Readers are looking for stories that cut across traditional categories. Speculative fiction authors are best placed to deliver.
Short story ideas often interrupt Andy McKell as he writes his novels. His latest collection of those stories, ‘Galaxies and Fantasies’, spans multiple genres.
Elsewhen Press, an independent UK publisher specialising in Speculative Fiction, is committed to publishing outstanding books by incredible authors. Our authors write stories ranging from epics, through novels and novellas, to short stories. Some plan every scene in intricate detail, while others know their starting point and ending, but let the story unfold in its own way. But all stories start with the germ of an idea, an inspiration, a muse; ideas that come to the writer, often at inopportune moments. Many authors fill countless notebooks with ideas for stories, characters, events, or even just lines of dialogue, jotted down when they occur to them.
Author Andy McKell – well known for his Janus Paradisi series of science fiction novels – is currently working on a new series around the formation and collapse of galactic empires. As Andy says, “I’m an organic writer. While working on my next sci-fi novel, I let the characters lead the way towards what happens next: after all, they know their stories better than I do. I let them whisper into my subconscious: my fingers merely do the typing.”
But as he works on his novels, he gets ideas for other stories.
Andy continues, “BUT... my subconscious keeps hijacking my focus, thrusting new and totally irrelevant possibilities at me. It could be a biblical or mythical reference, a snippet of conversation, the echo of a movie, or an unexplored carry-over from another novel. I jot down the ideas or the opening line/paragraph and get back to the novel. The promise that I’ll return to the jottings usually placates my subconscious. Later, at a more convenient time, I look through the snippets and one or other fires my imagination enough to expand on the idea and there I go, down the rabbit-hole of some totally unexpected adventure.”
Of course, this happens many times, and often such an idea is the germ of inspiration for a short story. Sooner or later, Andy has enough short stories to collect together for publication. Elsewhen Press are delighted to be publishing his latest collection, Galaxies and Fantasies. Peter Buck, Editorial Director of Elsewhen Press says, “Having published one of Andy’s short stories in an anthology in 2016, we have been keeping in touch with him, as we do with all of our fantastic authors. When he told us, ‘I have a batch of short stories that just might interest the reading public – at least, I hope they do,’ we asked to read them and were very happy that we did. My first impression of the collection was of an ‘eclectic’ set of stories across a number of the genres that are encompassed by the term ‘speculative fiction’. That appealed to us because we are probably best known for the fact that most of our books cut across multiple genres, which is proving to be very popular with modern readers. But even more than that, all of Andy’s stories, however long or short, have a twist or surprise; they are stories that stay with you long after you have finished reading them. We can’t wait for everyone to be able to enjoy them.”
Andy is still working on his new series, the first book of which is due to be published later this year. Meanwhile, he continues to jot down story ideas that interrupt his writing.
Galaxies and Fantasies, Andy McKell’s latest collection of short stories, will be published by Elsewhen Press in eBook format on 3rd June and in paperback on the 27th June.