Technically it was our 8th anniversary yesterday, as the day we registered the company in 2012, but eight is an important number for Arachnids, so we are celebrating throughout August (eighth Month) for our Eighth year.
We have:
An Anniversary Anthology: No Spider Harmed in the Making of this Book, launching with online readings.

Lots of authors are joining in, A. Katherine Black, Carolyn Robertson, David Mathews, Daniel Oliveri, Elizabeth Hopkinson, Emma Lee, Hugh Findlay, Jackie Taylor, Joanne LM Williams, KT Wagner and Kate Foley, Phoebe Demeger, Seth Crook and Stella Wulf, on the website, and we will be premiering on our YouTube channel and our Facebook page, on 8/8/2020 at 8pm BST.

you might like to go and subscribe/follow the channel/page so that you get a reminder!

Normally when we launch in real life, we have a cake. Obviously thats a bit of a challenge, so I’ll be sharing the recipe the day before so you can bake your own!

I’ve been thinking about spidery cakes, and its not an appealing notion, apart from maybe spun sugar web – but my skills don’t stretch to that, so I’m planning to riff on Miss Muffet’s curds and whey, and make some sort of cheese cake – possibly an Austrian one my mum used to make. It has currants in. I’ll leave that thought with you…
BUY A COPY OF NO SPIDER HARMED FROM US!
In addition, we have video interviews and readings with most of the authors of our single author titles, and we are working on getting more people involved; we have a sort of animation of The Old Woman from Friuli (reminiscent of Jackanory style) and introductions to each of our anthologies from the editors.

I don’t want to over promise on this because we haven’t actually finished filming, never mind finished editing, but there should be something every day during August. Again: on our Facebook page, our YouTube channel, and of course, right here on our own website** (actually not, if the upload keeps failing… maybe the shorter ones… but not consistently here.)
The first few events, are as follows (at 8pm BST unless otherwise noted):
01/08/2020 Mosaic of Air
02/08/2020 The Old Woman from Friuli (2pm!)
03/08/2020 Katy Darby – Liars’ books
04/08/2020 Stations
05/08/2020 Jeremy Dixon – In Retail
06/08/2020 Jane Aldous – Let Out the Djinn
07/08/2020 Kate Foley – A Gift of Rivers and The Don’t Touch Garden
08/08/2020 No Spider Harmed in the Making of this Book LAUNCH
09/08/2020  The Brook Storyteller Series (2pm)
10/08/2020  Math Jones The Knotsman
11/08/2020  Rosamund Davies and Kam Rehal: Story Cities
and so on…

ON 15TH AUGUST WE WILL ANNOUNCE THE FINAL LINE UP FOR SOLSTICE SHORTS

We will also be announcing plans for publications for the next three years, at least, later in the month.
Everything is a bit tentative, funding and covid being what they are, but we think if we say we are going to do something, it makes it a lot more likely – after all, we managed to get our anniversary anthology together in the teeth of a pandemic!

Throughout August there will be special offers on books

Expect around a pound off most books, and some buy one get one cheaper, or buy the whole series offers when bought from our webshop, starting 1st August. Our webshop isn’t very sophisticated so I think I’ll have to set them up on the day, so be patient!