Mosaic of Air was the book that kicked off Arachne Press. Here, Arachne owner, editor (and in this case, author) Cherry Potts talks about the how and why of that, and reads from two of the stories, with assistance from Alix Adams.
Cherry Potts reads her very first published story (Fantasy, of course), Penelope is No Longer Waiting which is in Mosaic of Air.
We have a great fondness for LGBT history month at Arachne Press, and we are also exceptionally fond of libraries. As a result the combination definitely works!
Our last outing for February was to Richmond lending library, one of the oldest public libraries in London (lovely building, glass roof, unfortunately on the flight path for Heathrow…)
Here are some readings from that evening, mainly from Cherry Potts, but with assistance from Alix Adams on the first one. The sound isn’t wonderful (those planes…) but it’s better than what we managed on the video camera.
In order of appearance:
Arachne’s Daughters from Mosaic of Air (Cherry Potts)
Death & Other Rituals from Solstice Shorts: Sixteen Stories about Time (Tannith Perry)
A Place of Departures from Stations (Cherry Potts)
The Other Side of Sleep from the anthology of the same name (Kate Foley)
Tasting Flight from Lovers’ Lies (Catherine Sharpe)
An absolutely lovely review from Sabotage!
High points
‘Mosaic of Air’ is an interesting parable featuring a proto-post-feminist lead, a computer programmer whose programme becomes sentient which surprisingly encases an abortion debate.
If you read nothing else in this book you must read ‘Arachne’s Daughters’; this takes apart a myth about Arachne (a human) challenging Athene (the goddess): ‘”Now, can you believe anyone would be so stupid?” ‘. It’s set as a speech given at a women-only meeting with a clever twist on why so many women shouldn’t fear spiders despite the extra legs and pincers ‘ “Forgot something though didn’t they?…[Men]… How many Cancers and Scorpios are in the audience?”.’
More video from the launch of our to new sci-fi/fantasy books Weird Lies and Mosaic of Air.
Alistair Lock reads from Peng Shepherd‘s tale of extreme workplace stress, Free Cake
and Henrietta Clemett reads from Richard Meredith‘s wonderfully weird Museum of the Future
As usual Cherry Potts couldn’t manage to video herself, so here’s a recording instead: A snippet from the title story of Mosaic of Air.
All photos © Andrew Petrie 2013
A few pictures from the launch of Mosaic of Air and Weird Lies at the planetarium at Royal Observatory Greenwich (who were absolutely LOVELY) . We had a glorious star show (hence the incredible lack of light in the reading pictures) and we had a song from Summer All Year Long, and some weird and wonderful stories.
The full gallery of photos can be found here
Big thank you to Andrew for managing to get such great pictures in next to no light.
watch this space for video – need to edit it first!
Drinks in the foyer from 6.05 (building opens at 6), readings of Science Fiction stories from both Weird Lies and Mosaic of Air from 6.45 in the Planetarium with star show.
RSVP to reserve your place, this is essential because the Observatory is in the middle of Greenwich Park, and access in the evenings is controlled and we need a guest list, and to alert you to how to get in (and more importantly out!) It’s an adventure – space suits not required, fortunately.
We will be reading:
James Smyth: Let There Be Light (read by David Mildon)
Cherry Potts: an Extract from Mosaic of Air
Andrew Lloyd-Jones ChronoCrisis3000 (read by Cliff Chapman)
Peng Shepherd Free Cake (read by Alistair Lock)
Richard Meredith The Museum of the Future (read by Henrietta Clemett)
Hope to see you there!
(Huge thanks to Marek, Rob and Ed at the Observatory for all their help setting this up, and to Sophie for the idea.)
Well we had a riotously good time at Clapham Books last Thursday. here are some edited highlights of the readings and a few photos.
Cherry Potts reads from Mosaic of Air
Nichol Wilmor reads from Weird Lies
Bobbie Darbyshire reads from Lovers’ Lies
Carrie Cohen reads on behalf of Rosalind Stopps from Stations
Phil Mulryne reads on behalf of Martin Pengelly from London Lies
Our next outing is this Saturday at Leeds Cross Cultural Book Fair
We had a spectacular evening at Misty Moon last night. Thanks to Stuart for hosting,and to all our lovely readers for making the stories shine (and for bringing a Doctor Who element to the proceedings!)and the authors for writing such brilliant material in the first place … and the audience for showing up and buying books and laughing so much.
Stuart has asked us to make it a regular date – quarterly to start off with so the next one will be Sunday 29th September, just after we publish Weird Lies and Mosaic of Air.
If, having watched the videos, you want to help Arachne Press publish Weird Lies you can contribute to the funds by preordering or by contributing to our kickstarter campaign.
Sophie Aldred reads Content Management by Derek Ivan Webster (from Weird Lies)
Alistair Lock reads Zwo by Alan Graham (from Weird Lies)
Ray Newe reads ChronoCrisis 3000 by Andrew Lloyd-Jones (from Weird Lies)
Cliff Chapman reads A Time and Place Unknown by Jason Jackson (from Lovers’ Lies)
There’s no video of Cherry Potts reading The Bone Box, from Mosaic of Air because a button didn’t get pressed on the video (that’s the sort of thing that would happen in ChronoCrisis 3000).
© Arachne Press 2013
More cross over here than in the Lovers’ Lies voting. My highlights from the competition were these. (Yes I do know two of these designs were entered for Lovers’ Lies, but they work for Mosaic too). I will be contacting the designers to discuss minor changes before making a final decision. I’ve decided to delay publication of Mosaic of Air for a few months as my happy idea that promoting 2 books would be no more effort than promoting one has proved to be a false hope!
5 silhouette Kevin Threlfall
6 Cloud Lucy Reynolds
1 lying lovers/ 22 women lying Melina Traub
3/21 woman blowing notes away Melina Traub
