ATTACK OF THE 50FT BOOK!

THE LIBRARY OF FANTASY PRESENTS:

DAMN STRAIGHT!

From Godzilla to Stay Puft, Cthulhu to the Iron Giant, giant monsters have been portrayed as everything from saviours of mankind to the ultimate destructors, and even tragic, misunderstood figures. Now we're asking YOU to send us your best giant monster stories!

Reference points: Godzilla / King Kong / Lovecraft / Deep Rising / Night of the Crabs / Steve Niles' Giant Monster/ Kingdom of the Ants / The Relic / You get the idea...

Giant robots are more than welcome, but remember this is coming out under the Fantasy imprint so your best bet is to avoid using spaceships/aliens/distant planets. Sword n Sorcery/High Fantasy is of course also welcome, but try to avoid obvious staples of those genres.

WORD COUNT:
A firm 3K - 7K

PAYMENT:
1cent p/word + 1 contributor copy

DEADLINE:
1st March 2011 (so plenty of time to submit something )

FORMAT:
Times New Roman or Courier 12pt font, please.
One press of the TAB to indent a new paragraph.
Double-spaced.
Italics should be italics NOT underlined, please.
NO headers or footers except on first page [include an approx. word count along with your name/address/email].

Please, please don't use any fancy formatting as it drives me absolutely nuts (eg extra space between paragraphs, coloured “attention-grabbing” fonts, etc).

OTHER STUFF:
NO multiple subs.
NO reprints.
Simultaneous submissions are a-okay with me, provided you do me the courtesy of telling me if it gets accepted elsewhere.

Send all submissions to fiftyfootbook[at]gmail[dot]com and I’ll send you a needlessly exuberant ‘Story received!!!’ email. If you don’t get one within 4 days of submitting, please query. Please ATTACH submissions as a .doc or .rtf file to your email. DO NOT SEND ME YOUR STORY IN ANY OTHER FORMAT. Not docx or pdf or any other crazy crap. Thank you!

Please don’t query as to the status of your story until after the deadline, because if there’s one thing guaranteed to crumble my biscuits it’s impatient little monkeys Having said that, I’m going to try and read the subs as they come in for this one so I might well send rejections out before the 1st of March. If you sub and don’t hear anything before the deadline assume you’re shortlisted, but don’t get all cocky

Anyone who doesn’t follow these guidelines will have their story dumped in toxic waste and turned into a giant rejection monster, which will then stomp all other publishers you send stuff to, thereby eliminating your chances of a happy life.

Good luck!!!

Wayne Goodchild
Editor

nb. And as is fast becoming my custom…Bonus Editor Points to anyone who decimates Scunthorpe in their story

ALMOST...BUT NOT QUITE

So the 6th ANNUAL CAFE DOOM SHORT STORY COMP has now officially ended, and the winners have been posted HERE.

I came 6th out of the top 8, as picked by the Shock Totem team *insert sad face here* but I did come top of the public votes, so I guess that counts for something *insert happy face here*, and at least now I know ST aren't keen on stories in which a dead husband comes back to life in the body of a scarecrow *insert relevant face here*

I think now I just need to find a relevant site or zine that agrees with the public, and not other editors. SHAZAM!

:D

edit: I think that might sound a bit snooty, which is very unbecoming for me, whoops. So here's a more typical Potato blog version -->

After utterly destroying the other saps in the public vote section of the 6TH ANNUAL CAFE DOOM SHORT STORY COMPETITION with my unbridled awesomeness, I choose to dial my godlike powers down a few notches so that some other very deserving writers could have a bash at the exultation I suffer every day of my incredible life.

Subsequently, I placed 6th overall, which is still better than nothing, and was a top pick of Ed, who runs CD. And because I'm a crawly-crawly bum-lick, I'll also mention that Ken from Shock Totem (the sponsors) put me in his top three picks...so my powers, even when muted, still have almost as much potency as Ron Jeremy's used underpants.

You can see the results HERE, and hopefully read my story [Papa Crow] somewhere in the near future :)

Yep, that's more like it! I really like jingold's (the winner's) 'fairytale' style of writing and I myself voted her story [Fade to Black] second in my own top three picks. So, as you can see, I have impeccable taste ;)

I got some lovely comments about my piece, and as Ken's mentioned below in the comments, the ending was a bit off (which was almost everyone's main criticism). I thought by subverting the expectation of what should happen to Papa Crow by having him set himself on fire instead would work, but it didn't, so no worries (I won't say what I did originally intend to end the story like in case it ends up somewhere, then you lot won't want to read it :D ).

And that really is HOW for NOW! Stay tuned for an update tomorrow on a BRAND NEW ANTHOLOGY I'm opening up to submissions - it's gonna be MONSTROUS!!!! Oooo how eggsciting!

DONE. LIKE A NAUGHTY SCHOOLBOY

Well I've done it; I've finished selecting the stories for A GLITCH IN THE CONTINUUM. It sounds a little trite, like Dermot on the X factor telling the latest hopeless vocalist that they 'gave it their best shot' (but secretly he thinks they're shit), but the final decision was a tough call. I rejected some absolutely solid stories because there were ones I preferred that little bit more. But ahh, such is life in this biz we call show.

What's NEXT? Only another anthology! I'll post details on WEDNESDAY. Oooo very exciting!

And for me? Not much. Got a couple of cool bands on the go, and I'm working on something that was supposed to be a short story but is turning into a massive headfkkk of an idea instead. That's about for it now, I reckon. I think I'm off to bed to watch 2012! Yippee!