Friday, September 11, 2020

Strange Tales - Tartarus Press at 30

Tartarus Press has just announced Strange Tales—Tartarus Press at 30 edited by Rosalie Parker. It is celebrating thirty years in publishing with this anthology of completely new fiction by both some of its recognised authors and by new hands. 

Long known for offering beautifully designed books of classic supernatural fiction from Poe and Hawthorne, through Stevenson and Machen to de la Mare and Aickman (and others not so well-known), the press has also been a consistent, dedicated champion of contemporary writers. Several authors have had their first books published by Tartarus, and the editor, Rosalie Parker, has always been open to original and distinctive new work. 

The new anthology includes stories by: Rebecca Lloyd, Mark Valentine, Andrew Michael Hurley, N.A. Sulway, Stephen Volk, Inna Effress, Ibrahim R. Ineke, Eric Stener Carlson, Jonathan Preece, Tom Heaton, J.M. Walsh, Angela Slatter, John Gaskin, D.P. Watt, Karen Heuler, John Linwood Grant, Reggie Oliver and Carly Holmes 

My contribution, ‘The End of Alpha Street’, is about a sociology textbook: I hear pulses racing already. But it is also about the strange influence on us of that everyday private folklore we all have, even if sometimes we do not fully recognise it, or want to acknowledge it. 

‘But if you found the fourteenth stair? I bantered on. Well then I wouldn’t be here, I suppose, she countered, this time swiftly. We laughed together then but I thought that we had shared something mysterious.’ 

(Mark Valentine)

1 comment:

  1. 30 years as a publisher of excellent supernatural fiction is quite an achievement. Congratulations to Tartarus Press!

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