my autobiography. In my head, it's always started with that line."

In these fourteen short stories entertainment is explored in all its forms, subtly twisted into alternate realities where music, boxing, film, and television distort history to sometimes comic, sometimes tragic effect. In Neilson's science fiction, fantasy lives just around the corner from reality.

What if John Lennon had been kicked out of the Beatles? What if Elvis' twin brother had survived? What if we could go back in time to give reality TV a historical perspective? What if the Pope was Irish, a gambler, and needed to bet on a dead cert? Open this book and find out.

"Here you'll find some very gritty and atmospheric stories, grainy with detail, ranging from bittersweet ironies of missed chances in the past to a harrowing account of exploitative near-future pugilism.  John Lennon: now who on Earth was he?  Bob Neilson is a great story-teller." Ian Watson

"A great new talent in storytelling" – Anne McCaffrey

The limited edition lettered hardcovers are sold out on pre-orders but the paperback is available direct from us for £5.99 plus p&p. Visit www.elasticpress.com for more info.

Andrew

Just a quick note to all the writers reading this that we are currently reading submissions for a new anthology, "Subtle Edens: The Elastic Book of Slipstream". To check out the guidelines please visit the www.elasticpress.com website (and buy some books whilst you're there!)

Hi all

From now until the end of the month (ie: midnight on 31st March GMT) we're running a special offer limited to our MySpace friends. Normally £6.99, we'll be selling our "Extended Play" anthology of short stories and non-fiction at a reduced price of £5.00 plus the usual postage and packing. That's 300 pages of top music-themed fiction by the likes of Tony Richards, Marion Arnott, and Nels Stanley, plus the musings of Chris Stein (Blondie), Gary Lightbody (Snow Patrol) and many others about the relationship between fiction and songwriting. A great package I'm sure you'll agree!

To make use of this offer, message us via MySpace with "Extended Play" in the subject field, stating where in the world you are, and we'll tell you how to pay!

And there's more!

From now until the end of the month (ie: midnight on 31st March GMT) we're running a special offer limited to our MySpace friends. Normally £6.99, we'll be selling horror writer Mike O'Driscoll's collection of short fiction, "Unbecoming", at a reduced price of £5.00 plus the usual postage and packing. That's 240 pages of great fiction including the short story, "Sounds Like", which has been adapted by director Brad Anderson as part of the second season of the Masters of Horror TV series!

To make use of this offer, message us via MySpace with "Unbecoming" in the subject field, stating where in the world you are, and we'll tell you how to pay!

And still more!!

Again, from now until the end of the month (ie: midnight on 31st March GMT) we're running a special offer limited to our MySpace friends. Normally £5.99, we'll be selling SF writer Mat Coward's "So Far, So Near" collection of short stories at a reduced price of £5.00 plus the usual postage and packing. That's over 200 pages of top quality SF stories, described by Ken MacLeod as "Humanist SF with Martian cool!" Recent reviews at Sci-Fi Online gave it 10/10 and the Morning Star newspaper stated it was "packed full of eclectic little stories".

To make use of this offer, message us via MySpace with "So Far, So Near" in the subject field, stating where in the world you are, and we'll tell you how to pay!

Andrew Hook
www.elasticpress.com

Going Back

Just a quick note to say that pre-orders for our 1st May 2007 title, a collection of short horror stories by Tony Richards titled "Going Back", can now be taken on the Elastic Press website (www.elasticpress.com). Just £5.99 plus p&p for this excellent 180pp paperback (or £16.50 inc p&p for one of the signed and lettered hardbacks limited to 26 copies worldwide - message me seperately on how to pay for those hardbacks). The blurb for the book is as follows:

After it happened, my marriage only lasted two more months. Janine? She would tell me that it wasn't really my fault. But she never looked in my eyes once, each time she said it. And by mid-February, she was gone...

Time is of the essence, and in these fourteen stories from acclaimed horror writer Tony Richards the essence of time is the link that pulls his characters together. Richards explores the nature of reality and perception filtered through the conduit of time; examines how our decisions can lead us down unsettling paths, and however carefully we make our choices they can still contain strange consequences, often tragic ones.

A man becomes trapped within a never-ending day, another tries to prevent a child's death by returning to the past. Nine rocks predict the end of the world, and a beautiful stranger continues to exist physically even though her time is at an end. Meanwhile non-existent cats play havoc with a bewildered couple's life, as mortality nudges at our shoulders, drawing ever closer.

If only time wasn't linear. Which way would you turn the clock, forward or back?

"A terrific story-teller" – Graham Joyce

"An amazing voice" – James A. Moore

"Man, can this guy write. (He) has the power to introduce you all over again to the pleasures of reading good prose" – Ed Gorman

Can't resist it, can you?

Looking forwards

Just a quick mention on our forthcoming titles:

1st August will see the publication of "That's Entertainment" by Robert Neilson, a collection of alternate reality media stories which saw us photographing Elvis Presley walking on the Abbey Road zebra crossing for the proposed cover design earlier this month! And the 1st November we'll be publishing Jai Clare's "The Cusp of Something", a collection of mainstream fiction with a metaphysical edge. Join our mailing list accessible on our website for more information on those titles as they come.

Thanks for your support!

Andrew Hook

www.elasticpress.com