The last of the videos from #Arachne5 anniversary party, the camera battery died after this – so it will be just audio from here on.
Nichol Wilmor reads An Account of Six Poisonings from Weird Lies in which families and lovers resort to extreme measures.
and Sarah Lawson reads Next Door to the Capulets, (originally read at our Shakespeare inspired Midsummers Night In The Garden event) in which, whilst the Capulets and Montagues disturb a lot of air, the neighbours just grumble.
Weird lies is part of special offer for our 5th Anniversary – get it for just £5
With the 5th Anniversary celebrations heading into view I was thinking about the thank you speech, and like the Oscars it is in danger of going on, and on. And on. So I thought I’d blog it instead, a section at a time. So I’ve been catching up with authors past and present in the course of the fifth anniversary planning to ask what they are up to now, (not that I don’t know in some cases) because after all, without them there would BE no Arachne Press.
Several of them will be at the party, TONIGHT!! and even reading, come along and say hello, it’s free (but ticketed)
Alan Graham
Alex Smith
Angela Trevithick
Andrew Lloyd Jones
Barry McKinley
C.T.Kingston
Christopher Samuels
David McGrath
David Malone
David Mildon 
Derek Ivan Webster Derek is now the Associate Director for the Arts at the Yale Office of Career Strategy. On rare occasion he can still be found writing within the cracks, but more often spends his days helping talented young artists pursue creative careers.
Ellen O’Neill
James Smyth
Jonathan Pinnock Since his appearance in Weird Lies in 2013, Jonathan Pinnock has had two books published. TAKE IT COOL (Two Ravens Press, 2014) describes his real-life search for the reggae singer Dennis Pinnock along with the story of how they came to share a surname, and has the unique distinction of having been reviewed in The Herald, Family Tree Magazine and Songlines. His debut poetry collection, LOVE AND LOSS AND OTHER IMPORTANT STUFF, was published this year by Silhouette Press, and his second short story collection, DIP FLASH, will be published next year by Cultured Llama.
Joshan Esfandiari Martin
Lee Reynoldson
Lennart Lundh
Maria Kyle
Nichol Wilmor
Peng Shepherd
Peng’s first novel, The Book of M will be published in June 2018 by HarperFiction (UK) and William Morrow (US). The Book of M tells the story of a couple torn apart by a supernatural apocalypse and the courageous, thrilling journeys they take to find each other again.
Did we mention? We won the Saboteur2014 Best Anthology award! to celebrate we are giving away 10 copies on GoodReads. Off you go… win, read, review… of course if you already have a copy feel free to review its socks off everywhere you can think of, especially if you voted for us! Some people already have. You have a couple of weeks to be in with a chance.
More videos from our celebratory Brockley Max evening at Misty Moon, readings this time from our Saboteur2014 Award Winning anthology, Weird Lies.
Sarah Feathers reads from David Malone‘s The Love Below
Lisa Rose reads from Christopher Samuels‘ Touchdown
and Tony Bell reads from Lee Reynoldson‘s Haiku Short, Parakeet Prawns, Konnichiwa Peter
Just a quick link to John’s pictures on Facebook for last night’s triumphant celebration of our award, (Have I mentioned the award?) as part of BrockleyMax, at Misty Moon Gallery.
Thanks to the wonderful Carrie Cohen, Sarah Feathers, Sean Patterson, Lisa Rose, Tony Bell and Silas Hawkins, who did our Weird and Lovers’ stories proud. Thanks to Stuart & Jen for hosting. Video of the event up soon.The sharp-eyed will spot some pictures that aren’t people – that’s the trailer for Devilskein & Dearlove which we previewed last night, it went down very well!
One of the great things about the Saboteur2014 Awards is that they are voted for by the public, another great thing is that the voters get to say WHY they are voting, and another, really great thing is that the organisers share the voters comments with you. I’ve left the time stamps to prove I’m not making them up, but you know, this is NO time to be modest!
A cracking anthology! 5/25/2014 9:50 PM
Cherry Potts is a brilliant writer! 5/25/2014 5:56 PM
Small press, but who doesn’t love a weird short tale or two? 5/25/2014 5:34 PM
powerful and quirky. always. 5/25/2014 4:30 PM
v enjoyable book 5/25/2014 9:12 AM
quality of writing, variety of stories, fun! 5/25/2014 8:38 AM
Variation of theme, yet a high standard throughout and often surprising in its content. 5/25/2014 8:15 AM
Eclectic mix. Very supportive of emerging writers 5/25/2014 7:00 AM
Because Kart Darby rocks! 5/24/2014 3:49 PM (I’m guessing they mean Katy)
Excellent collection Nuff said? 5/24/2014 3:33 PM
Great selection – well-written and varied.. 5/24/2014 2:17 PM
Great mix. 5/24/2014 2:07 PM
Because they are Bloody Brilliant 5/23/2014 8:35 PM
one of the most original writers herself Cherry Potts provides opportunities for unusual and thought provoking writing 5/20/2014 12:25 PM
Time to reward these two 5/16/2014 12:23 PM
coz its awesome 5/14/2014 6:05 PM
Amazing collection of quirk. 5/14/2014 1:59 PM
It’s a brilliant mix of the macabre, the futuristic and the funny 5/9/2014 11:32 AM
It’s brilliant! So often anthologies have only a few good stories, but I loved them all. 5/6/2014 3:25 PM
Great! 5/6/2014 12:29 AM
It’s a good title. 5/5/2014 9:25 PM
Great writing! Future journalists? 5/5/2014 4:38 AM
It was amazing!!! 5/4/2014 11:49 PM
Hands down the best 5/4/2014 9:02 PM
Interesting stories 5/4/2014 7:29 PM
Was great 5/4/2014 6:49 PM
The best of the best when it comes to creativeness, story telling and well written! Very well done. 5/4/2014 3:58 PM
Great talent 5/4/2014 3:52 PM
Great read 5/4/2014 3:18 PM
best variety 5/4/2014 2:57 PM
Creative entertaining stories 5/4/2014 9:09 AM
Because of the panache of their invitation to out weird the weirdest and the aplomb with which they make the unbelievable believable. 5/3/2014 2:37 PM
It’s really good! 5/2/2014 9:03 PM
Because Liar’s League should’ve been in *both* the ‘best Spoken Word’ categories! 5/2/2014 1:49 PM
Fascinating collection of stories. 5/1/2014 9:36 PM
ace anthologies 5/1/2014 5:30 PM
The world needs more weird! More well-written slipstream, more surrealism, more speculative fiction. 5/1/2014 2:19 PM
This an amazing collection with an appeal to those who don’t generally read scifi/fantasy as well as aficionados of the genre 5/1/2014 1:20 PM
I’m in it, to be honest. 5/1/2014 1:10 PM
Really original and a fab read. Arachne Press makes very impressive choices. 5/1/2014 11:47 AM
A great selection of strange tales which give new meaning to slipstream fiction. 5/1/2014 11:29 AM
Great variety and weirdness 5/1/2014 11:22 AM
Compilation of weirdness from previously performed Liars League stories. 5/1/2014 10:54 AM
Fabulous book from a great indie press! 5/1/2014 10:47 AM
Storytelling with intelligence, invention and wit. 5/1/2014 10:35 AM
Thank you to all 377 of you who voted for us, whoever you are, and especially those of you who bothered to add a comment: you are marvellous, well read and lovely people.
I’m going to be spending the morning editing all references to the lovely Weird Lies on the website to AWARD WINNING Weird Lies, because, ladies, gentleman and aliens… WE WON!!
Our award, and the one won by our dear friends Liars’ League snuggle up for a proud photo.
A Big thank you to Sabotage Reviews for their brilliant organisation and for their reviews, and for putting on the awards in the first place.
So what does it all mean, apart from the warm glow and the little star thingy and the aforementioned editing of the website?
It means that a lot of people like what we do – the award is by public vote (THANK YOU everyone who nominated and voted for us, you are lovely, lovely people).
It might mean it’s easier to get books into bookshops, and sold – you might think that creativity is its own reward, but we all need to eat.
It might mean we get more gigs for our readings – speaking of – TONIGHT you can hear lovely Liars’ League actors Tony Bell, Silas Hawkins, Carrie Cohen, Sean Patterson, Lisa Rose and Sarah Feathers reading from AWARD WINNING* Weird Lies, and it’s equally terrific stable fellow, Lovers’ Lies, at Misty Moon, where we will also be PREVIEWING the animated trailer (by upcoming animator Nick Page) for our next book, Devilskein & Dearlove. I will say nothing more, other than it’s ACE (Misty Moon aficionados, yes that is what I mean.)
(* wondering how long it will take to get bored with typing that)
It was an excellent event, which kept the energy going all afternoon and all evening, with live readings from all sorts of poets and authors, including London Lies author and Oxford local, Emily Cleaver.
A BIG thank you to everyone I forgot to thank last night, I hadn’t written a speech, so it was very off the cuff.
And a very big thank you to all the writers, in AWARD WINNING Weird Lies and all the other books, you are all brilliant.
And an especially big thank you to Alix, who turns out for almost every live event and does front-of-house so brilliantly. For someone who said she didn’t want to be involved, she does an epic amount, and it wouldn’t happen without her.
To paraphrase #FlashGordon ‘We only have 36(ish) hours to save the world’ or in this case to vote #WeirdLies! https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/saboteur2014 you can also visit the book fair at the Jericho on Walton Street Oxford on Saturday 31st May in the afternoon, and come to the ceremony in the evening to witness our triumph – or our smiling-through-adversity-face depending on whether you vote or not. It’s your choice. No Pressure. ‘Other Anthologies Are Also Available.’ (But they probably aren’t as weird as ours.)
Vote WEIRD
