A month ago, in the early dawn light, on the banks of the river Tees a small group of writers, readers, and bibliophiles stood shivering in the mist as it rose off the water, into the fridge air. A profound sense of loss hung in the mist. Grief felt by all present. A friend had passed from the world, gone too soon, cut adrift by ill fortune and the malfeasance of a few to the detriment of the many.
A horn was blown, a single sad mournful note that filled the frigid air. Then the torch was lowered into the pyre of books that lay upon the funeral raft, and the raft was pushed out into the current. All present watched the blaze, as it slipped out into the mist, till it was no more than a glow of embers. Then slowly they began to drift away. Back to their normal lives. Back to their mundane existence. The passing noted, respected and now only the grief remained.
Harvey Duckman was no more...
then, just before the last watcher turned away, a glow of flame lifted form the raft. an ember in the air, or perhaps, just perhaps, a phoenix...
What do you mean stop being melodramatic...
The original series of Harvey Duckman anthologies is no longer available. There are reason, complicated reasons I am not going to relate, why this decision was taken. But in its original form Harvey Duckman is indeed dead. This saddens me and all concerned, but it was the right choice, and while we didn't really hold a viking funeral for the series (honestly, would we do such a thing) there is an aspect of grief in its passing. However this is not the end, Harvey is alive, very much alive, in a new and fabulous form. Harvey is busy doing new things, there is a new website and a new structure, one that hopefully will make the whole project self funding rather than just a labour of love that was fiscally a black hole on to which some few piled grief and suffering.
Part of the new Harvey project are small flash fiction books written , compiled and released each month to a prompt released at the start of the month. Flash fiction is not my wheel house, but they are proving popular among the writers and I tend to read them as they come in as I am part of the editorial/commissioning staff of new Harvey. They are splendid as a rule, the first two of these were 'set in stone' , and roll of the dice , the next is 'Hell have no fury' which has produced some real gems and at this point I may have to start writing the odd one myself as people seem to be having a lot of fun with this short form stuff. If you want to be involved you an find out more here.
But while flash fiction can be great, and the many articles and interviews on the Harvey site are wonderful, the main stay of Harvey Duckman as a project remains short story anthologies, though the format has changed to specific genres in each edition rather than the multi-genre books. This is for terrible reasons to do with shiny barbarism*...
*It is hard to find an audience for broad scope anthologies so we are taking a more focused approach and each edition will focus on a specific genre to solve this issue.
The first of these new Harvey's is being released on the 5th of July, entitled 'Folly and Madness' is is a steampunk anthology that has been long in the making. I first broached the subject of Harvey doing a all steampunk anthology over a year ago. For me this particular book has had even more personal involvement as in Harvey terms 'steampunk*' is my thing.
*The main reason the original series included steampunk in its 'scifi, horror. fantasy and steampunk' tag line was because I was seen as a steampunk author, and my first contribution to the series was a Hannibal Smyth short story that ended up been somewhat pivotal to the mains series of Hannibal books, though that was never my intent at the time (Spanners...)
I have been involved with 'Folly and Madness' from the off and set out to go beyond the Harvey stable of authors to add a few of my own favourite writer and people to the mix. So along side established Harvey authors like Alexandrina Brant, Ben Sawyer, Kate Baucherel, Eloign deBrohn and C.K. Roebuck we have the writers from the steampunk world like Hopeless Maine's (and so much more than hopeless) the wonderful Nimue Brown and Keith Errington, the fabulous darkness that is Steven C Davis and the splendidly eccentric Mat McCall.
Also as I hope is always going to be the case, we also have some new writers having their stories published for the first time in Anna Atkinson-Dunn and Laura Buckley.
There are stories about an engineer whisperer's, doll makers, Men in dark Tweed, fowl tourists, strange sisters, adventures in Nepal, other planets, strange visions, dastardly gentlemen. As well as uplifting fun stories, dark stories, stories of obtrusive cephalopod's. there is a whole lot of splendorous wonderment and strange, rum, uncanny, delight.
Edited and produced as ever by the wonderful CG Hatton, a wonderful writer in her own right, this is perhaps the best collection we have ever produced. Though i am biased in this case as I curated it, which is a fancy way of saying I rustled up some writers and gave them a brief, but there you go, I will take credit for convincing some talented people to writer stories, but the sheer delightful wonder of the stories is all down to the eleven authors involved, who have between them produced a better collection that I could have ever hoped for.
There is of course a 12th author as well, but modesty forbids he is made mention of...
The kindle edition of Mr Harvey Duckman presents 'Folly and Madness' is available on pre-order now, the paperback will be released on the 5th of July and we will be launching the book a Kapow at the Stockton Globe on the 6th. Pop along as see the Harvey team if you are in the area. We will have several of the authors there signing copies ( as well as indulging in shiny barbarism with their own books)
The 12th author may be Dressed as a Man in Dark Tweed, for Kapow but he could not possibly comment on this being the case, just don't look at his 'watch' is my advice...
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