Hiatus winners

We’ve counted the votes, disqualified the people voting for their own work (tsk, tsk, did you think we wouldn’t check??) and can now announce that (subject to contract) the folowing poems and stories that will join this year’s winners,  in the Solstice Shorts 2022 ‘best of’ ebook Hiatus, are:

After Before by Mandy Macdonald
After Sun, Before the Stars by Jane Aldous
Against Daylight Saving by Gabriel Noel (This year’s competition winner)
At the Hotel de la Lune by Sarah James
Beach Clean by Ness Owen
Fire at Midday by Susan Cartwright-Smith
Fisherman’s Daughter by Claire Booker
In Between Dog by Pippa Gladhill
Jackdaw by Elaine Hughes
Mock Posh & Tatters by Moira Quinn
Pause by Karen Pierce (This year’s competition winner)
Rewilding by Jackie Taylor
Sir Thomas Wyatt’s Catby Elinor Brooks
Stone Baby by Sarah Evans
The Surgeon’s Mate by Maria Kyle
Volunteer by Jane McLaughlin
Wednesday Afternoon by David Mathews
What He Doesn’t Know by Frances Gapper
Yes, Twilight by Math Jones

Where there was a dead heat (which happened several times) I’ve included both. We’ll announce the winner of the prize draw shortly – going to experiment with the cat doing the draw…

Arachne Press at Gloucester Poetry Festival – 30th October

Following hot on the heels of National Poetry Day, Arachne Press is delighted to announce we will be at Gloucester Poetry Festival later this month with a number of the poets we have published over the last 9 years.  Join us for our showcase online to hear these poets read from their work, and a brief Q&A afterwards.  Readings from (in order of appearance):

Jennifer A McGowan

Jane Aldous

Rob Walton

Kate Foley

Math Jones

Ness Owen

Emma Lee

Jeremy Dixon

The event is free, but ticketed.  You can register here.  If you can only use a voice line to dial in, please see the Gloucester Poetry Festival page for this event (scroll to the bottom of the page), here.

to celebrate we have bundles of 3 books by the authors available until just after the event – take a look

Arachneversary The Knotsman with Math Jones

As part of our Eighth Anniversary celebrations, here’s Math Jones talking to editor Cherry Potts about his epic collection, in poetry and flash and monologues, The Knotsman, set in a mythical 17th Century England during the civil war. the knotsman unravels knots and unravels problems, and sometimes hearts.

The Knotsman is on sale, with many other books at our Webshop, throughout August. Just use the discount code ARACHNEVERSARY at the checkout.

Book Launch Part 2 No Spider Harmed…

The second half of our Eighth Anniversary extravaganza, so big we had to load it in two parts! (if you missed part one it is here)

You can buy the book from our website, (or a bookshop, but we see more of the money if you buy direct, and if I’m feeling generous, you might get a random badge too)
We are also having a sale (this book not included) Add ARACHNEVERSARY at checkout to get your discount and check out the special offers button too.
If you want an ebook your usual supplier will have it, We recommend Hive for ePub.

This half features

Emma Lee – Moonlight is Web Coloured (Poem)
Carolyn Robertson – Sicarius (story)
Stella Wulf – Femmes Fatales (poem)
David Mathews – Stowaway (Story)
Joanne L M Williams – Gifted (poem)
Marcel Hirshman performing Natalie Rowe‘s ‘If You Kill a Spider the Rain Will Come’, in BSL (Poem)
Math Jones as Robert the Bruce (Monologue)
Phoebe Demeger – Clearing Out the Shed (Story, followed by BSL translation by Marcel Hirshman.)
Chukwudi Onwere as Anansi (monologue)
Seth Crook – The Matter of the Metta (Poem followed by BSL Translation by Marcel Hirshman)
Hugh Findlay – Spider Haiku (poem)
Elizabeth Hopkinson – Web of Life (story)
with introductions by head Arachnid, Cherry Potts

cover design by Karen Boissonneault-Gauthier used repeatedly!

dancing spider gif created from photo by Martha Nance

Get ready for Book Launch for No Spider Harmed in the Making of this Book

It’s nearly here – weeks of planning, recording, editing, uploading … You may not be able to hear it but thousands of spiders are twanging their webs and stamping their feet in celebration. Join us on this Saturday, 8/8/2020 8pm….

You can buy the book from our website, (or a bookshop, but we see more of the money if you buy direct, and if I’m feeling generous, you might get a random badge too)
We are also having a sale (this book not included).
Add ARACHNEVERSARY at checkout to get your discount and check out the special offers button too.
If you want an ebook your usual supplier will have it, We recommend Hive for ePub.

The file for the launch ended up being so HUGE I had to split it, so there is a brief interval and the other half is at 9.02pm* BST. Just time for a comfort break or to refill your glass.

Where and when to find Part 1

You Tube https://youtu.be/40BHRD1GID0 (8pm)

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ArachnePress/videos/983508885447541/ (8pm)

Website https://wp.me/p2dpP2-5vK (8.02 to give YouTube a chance to get going – the files are too big to load directly)

Introduction by Cherry with BSL translation by Marcel Hirshman.

Kate Foley- Spin (Poem)
A. Katherine Black – Even People who’d been Accidentally Turned into Giant Murderous Mutant Spiders (story extract)
Greg Page as Incy Wincy (Monologue)
Daniel Olivieri Revenge. One JSTOR article at a time (Story)
Jackie Taylor – Goodbye Spider (Story)
Carrie Cohen as Ms Muffet (monologue)
KT Wagner – Across the Void (story)
Marcel Hirshman performing Jennifer Rood’s Spider Queen, in BSL (poem)

Where and When to find Part 2:

You Tube https://youtu.be/9uV5wjgY5SE (9pm)

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ArachnePress/videos/303396004197939/ (8.50)

Website https://wp.me/p2dpP2-5vV (9.02)

Emma Lee – Moonlight is Web Coloured (Poem)
Carolyn Robertson – Sicarius (story)
Stella Wulf – Femmes Fatales (poem)
David Mathews – Stowaway (Story)
Joanne LM Williams – Gifted (poem)
Marcel Hirshman performing Natalie Rowe’s ‘If You Kill a Spider the Rain Will Come’, in BSL (Poem)
Math Jones as Robert the Bruce (Monologue)
Phoebe Demeger – Clearing Out the Shed (Story, followed by BSL translation by Marcel Hirshman
Chukwudi Onwere as Anansi (monologue)
Seth Crook – The Matter of the Metta (Poem followed by BSL Translation by Marcel Hirshman)
Hugh Findlay – Spider Haiku (poem)
Elizabeth Hopkinson – Web of Life (story)

cover design by Karen Boissonneault-Gauthier used repeatedly! Dancing spider gif created from photo by Martha Nance

 

Meet our ‘sponsors’

If you haven’t caught up with them elsewhere yet, here are the three delightful promo messages going the rounds for the launch of No Spider Harmed.

Ms Muffit (Carrie Cohen)

Incy Wincy (Greg Page)

and

Robert the Bruce (Math Jones)

We did try to get Anansi involved, but he’s not answering his emails.

Poetry goes Eeeeee

ALL our poetry books are now available as eBooks!

With the booktrade suffering, we wanted to make it as easy for you to get lovely things to read as possible, so we have worked very hard to get these in the vitual shops for you. Thanks to Inpress for organising conversions and uploading!

Find these gorgeous words as Kindles on Amazon

and ePub on Hive

In case you were wondering, all our fiction is already available as ebooks. We aren’t set up to sell them ourselves, yet. Working on it.

Anthologies The Other Side of Sleep, and Vindication: poems from six women poets

With Paper for Feet Jennifer A McGowan

A Gift of Rivers, and The Don’t Touch Garden, Kate Foley

Foraging , Joy Howard

Erratics, Cathy Bryant

In Retail, Jeremy Dixon

The Knotsman, Math Jones

Mamiaith, Ness Owen

Let out the Djinn, Jane Aldous

The Significance of a Dress, Emma Lee.

 

Audio File: Tymes goe by Turnes read by Math Jones

Math Jones has very kindly recorded for us the poem Tymes Goe by Turnes by Robert Southwell, which is the starting point for this year’s Solstice Shorts Festival.

Math Jones - Geoff Robinson, photographer

Lovely, isn’t it!

Find out more about this call for submissions, and please tell your musician and writer friends.

 

 

 

Halloween/Samhain

You all know we don’t do horror at Arachne.

The closest we’ve got is Math JonesThe Knotsman, which has quite a bit of distressing material in it, but does it from a position of compassion – ‘this is awful’, rather than ‘oooh, isn’t this awful‘.

So if you fancy something to get the ice running down your back, Math’s your man.

It would please Math mightily if you were to celebrate Samhain with his book seeing as he is a pagan.

you can buy a copy here… and if you buy it BEFORE halloween the postage is still free. we are going to have to start charging UK customers after that.

If however, your tastes run to the more traditional halloween fair, there’s a live lit gig, Frightful Yarns, at Honor Oak pub, St Germains Road SE23 on the very night, at 7.30, raising money for our local festival, Brockley Max. Arachne authors Cherry Potts and Neil Lawrence are among the readers, with dark tales of revenge and paranoia. tickets £5

The Knotsman – The route the trouble takes

A series of poems that make up the core of the collection by Math Jones, The Knotsman.

In which lovers are separated, by the undoing of a knot, and the Knotsman discovers the consequences.