Off to the presses!
about 2 months ago
– Thu, Sep 05, 2024 at 05:58:17 PM
New Year, New You is headed to the printer! Expect your copy in October!
We are so grateful to our backers for making this project possible!
Thanks to YOU, we funded New Year, New You in less than 24 hours. Thanks to YOU, we pushed to write, edit, proofread, and lay out 24 stories from rising (and veteran) stars of speculative fiction. We were able to do this because YOU believed in us. Frankly, you rock.
You’ve already shown this project so much love, but if you want to continue to support this book, here are some of the most effective (and free!) ways to help get the word out once you receive your copy:
Speaking of love...
Early endorsements are rolling in for New Year, New You, and we are pumped to share them with you!
"I read the whole thing twice! From the unsettling tension of the first story to the bittersweet triumph of the final piece, each of these stories is meticulously crafted. Readers will find wonder, fury, and excitement in these pages, but most welcome to me is the underlying theme of hope."
- Myna Chang, MicroVerse
"This anthology features twenty-four tales both intense and beguiling, from names I believe are fast on their way to the stars."
-Sherwood Smith, author of Crown Duel
"What exactly does 'reinvention' mean? The authors in NEW YEAR, NEW YOU share 24 unique takes, whether by dimension portals in the desert or death and rebirth or time traveling therapy or technologies allowing us to be our best—and worst—selves. A delightful, thought-provoking, and multi-faceted examination of the intentional, unintentional, drastic, and subtle changes we make for ourselves and others."
-Naseem Jamnia, Crawford-, Locus-, and World Fantasy-nominated author of The Bruising of Qilwa
Meet Alec J. Marsh
Alec J. Marsh is serving on the New Year, New You publishing team, and we are so lucky to have their expertise as a writer, editor, and small press publisher!
Alec was born and raised in the PNW and thrives in the dark, weird spaces of fiction. Their novels explore the tension between queer identity and success through the lens of fantasy. When they aren’t writing, they are researching historical clothing and perfecting their sourdough bread.They are an associate editor at Duck Prints Press and an alumnus of the Viable Paradise class of 2023.
Alec will be packaging all of your books and sending them out next month, so we figured it was time for an introduction!
How has your experience with small press publishing informed your writing?
The main thing is that everyone is learning, all the time, and no one feels like they know what they’re doing. Writing is subjective, editing is subjective, taste is subjective. People at small presses tend to be a bit more candid about that, because they’re often publishing things that got passed over at bigger presses, and they can’t figure out why. It’s amazing work that just didn’t get picked up for whatever reason.
So as an editor it’s made me feel more confident in my taste and my point of view. I won’t be the best editor for every job, but I understand who I will be able to help. I know what it means when an editor passes on a piece because they don’t have a strong vision for it–I had to do that just this week. It’s not fun, and it’s no one’s fault. But I have a taste, and I can help bring books I like into the world.
That’s helped me as a writer too. I have a lot more sympathy for all the agents who have to send hundreds of form rejections, even if I don’t like getting them. I see how hard editors work and how much they hate rejecting people. There have also been editors whose taste I completely disagree with, which is a good reminder that sometimes a book is very good and also I hate it.
What tips do you have for readers who love this book and want to see it in their local bookstores and libraries?
It’s much simpler than I think people realize. When I talk about publishing with people, they seem to think of self publishing as printing a book at your local Kinkos and everything else happens in mysterious back rooms in NYC that normal people will never access. The truth is, there are so many books that fall somewhere in between those two places. Yes, this anthology is self-published, so called because we don’t have an external publisher acting as a distributor. But it has an ISBN and is available through an online retailer, which means any bookstore and library can buy it.
All that to say, if you want this book on shelves for other people to find it, all you have to do is ask! Take the ISBN on the back and bring it to your favorite local bookshop and suggest they carry it. They might not say yes, because bookstores like guaranteed sales, but you can always buy a copy for a friend that way and hope the bookstore likes it enough to buy a few more copies.
All library systems work a little bit differently, but they should have an online form you can fill out. From what I’ve heard, online form is best because if you tell a librarian in person, they have no way to formally submit the request to the people who buy books.
Your story in New Year, New You, “Katabasis,” is inspired by Greek mythology. Imagine that you’ve just ascended into the pantheon of the gods. What do you have dominion over?
Haha, I guarantee it would be something really boring. I wouldn’t mind being one of those hyper specific Celtic deities who patronized a specific stream though, that sounds nice. I collect too many different interests to become the patron of a specific art form or skill.
Publication Corner
From A.E. Kirchoff: “The men passing by, they believe that I sing for them…” A siren explains why, in “I Sing.” [Stupifying Stories]
From Allison Pottern: A young artist attempts to vet a questionable car rental agency and hijinks ensue in “Cryptid Car Rental.” [Trollbreath]
From Brigitte Winter: Senior shelter animals live their sitcom dreams in the new storytelling game, “Golden Good Girls.” [Back the game on Kickstarter by 9/10]
And stay tuned for Chris Campbell’s “Nightskins Landing,” coming to [Khōréō Magazine] on 9/15.
Hype Corner!
Myna Chang recently interviewed New Year, New You Editor Chris Campbell! From Chris: "I think the most interesting thing about this anthology is that it offers a sneak peek into the future of speculative fiction. I believe that within the next five or ten years people will be looking at this anthology with amazement because of how many household names it will have introduced." Read the full interview here.
F.E. Choe was selected for a two-week residency at Millay Arts in New York at the end of September!
Avani Vaghela’s paper, "Heterogeneous Instance Transfer Learning,” was accepted by ECML PKDD 2024, the top European machine learning conference, for the Applied Data Science Track!
Four anthology contributors are finalists for the 2024 Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA) Literary Awards for their novel manuscripts!
In the Science Fiction/Fantasy Category:
- Ash Howell for Hands Rise Red
- C.R. Kellogg forThe Stag Hunt
- Neil Flinchbaugh for The Hollowing of Lady Abigail Hector
In the Horror/Paranormal Category:
- Brigitte Winter for The Normal Monster Club
Thanks again for supporting this project and all of these rising stars! We could never have done this without you.
Love,
The Viable Paradise 2023 Cohort
