The Blackness Within will be published by Apex Book Company.
Edited by Apex Magazine senior editor Gill Ainsworth.
Publication is scheduled for late 2009/early 2010.
Gill’s Guidelines:
Somewhere in a parochial village in Herefordshire, England, the Celtic God, Moccus, was re-born. Whether the winds were blowing in the wrong direction, or whether the times were accommodating, no-one knows, but it happened.
If you haven’t heard of Moccus, google. You’ll find he’s a Celtic pig-god whose influence affected all aspects of life, particularly fertility. The word pig has many connotations in today’s world and doesn’t necessarily limit Moccus to a pig-like appearance. Neither does it make a pig-like appearance mandatory. In other words, there is a lot for the imagination to explore.
I’m looking for stories that encompass all stages of Moccus’s reappearance from infancy — contemporary — to death (his middle age and near-future) — and how his influence spread throughout the world. He is powerful; his presence will be felt even in the backwaters of the Nile Delta. What I’m looking for are truly international takes on this theme, with settings from all over the world. The UK has already been covered.
This is primarily a horror/dark fantasy anthology but will stretch to the near future. That means no space exploration, nor out-and-out far-fetched science, and I don’t want apocalypse-type stories — the world will continue even after his death. However, psi stories, dark fantasy (not high fantasy) will all be considered. I’m not afraid of a little adult content. If in doubt, try me. Worst-case scenario is rejection — in the nicest possible way.
But please proof read. I don’t take grammatical problems well. Know your its from your it’s, effect from affect and please, please, to lay is a different verb from to lie. I rest my case.
Specifics:
Open to submissions on 1st March 2009 and will close when full. If you submit before this date, your story will be deleted.
# Word count between 3000 and 7000 words
# No simultaneous submissions and no multiple submissions; please wait until you’ve heard back before sending another story
# Stories should be sent either as a Word DOC (.doc) or RTF (.rtf) and attached to your e-mail. A short covering letter stating approximate word count and giving contact details is expected. If you send your story in the body of an e-mail, it will be deleted unread
# Contact details should be given on the manuscript as well as in the body of the e-mail
# Courier New, 12 point. Double line spacing, with indented paragraphs. A hash (#) denotes a section break.
Single space between full stops and double speech marks for dialogue. Otherwise, follow your UK/US/SA/Aus… formatting, spelling etc, but please remain constant throughout; don’t switch from one to another.
# Payment is £15 per story or equivalent according to XE.com (through PayPal — I can’t issue dollar cheques) upon publication. If no currency preference is stated in the covering letter, payment will be made in pounds sterling.
# I ask for FNASR
If you have any questions, please ask. Submissions and questions to be sent to gill@apexdigest.com. Please put ‘Blackness Within’ in the subject line followed by either your story title or the word ‘question’. You should receive a ‘got it’ or answer to your question within 48 hours; if you haven’t received such, assume that it didn’t arrive and resend
I will endeavour to respond to submissions within 4 weeks but please don’t query until at least 2 months after sending your story.
Related posts:
- Announcing the ToC for The Blackness Within
- PRESS RELEASE: The Blackness Within edited by Gill Ainsworth
- Announcing the fourth annual Apex Halloween Short Story Contest
APEXOLOGY: Horror
With such an engaging title as “The Blackness Within” for an anthology, you want only stories related to an obscure Celtic pig god? (Yes I Googled, and a pig is a pig by any other name, even though historians no doubt misunderstand its affiliation.) “Within” is the key, here. Please don’t limit this collection to some thumb-sucking bedtime story.
Obscure is the key word here. With so little known about the god, it leaves scope for the imagination to run riot. How would his infulence affect the world, people, animals…? So, no, I definitely don’t want cute bedtime stories. I’d have chosen someone like Aphrodite if I had.
Good. That’s what I was thinking when I was looking for more info on the pig god. So we’re going to be given lots of wiggle room as to the attributes of the pig god, how they manifest and affect all individuals involved…as long as there’s some thread of coherence? Makes sense.
Check on the “no bedtime stories”. I’m thinking of that Hannibal Lecter movie where the guy taught wild pigs to go into a feeding frenzy at the sound of someone screaming….
Pavlov’s Pigs, I guess it could be called. I must admit, I enjoyed all the Hannibal Lecter novels; Thomas Harris has character development down to a fine art, making even the villain an empathic character.
And wiggle room aplenty. Not only do you have an unknown god, but you also have the whole world available for a setting.
[...] For further details visit the Apex website here. [...]
I know it’s a bit early to ask, but have you accepted many, yet? Can you estimate how full the project is, so far?
All best,
Tina Jens
[...] couple of projects Geoff will be submitting to: their guest-edited issue of Apex Magazine, and the Blackness Within Anthology being put together by Gill Ainsworth. Geoff will submit the guest-edited piece tonight, a story [...]
You say that you want stories which will encompass all the stages of his reappearance…
Do you mean that each story should cover the entire span of his life, or that individual stories should focus on shorter time-spans and the anthology itself will provide the full range of time in question?
[...] their Submissions page, they are accepting short story entries for an anthology called “The Blackness Within” All stories in the anthology will involve the Celtic pig-deity, [...]
I was curious how many stories will be included in the anthology? What is your best estimate on how long the anthology will be open?
I appreciate any information you may be able to provide to these questions. Thank you.
I first heard of this anthology a little over a month ago and was immediately interested. I have been doing some research and forming ideas in my head for about that long, but I’m nowhere near done with the actual writing part yet. I was just wondering if there was a specific deadline for this project.
David, unfortunately, the reading period for the anthology is closed.
That’s too bad. I actually finished the story today. It took less time than I thought.