Arachne 10th Anniversary online festival starts TODAY 11am GMT

Posted on 07/01/2023 by Cherry Potts

At last! We are all systems go with the Online Festival

Our very first event is this morning at 11am, there are a couple of tickets left if you hurry …for Why Flash Fiction? Writing Workshop with Cath Humphris, donation (recommended £5) details

Then this afternoon 17:00-19:00 we are launching Hiatus the ‘Best of’ eBook for Solstice Shorts, chosen by public vote, with readings from authors this is a FREE event details and tickets

Tomorrow, the first of our events that address our fondness for speculative fiction, 19:00-21:00 a discussion led by David Turnbull

Longevity In Fiction: Time Bestowed, Time Stolen
plenty of tickets left £6 more details

The Festival as a whole is quite an eclectic mix, readings, discussions and workshops for writers, and about writing, or the business of being a writer. We invite you to join us!

continuing the speculative theme, on Saturday 14/01/2023 11:00-13:00 we have a workshop with Elizabeth Hopkinson Tales of Transformation: Bisclavret Details and tickets £8

and a reading and workshop from Katy Darby on Saturday 28/01/2023 18:30-20:30 Anatomy of a Ghost Story
details and tickets £10

and discussion/reading Clare Owen Sunday 29/01/2023 11:00-13:00 Cormorants and #cornishgothic: creative ways to write about YA mental health.
£5 details and tickets

Visit the Eventbrite Collection to see and book for the rest of our events

Arachne Tenth Anniversary Sale – JANUARY

Posted on 01/12/2022 by Cherry Potts

We are celebrating our 10th anniversary by exploring our back catalogue and inviting you to do likewise with special offers on books celebrating their anniversaries in each month.

So for December we had a voucher, ARA10DEC, to get 50% off the following books – mostly Solstice anthologies that month, which may not be a surprise, plus a YA Fantasy novel.

Because we hardly ever publish a book in January, we are extending the December voucher to the end of January, so keep using ARA10DEC for the solstice books, and we are adding the only January book Lovers’ Lies which is already reduced to £5, so if you use ARA10JAN you get it for £2.50! That’s clear, isn’t it??

: Solstice Shorts: Sixteen Stories about Time

: Spellbinder

: Tymes goe by Turnes

Dusk 2017

Shortest Day, Longest Night 2016

Solstice Shorts, Sixteen Stories About TIME 2014

Tymes goe by Turnes 2020

Words From the Brink 2021

Spellbinder 2017

All you need to do is use the code ARA10DEC at the checkout when you buy any or all of these books – you can only use the code once, so we encourage you to buy in bulk!

Hiatus winners

Posted on 07/11/2022 by Cherry Potts

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…

New titles and open calls

Posted on 03/05/2021 by Cherry Potts

We’ve just started looking at the submissions for our anthologies and have decided on titles, for books which were just anthology shaped holes in the schedule – which somehow makes them feel so much more real!

You can now look forward to:

What Meets the Eye? The Deaf Perspective (September 2021) edited by Lisa Kelly and Sophie Stone
and
Where We Find Ourselves (October 2021) edited by Laila Sumpton and Sandra A Agard
and (without looking at submissions, as the call is still open)
Words From the Brink: Stories and Poems from Solstice Shorts Festival 2021 (December 2021)

Now we can think about cover design.

I’ve just noticed how many of our titles start with W!

Daylight Savings

Posted on 28/03/2021 by Cherry Potts

This video is from a few years back now, for Dusk, the Solstice Shorts Festival. It’s about the Autumn daylight saving rather than the spring one, but we are publishing a whole book of stories by it’s author, David Hartley, in May. Incorcisms is filled with dark fantasy like this, and I’m sure plenty of us would like to turn back time this year, or possibly forward, a lot faster, so it seems like an excellent time to share it again.