This cover was designed for us by the wonderful Reece Notley, and we are very proud of it. We think it’s a stunning image and complements the work within beautifully!

Almost all the stories have been edited now and three of them are ready for publication - we will easily be ready for our September release deadline with Voices!

We now have the preliminary line up for Voices. The sections and story order may change in the editing phase but this is how it looks for now:

Prologue – Robert Hood

Section One – Illusions

Sanctuary – Carole Johnstone

The Mirror – KV Taylor

His Only Company, The Walls – Brad C. Hodson

Segue – Robert Hood

Section Two – By the Hand

Paris – Todd Edwards

Just Us – Pete Kempshall

A Picture of Death – Shane Jiraiya Cummings

Segue – Robert Hood

Section Three – Possessions

Constance Craving – Gary McMahon

Bedbugs – Martin Livings

Faking It – Siobhan Byford

Segue – Robert Hood

Section Four – Epiphanies

The Suicide Room – Paul Kane

Sentinel – Sonia Marcon

The Man Who Wasn’t There – Rodney J. Smith

Epilogue – Robert Hood

Pretty impressive eh? We are very pleased to announce first time publications for KV Taylor and Todd Edwards, proving again we are determined to promote new talent within the field of dark fiction.

Thanks goes to Robert Hood for agreeing to be part of this and we are very excited to see how he ties the whole book together, being as he is a master of the short form.

We have no line-up just yet as we need to make sure the authors are okay with being in the book but we have at least made our choices.

Submissions received: 105 (pretty darn impressive for such a tightly-themed book)

Stories through to second phase: 26 (there were some rejected that nearly went here too)

Final number selected: 12 (plus our commissioned author, writing our flash pieces, who will be named shortly)

A tough selection and the 12 we want were stories that just lived up to the anthology’s aims and goals and then took them on a whole new level. As I said in an earlier post, I have been very pleased with this book so far and am very much looking forward to seeing it in print.

All authors should have heard from us now and so if you haven’t then please contact either myself or Amanda Pillar, as something has gone awry.

Thank you to all who submitted and thanks to those accepted for stepping above and beyond the submission guidelines!

It’s bloody fabulous isn’t it?

I have just completed my reading and assessment of the 26 stories that were chosen by Amanda Pillar and myself to go through to the second stage of reading for possible conclusion in the Voices anthology, and I can safely say I am drained.

I could easily publish all 26 stories and to know that we have to reject some irritates me a bit.

Why not publish them all then you might ask, and it’s actually a reasonable question but a question that does have an answer.

The stories that will be chosen are stories that encapsulate mine and Amanda’s early ideas of the anthology and which also allow us to set the contents in a particular way to make sure that the anthology lives up to our high expectations.

There has been a lot of interest in this anthology, from writers and readers alike and many people have e-mailed me to tell me what a great idea it was in the first place.

And the idea comes from Ross Temple, from a chat in the bar at Conflux 4 in Canberra, from a story idea in a hotel room I had, which then moved to many stories in a hotel from other writers and then to co-editing with Amanda, who has put so much work into this (and Morrigan Books), with a passion and a drive that puts me to shame.

This has been, without doubt, the most rewarding project I have worked on so far as an editor and if Amanda is willing I would be very honoured to work with her again on another anthology.

Hopefully we should be able to announce the final choices soon.