News From A Foreign Country

I've already blogged about new NZ short story collection
A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction, edited by Anna Caro and Juliet Buchanan. But now there's more news worth sharing, courtesy of the anthology's indefatigable publishers Random Static:

Au Contraire Competition

Many of the stories in A Foreign Country were selected via the open competition run in conjunction with Au Contraire.* Entries were judged by author and Au Contraire Guest of Honour Sean Williams, who commented:

"This was VERY difficult. Each of the top three was brilliant in its own way. Weird how themes of parenthood, dreams, and loss weave through all of them."

And the winners were:

1st Place - 'The Future of the Sky' by Ripley Patton
2nd Place - 'Dreams of a Salamander Nation' by Susan Kornfeld
3rd Place - 'Cry of a Distress Rocket' by Brian Priestley
Honourable Mention - 'Beneath the Trees' by Claire Brunette

*(Tim adds: the other stories were solicited. By solicitors.)

Availability

A Foreign Country is now available from an ever expanding list of bookshops including Parsons, Unity and The Bookie in Auckland and Arty Bees in Wellington (some of these may not have it on the shelves right now, but they should soon). If your local independent bookshop is not on this list, please mention the anthology to them.

Bookshops which don't have copies in stock will be able to order them in for buyers on request - you'll need the ISBN: 978-0-473-16916-9. There will also be copies for sale at the Going West Festival, Armageddon in Auckland and other events to be confirmed.

Looking Forward

Random Static is currently catching its breath before tying off a few loose ends and continuing to market and sell A Foreign Country. They also have a few new projects planned - due for release soon is Barking Death Squirrels by Wellington based writer and A Foreign Country contributor Douglas A Van Belle.

(Tim adds: I'm planning to interview Doug for this blog in a couple of months.)

Random Static is soon to engage in a major overhaul of its submission guidelines: "Whilst another short story anthology isn't on our immediate horizons, any of you looking for a publisher for a novel, novella or comic book may want to check our website in a few weeks."

(Tim adds: Random Static is going from strength to strength! I'm especially pleased that they are looking to publish novellas - the novella is a great length for science fiction, but they are usually very hard to place. If only I had a desk drawer full of them...)