Elephant-Naming Contest!

The Web site of Elephant's Bookshelf Press has a new mascot. And since we don't believe in having nameless pets or pals in our house, we've put together a contest to name that elephant. And a contest wouldn't be a contest without prizes.

Please visit the site and offer your suggestion for a name. Maybe your child wants to offer a name. That's fine too. (One of my daughters has already offered a suggestion.) Before long, EBP will have books fit for younger readers.

While you're there, we'd love to have you sign up to receive Elephant Alerts, which we'll put out periodically to let readers know about upcoming releases (There'll be an announcement soon, actually! You might even be able to divine it from the contest.)

We neither rent nor sell our list, so your name is safe with us.

Summer Submissions Rolling In

Just a brief update to say that while submissions have been flowing in for the summer anthology, and copy editor Laura Carlson of American Editing Services is working on the accepted stories, we're still accepting submissions for the anthology. The deadline is April 19. If you're interested, check out what we're looking for in the anthology. In a nutshell, it's a collection of stories about relationships at their end, at least the end of the world as they know it.

Looking forward to seeing more submissions. Will one of them be yours?

Q&A With A.M. Supinger

In the year since Elephant’s Bookshelf Press started publishing, A.M. Supinger has become its most prolific author. She had three stories published in Spring Fevers and two in The Fall. She says she’s hoping to finish a story for the upcoming summer anthology, but there’s another deadline in the offing that takes precedence – she and her husband are eagerly anticipating the birth of their first child. We wanted to ask her a few questions before she went into labor.

Elephant’s Bookshelf: The stories you’ve had published by Elephant’s Bookshelf Press have all included an element of fantasy. Do you consider yourself a fantasy writer primarily?

A.M. Supinger: Without a doubt. Other things tend to creep into my work—like horror, erotica, and small hints of mystery, depending on my mood and/or what I’ve been reading—but my passion is fantasy. I credit Anne McCaffrey and her beloved Pern. 

EB: The stories of yours that I’ve read also have tended to focus on birth and motherhood. I know you’re looking forward to the birth of your son. Has your perspective on motherhood changed as the reality of it approaches for you?

AMS: Strangely, most of my stories containing themes of motherhood and birth were written well before I got pregnant. In fact, ever since discovering I was expecting this baby, my tendency has been toward more macabre subjects. I blame pregnancy dreams—zombies all the way from conception to now, only days from my due date.

Since I know more about pregnancy and motherhood now, I can honestly say that my stories about the subject will never be the same. The experience has already changed me, and I’ve yet to actually meet my son.

EB: Do you think your approach to stories and characters will change as a result of becoming a mother?

AMS: That is one of my fears. I love writing, and yet I have an odd approach to getting my stories and characters out. It could be said that I have a bad case of “Writerly Bulimia.” Basically, I write to purge. Most of my inspiration is dream-based; my regular dreams are vivid and intense, my nightmares more so. Getting the stories out of my head is sometimes the only way for me to get a peaceful night’s rest. But with a newborn almost here…well, I worry that I won’t have time to sit and write out whatever the Sandman throws at me. If I ever again get enough sleep to dream, that is…

EB: If I recall correctly, the trio of stories in Spring Fevers were your first publications. How long have you considered yourself a writer, and what did it mean for you to be published finally?

AMS: I’ve only considered myself a writer for a short time, even though I’ve been writing consistently for about two years. I guess I didn’t think my stories were good enough to “make it,” especially since I’m still developing my voice. I’m very glad that I heard about Spring Fevers and decided to test myself, because getting accepted and published has given me so much confidence. As far as first experiences go, mine has been nothing but positive, and I’ve learned so much from everyone involved.

The feeling of validation that came with seeing my name in an anthology was overwhelming, and I still thank my lucky stars for the privilege!

EB: Any novels in the offing?

AMS: Two, actually. Both are YA Fantasy in different stages of completion. I’m working on editing one and writing the second half of the other. DESMONA CHILD follows the misfortunes of a hapless girl destined to sink Atlantis, and GOLDEN is the twisted fairytale I’ve yet to finish.

EB: Where did your fascination with owls come from?

AMS: Your guess is as good as mine! I don’t remember a time when I didn’t love owls. They are beautiful, majestic creatures, but are also true predators and masters of stealth. The combination of beauty and power is riveting.

EB: Well, that seems quite appropriate for you, then. (Well, maybe not the predator part.) Thanks so much for sharing with us, and we look forward to seeing what the future holds for you.

AMS: Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to chat with me! I enjoyed your questions and can’t wait to see what Elephant’s Bookshelf Press comes out with next!

Thinking About Summer (and Short Stories)

You ever see a Facebook friend’s relationship status change from “in a relationship” or “married” to “it’s complicated” or even something more definite (“ass handed to me along with a frying pan to the head”) and wonder, “Uh oh, what happened there? They seemed so happy.”

When I see it, I’m usually sad for those people. But then again, perhaps the relationship was not in a good place anyway. After all, who really knows everything that goes on behind someone’s closed doors?

Well, in fiction, the writers do. That’s where you come in.

It’s time to announce the next anthology from Elephant’s Bookshelf Press. As always, we’re looking for quality short stories, but this time the theme is a little different. As much as we all like to think about what might have been, we all know that not all relationships were meant to last. For you, perhaps it was a May to September romance that still tastes sweet, or a one-night stand that lasted too long, or maybe the haunting pain associated with a parent or child who died too young.

In the next anthology from Elephant's Bookshelf Press, we explore the short-term relationship.

For the summer edition of our four-season series, we are looking for stories that share a love or relationship that is or appears to be short-lived or not long for this world. You might say it’s a combination of Spring Fevers and The Fall: Relationships facing apocalyptic change.

This need not be negative. And I pray that it’s sometimes funny. I mean, sometimes getting burned is okay, isn't it?

We’re looking for previously unpublished stories of up to 7,500 words (Yes, that’s shorter than we allowed earlier, but those 10,000 word “shorts” can be pretty hard to get through in one sitting unless they really sing.) They can be in any style except erotica. I expect we’ll see several Young Adult and New Adult pieces, maybe even a Middle Grade or two. Romance, steampunk, steampunk romance, traditional literary, science fiction, science fiction with a lusty alien or two… you get the point. [Edited 1/17/13: I cannot offer payment for published stories at this time, but all authors will receive a print or electronic version of the finished work. Also, all rights -- including reprint rights -- revert to the author.]

If there’s something in your trunk based on that guy or girl who left you in the lurch not long before you wrote it twenty years ago, give it a good once-or-twice-over and make sure it can handle walking around in the twenty-first century (unless of course it’s supposed to be set in the twentieth, or sixteenth, or the dawn of time. I seem to recall Adam and Eve had some issues to get through.) As I’ve said before, inspire your manuscript with a healthy dose of vitality.

We’re looking for one submission per author. No previously published stories. If it’s appeared on your blog already, let me know, but that is not an automatic kill in my book. Send submissions to anthologies@elephantsbookshelfpress.com. The deadline is April 19, but I’ve already received a story and will gladly accept others ahead of the deadline.

For this anthology, we have secured the talents of copy editor Laura Carlson of American Editing Services, who already has impressed me with her work, and I know other writers who are impressed by her too and recommend her highly. I'm very much looking forward to working with her, and I believe all the writers in the anthology will be pleased also.

For ease of formatting and time-saving on the copyediting and final proofing, please adhere to the following format styles:

·         Use Times Roman;

·         12 pt. type;

·         1" margin all around;

·         Double-spaced lines;

·         Do not add extra line between every paragraph;

·         When you want to denote a scene break, please use a single “#”;

·         Paragraphs indented 0.5". Please use the autoformat settings on Microsoft Word for paragraph indentations rather than manually inserting a tab or individual spaces. This feature is found under the ‘Paragraph’ format window;

·         Use a SINGLE SPACE following a period at the end of a sentence, NOT two spaces;

·         Use STRAIGHT QUOTES rather than SMART QUOTES. This is an autoformat/autocorrect feature in Word that, if checked, turns straight quote marks and apostrophes into ‘curly’ quote marks and apostrophes. This can cause formatting issues when the text is converted to a final font and style for publication. Under WORD OPTIONS, click on PROOFING, then on AUTOCORRECT OPTIONS, then make sure the line that says ‘Replace straight quotes with smart quotes’ is UNCHECKED.

Should you choose not to adhere to these guidelines, your story will still be considered. It’s a potential annoyance and challenge for some of the e-publishing formats, but it’s not a deal breaker. We’ll work with the copy. But the more you can do in advance, the faster the editing process will go and the cleaner and more consistent the final published book presentation will be.

Because that’s part of what we’re looking to create, too – a clean, consistent book that readers enjoy by authors whose work they want to read again and again. Ideally, you’ll discover that Elephant’s Bookshelf Press produces books and anthologies that entertain the reader and keep them thinking – and when appropriate, laughing too.

After all, just because your love life or life in general is on the rocks, it doesn’t mean you can’t splash it with a little water and add a beer chaser. God knows, sometimes a sip of something stronger than you can shake you back into a happy place, and it might even allow you to salvage that relationship. We’d be okay with that. Who doesn’t like a happy ending?

If you have additional questions, feel free to post a comment here, or you can send it to the email address above. A comment will allow me to respond for everyone. Because if you were confused, it’s possible others were too.

Thanks in advance to everyone!