Good morning,

What a fruitful June this has been at Space Cat Press! Getting out earlier and earlier to water the garden in the mornings. Clearing away May’s wilderness of wildflowers to make space for sowing seeds and planting summer crops.

The rest of the time we’ve carried that spirit into tending our next publication, an anthology on the theme of Into The Forest. With a record number of submissions, we’ve really had our work cut out and this month’s news takes you behind the scenes in our longlisting room. Forgive us for the month’s radio silence as we dug deep into our Forest reading.

Lost in the Forest

We asked you to interpret this theme widely, from ‘Eco-writing, Forest Fables or Urban Jungles to Space Trees’ and in genres that included short stories, poetry, flash fiction and creative non-fiction. With nearly 600 submissions from around the world, we’re delighted to say you answered that call in abundance with a wonderful diversity of tone, theme and setting. One minute, we were deep in a Highland pine forest, the next we were pitched into the Australian bush or a Tennessee cottonwoods grove or Brazilian jungle. Likewise, we were met by an array of vivid characters, some with dark secrets or special powers, animals and birds (so many wolves), sprites, wood nymphs, monsters and trees with an agenda of their own. These were pieces that charmed, scared or haunted us.

Some of the writing explored how our long and complex relationship with trees has been challenged by climate change. Prompting grief, anger and yearning amidst the self-inflicted losses we are incurring. That too is a strand amidst the magic and eeriness of these wooded tales. So if you submitted to our anthology call-out, huge thanks for sharing your creativity and transporting us to another world.

The Longlist Process

While we were thrilled to get so many varied submissions, it made our first reading process far more intense this year. We have two editors, Darragh and Siobhan, and every single piece was read by both of us separately before we discussed and sometimes re-read. At this stage, we considered each piece as a standalone. There will always be a big element of subjectivity in selecting pieces and editors’ tastes come into play here. But here are some factors that swayed us towards a YES, NO or MAYBE:

• Surprisingly, some submissions didn’t fit our theme at all – not a tree in sight! In others, the connection to trees/ forests may have felt too tangential. Conversely, we were excited if a piece added some interesting angle to Forest theme.
• Some pieces were skilful enough but more suited to a different market (e.g. in our Submission Guidelines we specified ‘erotica or hardcore horror’ is not our cup of tea).
• Some opening lines/ paragraphs/ stanzas made the hair on the back of our necks stand up (in a good way). There was a confidence and purpose to them that just took us by the hands and tugged us into the woods. Not showy, or tricksy, just right on it. 
• Some titles likewise raised our hopes for something special. Other titles were bland and rather functional. Which can be fixed in editing, of course. After that opening vibe, the rest of it has to deliver on the promise. Especially, the piece needs to arrive somewhere and deliver some kind of pay-off at its close. 
• The best pieces, our hard favourites, really stayed with us and resonated afterwards. There was a point to them, there was something we took away to mull over. Conversely, there were pieces that tried too hard to overstate a theme/moral and we wanted a bit more subtlety, some sub-textual space for the reader to form a view. 
• Tonally, and this is down to editors’ preferences, we wanted a real variety but veered away from anything too cute at one end or too horrific at the other. Some pieces signalled exactly where they were going and we prefer to be surprised. We especially liked piece that were truly original, rather than generic. Happily, there were plenty of these.

With the standard of submissions being generally high, whittling 584 pieces down to a longlist of just over 100 meant letting go of pieces we really liked. We had many pieces this time which had already been published elsewhere. That shows it’s often not about the quality of the writing. Others will find a better home in another publication and we wish you luck in resubmitting anything we haven’t picked up. Thank you for your patience in waiting for us to plough through the reading.

If your piece does appear in the longlist, big congratulations to you! All of these 105 pieces really excited us and stood out from a crowded list of strong writing. See full longlist at end of newsletter.

Next up, we have an even tougher job to whittle down the 105 to around 30 or so pieces for our shortlist. Cue the howling of wolves in the forest. We hope to do that within a week or so and will publish that shortlist on our website. And we will then contact shortlisted authors about any suggested edits. Once these are all agreed and worked through, hopefully ALL the shortlisted pieces will make it into our final publication. And the trees will speak to each other and open their strange blooms for all to see.

But first, another summer treat…

Edgelit 2023

We’re getting very excited about our next SFF convention which is in our East Midlands patch. EdgeLit has been out of action for four years due to the pandemic. But thankfully, the Edgelit team are staging a comeback for all fans of Horror, Thriller, Fantasy and Science-Fiction writing. It’s a really welcoming, action-packed convention, for one-day only at Derby’s QUAD, 8th July 2023 from 10am to 5pm. Space Cat Press will bring our star-struck bookstall.

And as luck would have it, that Saturday is our fourth birthday so we’ll be in the mood to celebrate! We’d be delighted to see any of you there. Come say hi in the Dealer’s Room – and maybe there’ll even be a slice of cake to be had!

Next month…

Expect more news on our shortlist, working with a cover artist for first time and how those edits are going. Should be out beginning of August. Stay cool, Space Cats, till then!

And here’s the full longlist for our Into the Forest anthology: 

Into the Forest longlist

* LONGLISTED POETRY PIECES * A Divorce Justine Gardener A Forest Symphony Edward Lunt After the Bombs, the Trees Caspar Wort A Wild Tangled Forest Nathan Lunt Changes of Life Jennifer Ruth Jackson Conversation Between The Alien And The Tree Abida Akram dead leaves whispering Greg Fewer Elegance in the Dry Season Mark Simpson Everyone Should be Prepping Michele Witthaus Fairytale Ending Shelley Tracey Gone midnight and I needed somewhere to press reset Emma Lee Hallow Bex Hainsworth Inner Rhythms Brian U. Garrison In Swithland Woods Yevgeny Salisbury In The Gingerbread Forest Valerie Hunter Into the Woods Teika Marija Smits Making a Mark Shelley Tracey Mushrooms Bex Hainsworth My Feral Friend Michele Witthaus Norwegian Woods: A Snapshot Jennifer Moore On the Way to The Old Forest Corey Mesler Our Closest Revolutions Natalie Korman Rook Land Deborah Tyler Bennett Roots Erin Jamieson sapling Mark A. Fisher Show Rachel Loughlin Silvan Vision Max Bindi Suspended Belief Richard Urwin The Aluminium Apples of the Moon Jenny Blackford The Forest Holds Its Secrets Alyson Faye The Forest Returns Louise Nicholas The Great Yew John Kitchen The Roots G. O. Clark To All Travelers Who Must Pass a Night in the Forest of Vampire Bears Kate Boyes Trees want you to interpret their dance Emma Lee 21st Century Evil Elves Frank William Finney Walnut Street Bex Hainsworth Watcher Mona Mehas We Lived in Trees Michael McCormick Woods Rachel Loughlin * LONGLISTED FLASH FICTION PIECES * As Forest Fiona M Jones A Stick to Break Mathew Gostelow A Zone of Peace and Tranquility Phillip Temples Bear #178 Holly Schofield Be Still, Iron Heart Lyndsey Croal Cuckoo Pint Sarah Royston Deep in the Forest Toshiya Kamei Fern-seed Sarah Royston Forbidden Soup Lyra Meuer Forever Forests Renee Cronley Gingerbread Jennifer Moore Grounding Exercise Cormack Baldwin Heart Trouble Sarah Royston One Set of Footsteps Julia LaFond Stewardship Holly Schofield Sudden Storms Maura H. Harrison The Dream of Fly Agaric Melissa Coffey The guardians of the forest Derek McMillan The Maid of Buttermere and the Wudwose Mags Diep The Munlochy Clootie Well Sherry Morris The Wolf and the Woodsman Sara Litchfield Trees of my Life Angela Townsend When the Moon Gives Way JP Relph * LONGLISTED SHORT STORIES * A Fairly Fine Spaceship John Frochio A Winter’s Tale Nancy Schumann Bear Witch Bog Caroline Lavoie Cradled amongst the roots JM Cyrus Emilia who Talks with Trees Rod Duncan Flowers, blood and tears JM Cyrus Forever Wild Joanna Michal Hoyt Fox Rain Alexandra Faye Carcich Friends in high places Emma Burnett Grey Wolf Red Wolf Matthew Pegg He sleeps with garlands woven in his hair e rathke Incident at Te Poi Wakaito 1858 Rob Bray Iron Baba Shelly Jones Moon Forest Terry Grimwood My World Abida Akram Odd Eden Alex Harwood Of Brittle Heart and Bleeding Bone R. J. Howell One in Eight Ivan Richardson Pagae’s Way Meredith Leigh Burton Red Oak’s Revenge James Blakey Rewild Me Charlie Winter Saltimbocca Daniel A. Rabuzzi Sapling Victoria Haslam Scilla and the Brightwood Em Harriett Shedding Pine Needles Emma Lee Six Days Shall Ye Labor Thomas Canfield Stairs Kaitlin Caul Sugar Almonds Merri Andrew The Blight Katherine Franklin The Elder Siblings T. Fox Dunham The Forest King Mark Brandon The Red Princess Who Was Hidden Underground L. P. Melling The Root of Wisdom Gail Sosinsky The Rising Robinne Weiss The Scream That Became A Howl Max Turner The Wild Pigs Danny Campbell The Wild Woods Gang Kate E Lore The Will of A Dead Woman Noora Kamar Toadstools Bitter Karella Under Ice, Over Ice J. K. Fulton Untethered World Ezra Wu Willow Would M L Horst