Off to the presses!
2 days 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
It's alive!!
17 days ago
– Thu, Aug 22, 2024 at 06:31:48 AM
Friends!
We received our first print proofs for New Year, New You this month, and we are overjoyed! Thanks to your amazing support, our little anthology dream is now a tangible book that we can hold in our hands. We can't wait to put it in yours.
Look at that beautiful table of contents!
If you haven't filled out your Backerkit survey, please be sure to get that done ASAP. We'll be mailing these beauties in October, and we need your addresses to be sure the books arrive safe and sound at their new homes!
We are also currently seeking early reviewers for the book. If you have a book review platform (magazine, blog, newsletter, bookstagram, etc.) and you'd like to receive a digital ARC, please drop a comment or email us at [email protected] and we'll follow up.
Love,
The Viable Paradise 2023 Cohort
!!! LAST CHANCE! FILL OUT YOUR BACKERKIT SURVEY BY 11:59PM ET ON 7/19!
about 2 months ago
– Wed, Jul 17, 2024 at 04:37:00 PM
Backerkit surveys are due Friday at 11:59pm!
Hey, friends!
This is it. We will be **locking your Backerkit survey responses on Friday, July 19th, at 11:59pm ET.**
If you recently received a reminder from Backerkit, please open up the survey and check that all your information is up to date. If you do not respond by July 19th, you may not receive the rewards you pledged, so please, please check your email. We want everyone to get their stuff!
If you ordered an ebook but you would still like your name in the acknowledgments, we need you to fill out the survey as well. We won't collect your address, but we want to be sure that we spell your chosen name correctly!
Love,
The Viable Paradise 2023 Cohort
ACTION REQUIRED: Backerkit surveys are due July 15!
2 months ago
– Sun, Jun 30, 2024 at 07:19:02 PM
Backerkit surveys are due July 15!
Hey, friends!
We're almost ready to send the New Year, New You anthology to the printer. After that, it will take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months to put our order in, depending on how fast the printer moves and if there are any errors in our first proof. We anticipate mailing out all physical items in October!
To make sure we can move along quickly, we will be **locking your Backerkit survey responses on July 15th.**
There are still about 50 of you who haven't completed your Backerkit surveys. In most cases, your addresses are marked as incomplete. You might think you already filled out the survey, but if you recently received a reminder from Backerkit, please open up the survey and check that all your information is up to date. If you will be moving between July 15 and October 31, please get in touch with us through Backerkit and we will make a note.
If you ordered an ebook but you would still like your name in the acknowledgments, we need you to fill out the survey as well. We won't collect your address, but we want to be sure that we spell your chosen name correctly!
Love,
The Viable Paradise 2023 Cohort
Update: Mark Our Words
3 months ago
– Sun, Jun 02, 2024 at 05:39:15 PM
Big news: The stories are officially complete, and the book layout and typesetting are underway! Plus, most of you have completed your Backerkit surveys and will be getting your books this fall. If you missed your Backerkit survey email, please search your inbox so we can confirm your address and get you set up with shipping.
We’re in the process of reviewing the first round of proofs for our Little Anthology That Could, and it is ~275 pages of speculative fiction from every end of the spectrum. If you like stories, there is 100% something you’ll vibe with here. We have your flavor of weird, no problem.
Want to grab an extra book or two to give to friends? Know someone who loves spec fic but missed our Kickstarter? There's still time to place a pre-order on Backerkit. Until we close our pre-order store, all proceeds will go toward increasing pay for our writers and we only have a few more books to sell before we hit pro rates for everyone. Help us out?
Bookmarks!
The artistic wizard Alec J. Marsh has finished the bookmark designs! And they are so damn cool. To up the awesomeness, the bright yellow portions will be gold foil for that extra sparkle. If you didn’t think jellyfish were elegant and mysterious, you will after getting these in the mail in a few months!
Want to add a bookmark to your book order? There's still time to claim one on Backerkit.
Meet Trae Hawkins
This project has needed a lot of love from a lot of people, and we wanted to highlight Trae Hawkins, a member of the Editorial Team that helped shape a few of the stories in the anthology.
Trae Hawkins is a fantasy and science fiction writer whose stories incorporate themes that explore various forms of marginalization through Black and queer lenses. He graduated in 2021 from Penn State with a Master's in English and in 2024 from the University of Nevada, Reno with an MFA in Creative Writing. He is a student of the 2023 Viable Paradise workshop, the winner of We Need Diverse Books and Penguin Random House’s Black Creatives Revisions Workshop, and he teaches creative writing at UNR. He also works as a freelance sensitivity reader, where he reads fiction and nonfiction for issues of sensitivity and representation.
You recently graduated with your MFA, which you've been working towards the entire time you've been on our editorial team. What are some of your secrets to juggling teaching, writing, workshops, and career goals?
This might sound generic, but discipline is my secret! I have ADHD, so having a lot of responsibilities can overwhelm me easily. To fight this, I make detailed to-do lists every week, sometimes even making hour-by-hour schedules to make sure I get everything done on time. I probably stray from my to-do lists more than I’d like, but they help me keep everything under control. The lists must be written physically on paper and the tasks should indicate the deadline/urgency! Additionally, it helps to think of all my responsibilities as jobs (yes, even writing!). Otherwise, I’ll put them off. All of this sounds sort of clinical, but the other secret is to maintain a sense of passion for my work, too. As long as I love writing and teaching, workshopping with colleagues and pursuing career goals, I find joy in my responsibilities, even when they start to overwhelm me.
Your anthology story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, where reinvention is necessary not only on a personal level, but a societal one. What inspired you to choose this direction?
The story probably makes this apparent, but I’m a pretty hopeful person, and I like to center hope in my stories. As I was growing up, I found that a lot of sci-fi and fantasy stories are so cynical. So much literature posits that people are naturally inclined toward wickedness. I fundamentally believe most humans are born as loving creatures, so I wanted to center a society that operates on love, compassion, and community. I was partly inspired by N.K. Jemisin’s The Ones Who Stay and Fight, which details a utopian society and argues that humans are naturally empathetic people. I wanted to do something similar, with an emphasis on convincing the reader that they, too, can reinvent themselves. That society can still reinvent itself as long as we dismiss the notion that we’re inevitably selfish beings. In order to make a better world, we must first believe that we are capable of doing so—and that starts with a hopeful reinvention of ourselves.
If you had to pick one music album to listen to in the post-apocalypse, what would it be?
I imagine that if the world was falling apart around me, I’d want to listen to something hopeful and empowering to get me through tough times. My immediate thought was The Electric Lady by Janelle Monae, which has a song called "Dance Apocalyptic." It has the perfect blend of sonically interesting sounds, moving lyrics, and a vocal performance that never gets old. I think killing zombies or building communities would be easier with that album playing in the background. A world rebuilt with Janelle Monae singing “Categorize me? I defy every label!” would be a world worth living in!
Publication Corner
From Ash Howell, a new piece of poetic flash in Lightspeed Magazine [Chaos Theory]. You can also listen to it on Spotify and iTunes!
From Chris Campbell, learn about the Black authors who have helped define cosmic horror in this new Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine blog post [Afro-Cosmicism: On the Craft of Racial Consciousness Within Cosmic Horror].
Until next time, friends.
Love,
The Viable Paradise 2023 Cohort
