Spiders Galore – feedback on the 8th Anniversary submissions

Well that was a suprise. When we cranked open the vault at Submittable to see what you’d sent us, there were hundreds of stories and poems in there! Like a spider nest full of baby spiderlings. We thought spiderlit was a niche of minute proportions, but it turns out lots of you share our passion for creatives with eight legs and a talent for weaving.

This does mean a lot of reading. We will do it as fast as we can! Definite ‘No’s will be out fairly quickly, but then we’ll have to compare the ‘maybe’s and the ‘yes’es and see what’s what. There already some themes and similarities rising from the mass, so we’ll need to decide if some pieces are too similar, and so on.

Please be patient!

Spider anthology for our 8th Anniversary

Caution, contains spiders.
August 2020 (eighth month) is Arachne Press’s eighth anniversary. We are preparing an eight-legged arachnid inspired anthology.
Stories and Poems featuring spiders.
I’m going to make it difficult for you – NO spiders to be killed (except possibly whilst heroically defending…) This is not a venue for spiderhaters to vent their angst.
very pretty spider in web

Meet Mildred, currently resident in the garden of Arachne Towers

Think Charlotte’s Web or Leese Webster for adults, Spider as hero, not spider as villan.
Length:
Stories: shorter the better, but for something exceptional we’d push the boat out. ABSOLUTE max @3-4000 words.
Poems: whatever works for you. Eight lines? Sixty four lines? Concrete poems? Invent a new arachnid form!
Experimental:
Yes, if you want to play around with the eight idea, we’re open to playing along, especially in poems.
Genres: Spider fantasy, spider whodunnit, spider romance, spiders in space (why not?) Open to most things with the exception of the following: Avoid twee, please. NO EROTICA. NO HORROR. NO GRATUITOUS VIOLENCE NO SEXISM, RACISM, HOMOPHOBIA… you know the drill. We mean it, so just don’t do it. We’ll put you on a list if you do, and send the spiders to get you.
Reprints: We much prefer original work, but will consider magazine reprints. If it’s in a book, then no, unless it’s out of print and you retain the copyright. So check first, and make it clear it is a reprint and where it was before, and when.
CLOSING DATE 23:59 8th January 2020.

submit

Inspired by Lady Hale – a Spider anthology for our eighth anniversary

Inspired by Lady Hale I’ve been buying spider brooches (and that T-shirt that’s also supporting Shelter), like a mad thing, and then I thought…

Next August (8th Month) is Arachne Press’s 8th anniversary. What about an eight-legged arachnid inspired anthology?

Get writing, I’ll put a proper call out later in the week but maybe 2000 words-ish, deadline January-ish.

I’m going to make it difficult for you – NO Horror, NO spiders to be killed.

Think Charlotte’s Web for adults, not Arachnophobia. Some sort of homeless connection too? More when I’ve had time to consider properly.

I’ve resisted the temptation to use a close-up photo of a spider here. Imagine one.