I discovered today that Illuminations is now available to order online via both WH Smiths and Blackwells:

• http://www.whsmith.co.uk/CatalogAndSearch/ProductDetails-Illuminations+-9780955866203.html
• http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/id/Illuminations/9780955866203

Odd Two Out press has announced the release of Illuminations – a new anthology showcasing original, cutting edge short fiction from eight up-and-coming young writers, including yours truly.

Illuminations collects together the best Friday Flash Fiction posted by myself and the other Friday Flash Fictioneers.

Edited by Paul Graham Raven (of Interzone and Futurismic fame), the sixty-eight pieces in Illuminations range from mainstream literature to far-out speculation; from horror to humour; from outright fantasy to straight-faced space opera. And being flash fiction, they are all less than 1,000 words long, making the book perfect for dipping into.

The collection is available in paperback from Odd Two Out Press for £6.99 including postage and packing, and can be ordered directly via: http://www.oddtwoout.co.uk/buybooks.html.

From the web site:

“Friday Flash Fiction started out as a writing exercise on the blog of fast-rising sf author Gareth L Powell but quickly became a bona fide web phenomenon with writers from across the world taking up the challenge. Illuminations presents some of the best Friday Flash Fiction, collected in print for the first time.”

The featured writers are: Dan Pawley, Gareth D Jones, Gareth L Powell, Justin Pickard, Martin McGrath, Neil Beynon, Paul Graham Raven, and Shaun C Green. We come from diverse walks of life – musicians, office workers, freelance journalists, students, magazine editors – and this new anthology collects together the best of our weekly output, along with introductions from myself and Paul.

All the stories in Illuminations are published under a Creative Commons licence that permits them to be reproduced in the public domain as long as no profit is made in the process.

Copies of Illuminations: The Flash Fiction Anthology will be available to order for £6.99 from Odd Two Out Publishing, or from the authors themselves. All profits from the sale of Illuminations will be donated to the NSPCC.

Alternatively, The Fictioneers will be running a flash fiction workshop as part of Orbital 2008, the British Science Fiction convention held at the Raddisson Hotel, Heathrow over the Easter weekend. Convention-goers are invited to come along to quiz the team and have a go at writing their own extremely short fiction.

From the back cover:

“Join the Friday Flash Fictioneers as they take you on a whistle-stop tour featuring the best of their stories from the last twelve months. From bright dawn on new worlds to the darkest shores of our own planet, from heartbreak to laughter – nowhere is off limits as long as it can be told in a flash. Spellbinding, unpredictable and entertaining. These small flashes – these illuminations – showcase the powerful art of very short fiction and reveal a group of writers for whom the sheer joy of storytelling shines through every word.”

Place your order(s) at: http://www.oddtwoout.co.uk/buybooks.html

Bang, Bang: Cover Art by ~pyxelated on deviantART

“The Last Reef” – my first short story collection – can now be pre-ordered from Amazon, or ordered direct from the publisher, Elastic Press.

My short story collection is now listed for pre-order on Amazon.

The provisional date for the launch event for my short story collection is Saturday 9th August.

Andrew Hook of Elastic Press is planning a launch event for my short story collection “The Last Reef“. The event will take place in London in August and will be a joint launch with Chris Beckett‘s new collection “The Turing Test“.

Last night I submitted my short story collection to Andrew Hook at Elastic Press for editing, proofreading and typesetting. The collection is due out in August under the title: “The Last Reef “.

I also submitted ten short fiction pieces and the introduction for another book… one I can’t talk about right now, but there will be an announcement shortly.

I received an email from Elastic Press today, looking forward to the books they will publish in 2008:

“In August there’s another blast of SF with collections “The Last Reef” by Gareth L Powell and “The Turing Test” by Chris Beckett. More information on these will follow, but I’m sure you’re already drooling in anticipation.”

Well, now it’s offical. Today, I signed a paper contract with Elastic Press for publication of my short story collection, The Last Reef and Other Stories.

Hard on the heels of the announcement that my first short story collection will be published next year, comes news that my novel ‘Silversands‘ has been accepted by Christopher Teague of Pendragon Press, and is scheduled for publication in 2009.