Myths & Delusions • Editorial • April 2016
These are exciting days for us at Mythic Delirium Books.
Seeds we planted in 2015 have led to a harvest of accolades in 2016. C.S.E. Cooney’s collection Bone Swans made the Locus Recommended Reading List, as did her novella “The Bone Swans of Amandale”—not only that, but “Bone Swans of Amandale” is a Nebula Award nominee! And it’s being reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas: 2016 Edition.
Swapna Kishore’s story “The Absence of Words” from the Jan.–March 2015 issue of Mythic Delirium was selected for The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2016 Edition, and on the poetry side, Natalia Theodoridou’s “Philomela in Seven Movements” (Issue 1.4) and Shira Lipkin’s “Four Chambers” (Issue 2.1) are Rhysling Award nominees.
And in what I hope will be a harbinger of more good things to come, our newest anthology, Clockwork Phoenix 5, just received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, with the book’s official launch coming up fast at the April 5 New York Review of Science Fiction Reading in Brooklyn.
It’s thrilling to see our publications serve as a channel that brings our wonderful contributors wider recognition.
On the other hand, there’s cause for melancholy, too, as I write a royalty check to the estate of the amazing, too-soon departed Tanith Lee, whose stories were so instrumental in shaping the Clockwork Phoenix series, or contemplate the loss of my dear friend Bud Webster, whose witty writing graced a few of the print issues of Mythic Delirium, and a couple of my earliest anthologies.
Inspired by their good works, I’ll keep on with my own.
The issue we’ve put together to see you into spring holds flights into dangerous fox forests, not-so-ordinary lives skimmed by swan magic, shark boys, bear husbands, beings of air, and sisterly love strong enough to survive an apocalypse. Roshani Chokshi, Amy Aderman, and Alisa Alering wove our stories for this offering, while Theodora Goss, Virginia M Mohlere, Sandi Leibowitz, Carina Bissett, Daniel Ausema, and A.J. Odasso stitched the poems. Some are new to Mythic Delirium, some are returning after a long absence, some we’ve worked with much more recently, and we’re glad to have them all in the tapestry.
A word about our cover. Typically we choose imagery with a more obvious speculative element, but there was something about this spectacular Arizona view framed by mysterious darkness, that I couldn’t resist. My friend Gary Every shared it with me just for show and tell, and immediately I saw design possibilities. That’s how an editor brain works, folks. It never shuts off. . . .
Speaking of editing, the next issue, July–Sept. 2016, is already looming on our horizon, with fiction from Yukimi Ogawa, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, and Suzanne J. Willis, and poetry from Ada Hoffmann, Lynette Mejía, Kavitha Rath, Lyndsey Silveira, Christina Sng, and Jane Yolen.
To make sure you don’t miss it, subscribe or renew here at the Mythic Delirium Books website, or here at Weightless Books.
And now: a wedding invitation has arrived for you. It’s this way, through the trees—don’t delay!
And definitely don’t stray from the path.
—Mike Allen, Roanoke, Va., March 2016
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