Clan Destine Press catalogue Autumn 2024

Dragons and Gorgons and Dark Deeds Down Under

We here at Clan Destine Press have thrown ourselves into 2024 with fabulous new titles; a great weekend haunting Clunes Booktown; and, already, a few award shortlistings.

First, the awards. Our Kiwi horror anthology, Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aoteroa, edited by multi-award-winning horror writer Lee Murray, has been shortlisted in the Edited Works category of the Australasian Shadows Awards. One poem and one story from the antho have also been shortlisted: ‘Guiding Star’ by Tim Jones; and ‘What Bones These Tidings Bring’ by Nikky Lee. ‘After I Found Her’, by Claire Low – a story from This Fresh Hell, our horror anthology edited by Katya de Becarra and Narrelle M. Harris, is also shortlisted, in the long fiction category.

Nikky Lee’s Remains to be Told story, and Chuck McKenzie’s ‘The Dark Man, By Referral’ from This Fresh Hell have also been shortlisted in the Best Fantasy Short Story category of this year’s Aurealis Awards.

The Clunes Booktown weekend (March 23-24) was great fun as usual. Clan Destine had a marquee, a new banner, and brand new books amongst all our other titles.

We also broke our own record for the number of attending authors, with eight of our awesome writers dropping in or staying for the duration.

Expat-Aussie crime writer Stephen Johnson (Kaikōura Rendezvous) came from NZ for his second Booktown; crime writer Natalie Conyer (Present Tense) drove from Sydney for her first Clunes; Narrelle Harris (The She Wolf of Baker Street), spent Saturday with us; as did Louisa Bennet (The Nosy Detectives) and her two Golden Retrievers. Frequent Booktowners Leslie Falkiner-Rose (Why Us? Why Not) and Fran Bryson (In Brazil) were in and out; as were multi-talented Jane Clifton (Flush), who also performed at Clunes, and one of our short-story stars, Chuck McKenzie.

Leslie & Natalie Lindy & Jane

Stephen & Narrelle

Chuck & Lindy

CDP Publisher, Lindy Cameron

Our first new titles for 2024 include the second volume of our groundbreaking and bestselling Dark Deeds Down Under series. We once again invited the best crime and mystery writers from Australia and New Zealand to play in our sandpit. (And, yay, Vol 3 is already in the works.)

Out now also is the latest mystery novel – Sherlockian, urban fantasy, LGBTQI+ – from Narrelle M. Harris. The She-Wolf of Baker Street puts Mrs Hudson, landlady and werewolf, at the heart of a modern-day adventure.

We do love an anthology – both in Australia’s Clan cave and at the HQ of our international imprint Improbable Press (IP). While most Clan Destine Press (CDP) writers are Aussies or Kiwis, Improbable (based in the USA) collects authors from around the world.

In Anna Karenina Isn’t Dead (IP) we invited writers from Australia, the US, UK and Europe to reclaim literary heroines from ignoble fates.

There’s more Holmes and Watson adventures – always with a twist – on the way, in our May anthology release, Sherlock is a Girl’s Name (CDP) The title explains everything – and again we have international writers alongside our crew of award-winning Aussies.

In the fabulously inventive and amusing The Medusa Situation, the Olympian gods have retired to modern Sydney, where Hera and Athena must solve the mystery of who stole Medusa’s head – again! – before all Hades breaks loose.

Postcards from a Lake Monster, the first of our first kids’ series, is also a May release; with a second book, Postcards from a City of Monsters in August. These quirky books are middlegrade fantasy tales that deal cleverly with big issues like cancer, autism, bullying, adoption, etc. This catalogue also features a recap of our 2023 books – just in case you missed them; or the other memo that we now do our own distribution. Clan Destine offers all the standard T&Cs. Info on taking up an account with us is on the inside-back page.

Later in 2024 we’ll once again traverse the genres with new crime fiction, fantasy, a literary mashup and the republishing of books too long out of the limelight.

Finally – because we have space, we’re going to celebrate our forthcoming novels and anthologies by sharing photos of the events and launches we held for last year’s books.

At Tasmania’s Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival

In October Clan Destine’s publisher/writer Lindy and editor/writer Narrelle spent a month in the Huon Valley, Tasmania at the Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival (TAWRF), and mentoring a host of writers on retreat. Festival Director, fellow crime writer and all-round amazing mover and shaker, Dr L.J.M. Owen (left) did much more than wear her genre heart on her sleeve. Her shirt is covered in the books of all the Festival authors. Clan Destine has five books featured on her... across her good self.

Lindy, and fellow writer Tor Roxburgh, attended Conflux in October. We launched Remains to Be Told, and watched Aaron Dries win an Aurealis Award for ‘Kookaburra Cruel’ from our Damnation Games anthology.

One of the best things about events in Canberra is catching up with Robert Hood. The ‘Godfather of Aussie Horror’ is author of CDP’s Scavengers, which was shorlisted in the 2022 Aurealis Awards for Best Horror Novel.

Melbourne launch for Silks

Canberra launch for Remains to be Told

Kiwi authors celebrate the Canberra launch of Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa: Paul Mannering, Jacqui Greaves, ed. Lee Murray, and Tracie McBride. They also had a launch in Aotearoa, see p36

RWR (Rob) McDonald (rear), who shared a Nancys short story with us for Dark Deeds Down Under Vol 1, was the special Melbourne launcher for Silks the fourth Catherine Kint Mystery, by our very own Hugh McGinlay.

Melbourne & Sydney launches for This Fresh Hell

Ann & Lindy

Even crime-writing publishers get to fangirl sometimes. Lindy says it was awesome spending time with TARWF’s international guest, the fabulous Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera novels.

Ann also launched our ‘anthology novel’, Murder You Wrote. The brainchild of its editor, and TARWF Director, L. J. M. Owen, it’s also an interactive mystery.

Chuck McKenzie, Claire Low, Annie McCann at Galaxy Books, Sydney.

Chuck McKenzie, Claire L. Smith, Jason Franks, Katya de Becerra, Narrelle Harris, Eugen Bacon, Lindy Cameron after the Readings

Emporium launch in Melbourne.

Ann Cleeves, & Natalie Conyer, one of the Murder You Wrote writers.

The never-ending story of cracking good crime & mystery

Craig Sisterson on the spark that became the Dark Deeds Down Under anthology series.

The project came from a lockdown chat with publisher Lindy Cameron. She was in Melbourne and I was in London.

We have a shared passion for crime and thriller writing, and particularly for shining a light on the wonderful storytellers from our part of the world. Lindy is a crime writer herself but has made a career supporting and uplifting fellow authors through Clan Destine Press and her co-leadership of Sisters in Crime Australia and all the events, prizes, and opportunities they provide. Over the past 16 years my lifelong love of crime fiction blossomed into closer involvement with publishing, including as a critic and awards judge. I’ve interviewed hundreds of authors from dozens of countries for magazines, podcasts and literary festivals, but have always been keen to bring international attention to the crime writers of Australia and New Zealand. This led to establishing the Ngaio Awards for excellence in New Zealand crime writing in 2010; co-founding Rotorua Noir, NZ’s first crime convention in 2019; and publishing my first book, Southern Cross Crime: a reader’s guide to Aussie and Kiwi crime writing in 2020.

Lindy and I made a long list of potential contributors; a ‘dream list’ really as we thought many wouldn’t be keen or available. But in one weekend of video chats, I’d filled the first anthology and was only partway down the list! Everyone was keen, supportive, or ‘are you doing more than one book because I’m busy right now’. It was incredibly humbling to compile the great stories that came over the next few months from great writers who’d become part of our wee project. It was terrific to get brand new stories with some familiar detectives, including in Vol 1 to have genre royalty like Kerry Greenwood and Shane Maloney.

Crime Mystery Thriller Anthology

Dark & dirty deeds done by the best Aussie & Kiwi crime writers

The second volume of this groundbreaking and bestselling anthology series features 21 short stories by the brightest storytelling talents from Australia and New Zealand: including international bestsellers, many award winners and a host of fresh voices.

Brand new stories, some with beloved series characters, share the pages of our Down Under world with edgy standalone tales, and the first in new series. The settings in this vibrant showcase of antipodean crime range from the seething underbellies of our cosmopolitan cities to South Island glaciers or the dusty Outback; from ocean-carved coasts and craggy mountains, via country towns and sleepy villages, to isolated wilderness and sultry rainforests.

The new dark deeds herein are perpetrated by:

Emma Viskic ~ Malla Nunn ~ Jack Heath ~ Dani Vee

Charity Norman ~ Natalie Conyer ~ Ben Hobson

Jennifer Lane ~ Helen Fitzgerald ~ Peter Papathanasiou

Ashley Kalagian Blunt ~ Robert Gott ~ Andi C Buchanan

Anna Downes ~ Shelley Burne-Field ~ Chad Taylor

Stephen Johnson ~ Michael Botur

Dark Deeds Down Under 2 also features reprints from three Aussie legends of the genre: Jean Bedford ~ Dorothy Porter ~ Peter Corris ~ Renée

Praise:

Vol 2: A fabulous collection. Whatever your criminal tastes, there’s something to thrill and intrigue you.

Ann Cleeves

Vol 1: A perfect showcase for the brilliant new wave of Antipodean crime writing.

Val McDermid

The response to Dark Deeds Down Under from the crime writers of Australia and New Zealand was so positive and overwhelming, we knew we had a series even before the first book went to print.

The author crew assembled for Vol 2 proves the very idea of Dark Deeds Down Under has a bright future.

Selling Points:

Rivetting crime fiction from 21 of the best writers in the Southern Hemisphere.

The stories range far and wide across the unique rural and urban landscapes of Australia and New Zealand.

Whatever your reading poison - from noir and hardboiled to cosy and mysterious - this anthology is up your alley.

A series that could go on forever - volumes 1 & 2 have already tapped 43 of the most outstanding crime writers from Australia and New Zealand. Vol 3 is on the way.

Edited by Craig Sisterson

A UK-based Kiwi magazine writer, reviewer, and co-founder of New Zealand’s Ngaio Marsh Awards. His first book was Southern Cross Crime, a reader’s guide to the crime fiction, film, and TV of Australia and New Zealand. Craig is also the editor of the first Dark Deeds Down Under

ISBN: 9781922904287

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: 1-4-2024

RRPs: A$36.95

Pages: 274

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

Subjects: crime, mystery, noir, cosy, adventure

Others in the anthology series: Dark Deeds Down Under

9780645316780 (2022)

Top: Editor Craig Sisterson (r) with Aussie crime writers Chris Hammer and Anna Downes at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival Harrogate.

Left: Scotland’s Queen of Tartan Noir, Val McDermid, with Dark Deeds Down Under at Harrogate, 2022.

Crime Mystery Urban Fantasy LGBTQI

Mrs Hudson: the kickarse,

menopausal werewolf of 221B Baker Street

The inspiration for The She-Wolf of Baker Street sprang from a desire to explore ideas of violence as it relates to gender.

I also really wanted to write a werewolf novel with a kickarse older woman as the beast in question. So many ferocious fictional werewolves are male, and you could argue that male violence in these stories is given the excuse of ‘he can’t help it’ because of his werewolf nature.

I wanted to play with those traditional tropes but from the perspective of a woman in menopause, where the idea that her ties to the moon aren’t quite as rigid as they would’ve been in her youth. I loved the idea of Mrs Hudson being my snarky menopausal heroine and I also enjoy writing Holmesian stories through a queer filter.

Setting the story in a modern Sherlockian universe also gave me a wealth of background material to build into the world – including a natural sceptic in Sherlock Holmes himself – and lots of other female characters who could personify different aspects of the supernatural – and of sexuality.

In this Baker Street world Mrs Hudson is bisexual; Sherlock and John are falling awkwardly in love; and there’s a big LGBTQI supporting cast.

You’d think in writing about the uncanny, I’d have had some revelations on that journey, but instead the big surprise was me finding an absolute favourite in one of my secondary characters. I just adore Nick Murray, Watson’s lesbian best friend, who spends a lot of time flirting with Sherlock’s mysterious older sister, Myca. In fact, all the women in The She-Wolf of Baker Street emerged so strongly that Holmes and Watson, while important to Audrey Hudson’s own story, become very much supporting characters.

After editing The Only One in the World, a Holmesian anthology which imagines the consulting detective and his doctor friend as Australian, Irish, Japanese, Polish and a dozen other backgrounds, and then co-editing Sherlock is a Girl’s Name, which asks who Sherlock Holmes would be if she was female, it seemed only natural for me to give the always-present-in-the-background Mrs Audrey Hudson an exciting new voice.

A den mother to her lodgers, Holmes and Watson, and the undisputed protector of 221 Baker Street, this Mrs Hudson’s story has a dangerous undercurrent – a bit more bite.

Ultimately The She-Wolf of Baker Street was a fun way of expanding on the solid base of all the Mrs Hudsons I have loved.

Narrelle with a mosaic of ‘The Adventure of the Dancing Men’, from The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1915).

Mosaic by CDP author Fin J Ross.

‘Mrs’ Audrey Hudson takes the lead in this contemporary, paranormal take on the residents of 221B Baker Street, London that encompasses mystery, murder, and the many longtime fey inhabitants of this historic city.

After Sherlock Holmes ‘rescues’ Audrey from a kidnapper of cryptids, she offers the socially awkward genius a room in her house, provided he help her solve a murder in Edinburgh.

What Audrey doesn’t tell Sherlock, however, is that she’s been a werewolf all her adult life and the mystery involves the slaughter of her found-family pack.

Add John Watson and his best friend Nicola ‘Nick’ Murray –and their own cryptid encounters – and Sherlock’s agoraphobic sister, Myca, to the mix and this paranormal mystery becomes a fabulously queer adventure.

Sherlock’s investigations suggest a much bigger mystery is at play, involving a disturbing case on Dartmoor with a Greek interpreter; Audrey’s long-dead love, Ruby Stockton; and the fate of Great Britain’s mystic heart.

Will Holmes and Watson solve their first case?

Can Audrey Hudson protect her new pack, or is she about to once again lose those she loves to unknown enemies?

Narrelle harris

Narrelle is an award-winning author of 13 novels, including Ravenfall, The Opposite of Life, Walking Shadows, and Kitty and Cadaver.

She is one of Clan Destine’s star anthology editors, responsible for CDP’s Sherlock Holmes anthology, The Only One in the World; the feast of corvids that is Clamour and Mischief; the twisty horror of This Fresh Hell, with Katya de Becerra; and, with Atlin Merrick, the forthcoming Sherlock is a Girl’s Name.

Needless to say Narrelle is a HUGE Holmes and Watson fan.

Selling Points:

If you love werewolves – you will love Mrs Hudson and her new pack.

If you love the modern takes on Sherlock Holmes – you’ll love this twist through the eyes of his kickarse landlady.

If you love twisty mysteries filled with queer heroes – you’ll love these Baker Street trysts.

If you simply want a fabulous fun, and funny queer and bitey adventure – The She-Wolf of Baker Street is for you.

ISBN: 9781922904393

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: 1-04-2024

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 280

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

Subjects: crime, mystery, lgbtqi, adventure, urban fantasy, werewolves

Author location: Melbourne

Fixing the Classics

by giving heroines agency

...Or why Atlin Merrick wanted to rewrite the lives of literary legends.

A few years ago I read Lilac by Béatrice de Charmoy, a short story reimagining the lives of Anna Karenina and her friend Kitty Alexandrovna Shcherbatsky.

A love story, it’s also a tale of two women escaping the prison of expectations that ask them to be silent, lesser, a sacrifice to the wants of men. Not only did I adore the gentle grace of the story, I was also fascinated by the possibilities inherent in its subtitle: Anna Karenina Isn’t Dead.

From the day I read Lilac , I wanted to create an entire anthology around the theme of letting the literary women in classic literature live. Béatrice de Charmoy was not only kind enough to let me use their subtitle for what became an anthology of 32 tales, including Lilac, they also wrote an introduction to the book.

It was wonderful to find the topic of the anthology resonated so much with so many, that we received over 220 submissions for Anna Karenina Isn’t Dead. We selected a wide range of stories, with puppets, popes, and poems; queens both leopard and Greek; we learned what beat in the heart of Victor Frankenstein’s second creation, and why the witch in the woods was tricked by those gingerbreadgobbling siblings.

So many writers wanted to right the wrongs done to women of fairytale and legend that we could’ve easily made an anthology twice the size. And what a delight to have so many people wanting to give these characters a better journey than those they originally received.

When I edited Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging and Things Improbable, I found the same: people hungry to share the tales of those too often relegated to the shadows, whether women, witches, or will-o-the-wisps.

When you read Anna Karenina Isn’t Dead, I hope you see each rewritten story as another way a tale can be told, and that you’re charmed by looking through the eyes of these characters who are finally speaking for themselves, from Cio-Cio-San to Cassandra, Lady Trieu to the Lady in Black.

In this anthology Anna Karenina definitely isn’t dead, she’s alive and thriving, and so are many of her literary sisters!

Welcome to the Rewritten Lives of Thirty-two Literary Legends

You suffer. You die. You exist so the hero can have his journey.

Who are you? You’re a woman in classic literature.

From Russia’s Anna Karenina to Vietnam’s Lady Trieu, from Cio-Cio-San to Frankenstein’s second creature, suffering, madness, or death is the fate of far too many women in classic literature. Anna Karenina Isn’t Dead undoes that.

In this anthology of literary heroines, these women live. Do they have a happily ever after? You’ll see. Do they have a happy-right-now? Oh yes.

These are the reimagined tales of the famous, the infamous, the barely-mentioned women in myths, poems and legends. These are the stories of the Lady in Black, Wendy Darling, Dido, Pope Joan and many more, each taking a better journey than they were originally given.

Here Anna Karenina and her literary kin are not dead. Very far from it.

With an international roster of short story writers:

Ali Coyle ~ Ann S Epstein ~ Aparna Kapur

Ari Ochoa Contreras ~ Béatrice de Charmoy

Ceallach Stephens ~ Christina Ladd ~ Dana M Evans

Dannye Chase ~ George Ivanoff ~ J M Cyrus

Jack Fennell ~ Jesse Friend ~ Jonathan Titchenal

Joseph S Walker ~ Kenzie Lappin ~ Lena Ng

Melissa Coffey ~ Miranda Jubb ~ Narrelle M. Harris

Nelly Shulman ~ Nhu Le ~ Patsy Pratt-Herzog

S M Lawson ~ Sadie Fox ~ Curtis Samir ~ Sirk Morató

Sheryl Clough ~ Stacy Bierlein ~ Stephen D Rogers

Tansy Rayner Roberts ~ Yvonne Knop and Zachary Rosenberg

Authors in bold are located in Australia.

Selling Points:

Legendary characters you’ve always known, from Anna K to Cio-Cio-San, The Bride of Frankenstein to Wendy Darling, ‘literary women’ are given new and better journeys.

Thirty-two stories of prose, some poetry, both serious and silly, each story subverts the traditional tale.

If you want ‘literature’ with a bit of bite and brightness too, this is the anthology for you.

Edited by Atlin Merrick

Atlin is the Commissioning Publisher of Improbable Press (IP), a Clan Destine Press imprint. She’s the editor of IP’s SPARK: how fanfiction can set your creativity on fire; the anthologies Dark Cheer Cryptids Rising and Things Improbable; and co-ed, with Narrelle M Harris, of CDP’s Sherlock is a Girl’s Name. Atlin is author of IP’s Holmes/Watson novels The Day They Met and The Night They Met.

ISBN: 9781922904690

Imprint: Improbable Press

Pub Date: 1-04-2024

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 260

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

Subjects: historical fiction, literary retelling, myth & legend

A few thousand years from Ancient Greece to Western Sydney

The Medusa Situation was thousands of years in the making. Considering it was inspired by old Greek myths written over three millennia ago, and I first encountered and loved them as a seven-year-old lass reading books in the school library, it’s been quite the epic journey. However you calculate it, the inspiration for this book has been with me, in some form, for a very long time!

And a lot of that time I was thinking not only about how Medusa was so unfairly treated in Greek myths, but also how the goddess Hera and other female mythological characters were so often portrayed as vile, jealous, or cruel. I decided it was time to change that by creating a feminist comedy whodunit which involves the theft of Medusa’s head. Set in Australia. Now.

The journey through the first draft was full of surprises, from Hera – aspects of whom were inspired by my mother and grandmother – becoming the main protagonist, to discovering how much I loved the Gorgons, not just Medusa herself but her older sisters, Stheno and Eurydale, too. Stheno became my favourite, particularly her relationship with the Cyclops, Jacko.

Going forward I’d love to create more tales like The Medusa Situation, stories about women’s rights, the environment, and social justice, weaving those ideas into fun, positive and sardonic comedies. I want to write new myths for women, ones reflecting how amazing we are, centralising us in the narrative. I want stories celebrating odd women and older women with warmth and humour, providing a bit of revenge without violence or disconnecting from empathy; stories where we are challenged and changed, and get a chance to figure out who we really are, and how magnificent we’ve always been. My follow up to Medusa and Hera’s reimagining is about Pandora –another woman treated most unfairly in Greek myth and pop culture, and whose narrative needs changing. That book is one of five on the drawing board, because even when there is no time, writers find the time, in the early hours or when the rest of the world sleeps, we write our stories and dream our dreams!

Mystery, mayhem, mythology and the missing head of Medusa

In modern-day Australia, the Greek goddess Hera and her Olympian family have accepted their forced divine retirement and live out their immortality in the suburbs.

Their once exciting, all-powerful, and totally worshipped lives have been replaced by endless days of quiet resentment and mystical reality TV programs.

That is until the day Stheno and Eurydale, sisters of the more infamous gorgon of legend, turn up on Hera’s doorstep asking for help because Medusa’s head has been stolen. Again.

In a race against time Hera and her stepdaughter, the goddess Athena, join forces with a rag tag bunch of ancient Greek deities and mystical creatures to find the culprit and recover Medusa’s head before it creates havoc across the mortal and divine realms.

The Medusa Situation is Janet Evanovich meets Natalie Haynes in an entertaining urban fantasy which examines issues of justice, male entitlement, and the ways in which powerful women have been treated throughout the history of storytelling.

It’s mystery, mayhem, mythology, comedy, and social commentary with a feminist twist.

Gabiann Marin

Gabiann Marin and a somewhat ironic stone Medusa.

Gabiann is an award-winning writer in broadcast, publication and multimedia. When she isn’t writing she is thinking about it or helping others to write – as a story editor, university lecturer and creative mentor. She lives in the beautiful Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, where she enjoys typing away surrounded by the astounding wonders of nature – occasionally interrupted by the whirr of a low flying rescue helicopter searching for lost bushwalkers.

Best known for her children’s books and creative non-fiction and an inexplicable need to volunteer for things she doesn’t have time for, The Medusa Situation is Gabiann’s first novel for adults.

She is currently completing her PhD in Writing and Mythological Studies.

Selling Points:

A caper mystery set in Australia and starring Medusa and the Greek goddesses Hera and Athena.

Modern retellings – or in this case a total reinvention – of the ancient Greek myths and legends are the flavour of the decade.

On trend: reclaiming goddesses, female ‘monsters’ of legend, and ancient mortal women from patriarchal history.

The Greek gods living in Sydney – mic drop.

ISBN: 9781922904744

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: 1-05-2024

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 260

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

Subjects: crime & mystery, myth & legend, urban fantasy

Sherlock across time & space

but every inch a girl

Narrelle M. Harris and Atlin Merrick discuss why Sherlock can be female.

Narrelle: The idea for Sherlock is a Girl’s Name came from a dozen different places, to be honest, but mostly I’ve always enjoyed an alternative telling of Holmesian tales. There were some great female Sherlocks in my previous Holmes anthology, The Only One in the World, so when friend and fellow Holmes and Watson afficionado Atlin Merrick and I decided it was time we collaborated, it was a no-brainer to explore a Sherlockian world with all-female Holmeses.

Atlin: What Narrelle understates here is that she and I love Sherlock Holmes stories to the moon and back. Between us we’ve written a couple of million words about the Great Detective, so we’re never very far from planning a Holmesian tale, watching one, or devouring a collection of them – just like so many people have since Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation came to life in Beeton’s Christmas Annual.

I think part of the reason this character has remained so evergreen is because Holmes is so easily adaptable – from a mouse to a computer, a woman to an old man, from a New Yorker to a Russian. All the character really needs to be soundly Sherlock is a brain and, well, a Watson.

In Sherlock is a Girl’s Name Holmes has both. And the Watsons herein are also wonderfully inventive characters.

And though I can’t speak for Narrelle, I think it’s the dynamism of this duo of Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes that’s assured the lengthy legacy of these characters; for where there is one, the other must always be.

Narrelle: Atlin’s right, it’s the balance between the two (whatever their gender and whatever the setting) that keeps them alive. Neither is just one thing, they both have intelligence and heart aplenty, but how their attributes, flaws and abilities complement and contrast each other – and create this amazing and enduring partnership – has always been at the centre of the stories. Well, that and clever mysteries! Which is what we have in Sherlock is a Girl’s Name, with mysteries that take place in the air, in space, in an enigmatic sort of limbo, and so many other intriguing places besides. The authors playing in our genderbending anthology come from Australia, the UK and the USA. We hope you love these Sherlocks as much as we do!

l to r: Narrelle, Atlin and the fabulous illustrator Andrea L Farley (Altocello), our cover artist for Sherlock is a Girl’s Name; Fat, and Fifty & Fu*ked; and the Delphic Women trilogy: Medea, Cassandra & Electra.

Tall Tales and true of a gender Bent Sherlock Holmes

Who would the Great Detective be if Sherlock Holmes was a woman?

That’s the question posed in this diverse and inventive anthology which imagines Sherlock Holmes as female, in fabulous mysteries that follow the great detective across time and even space.

The eleven stories in this book, selected by Holmes and Watson tragics – aka long-time Sherlockian writer-editors – Narrelle M. Harris and Atlin Merrick, imagine Sherlock Holmes in deep space, 1990s Russia, Victorian London, contemporary USA, worlds of magic and many more.

Of course Holmes is not Holmes without a Watson, and the many Watsons herein include ghosts, robots, a young boy who doesn’t speak, a teenage tuba player, and a stranger on a plane.

In each story Holmes and her Watson do what they do best: solve crimes and have adventures!

Our international Anthology Irregulars are:

Tansy Rayner Roberts ~ Eugen Bacon ~ Sarah Tollok

Verity Burns ~ Dannye Chase ~ Kenzie Lappin

JD Cadmon ~ Stacy Lawhorne ~ Karen Carlisle

Stacey Noe ~ Millie Billingsworth ~ Katya de Becerra

Narrelle M. Harris ~ Atlin Merrick

Authors in bold are located in Australia.

Selling Points:

Imagine what kind of detective, and person, Sherlock Holmes would be if she was a woman.

Eleven Holmes and Watson canonesque adventures all with a feminist twist.

Bold new takes on crime fiction’s great detecting duo.

Tall tales giving the Great Detective and her doctor new mysteries to solve in time and space, and in other worlds, the afterworld, or right next door.

Gender-bending mysteries with a Sherlock Holmes who is still as familiar as the original Baker Street sleuth.

Edited by Atlin Merrick & Narrelle M. Harris

Citing only their Holmesian works, Narrelle is the author of A Dream to Build a Kiss

On; A Murmuring of Bees; The Adventure of the Colonial Boy; the brand new The She-Wolf of Baker Street; and is anthology editor of The Only One in the Word. Atlin is author of The Day They Met and The Night They Met.

ISBN: 9781922904713

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: 1-05-2024

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 280

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

Subjects: crime & mystery, historical, pastiche, sf, anthology

Postcards from every edge and all four corners

Cryptids make wonderful storytellers.

For us it was creatures under the water, at the door, and knocking on a window to fly a kid with cancer over a stunning city, that led to the birth of our Postcards From series.

After publishing the anthologies Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging, Volumes Blue and Silver, the Improbable Press crew began working with two of our writers to create a series of children’s books which will talk about topics often important to kids between 7 and 11 years old.

The hero of Marshall J. Moore’s Postcards From a Lake Monster is Trevor, a young autistic lake monster who learns, from a human doctor friend, how his autism makes him special, and how he can find ways to adapt when he needs to.

Sherri Cook Woosley’s Postcards From a City of Monsters is about Toby, grumpily dealing with a hospital stay for cancer treatment which keeps him inside too much, until a magical night when a gargoyle taps on his window, and takes him on a trip in the skies over Prague.

Our writers have firsthand experience with the topics they’ve written. After uniting their words with full-colour artwork, we have the first two books that will introduce these and other vital topics to kids and the adults who love them. One of many delights in creating these books was seeing how the authors and artists worked together to make something beautiful.

Elena Moroz’s lush night-time drawings bring Prague and Toby’s gargoyle friend to life, while B. Bay’s calming blues waters take us to the lovely shores of Trevor’s lake home.

Postcards From a Lake Monster is also a gentle tale of a mother’s love for her unique child; while Postcards From a City of Monsters helps a young boy accept that getting well can sometimes be very annoying – but he will get there.

At the end of each story are ‘postcards’ that kids – both monster and human – can send to their friends, answering some of the common questions many of us have about the conditions the kids are coping with, and we hope the future of the Postcards From series shares all kinds of things kids need to cope with, from a grandparent with dementia to bullying or adoption.

Children’s

Trevor the Lake Monster

Child psychologist Dr. Lena Spyros has a lot of experience helping young people overcome struggles. But she faces a big challenge when she’s called upon to help Trevor, the young son of Bessie, a lake monster living in Lake Eerie.

Trevor’s not like most lake monsters. He’s bad at swimming, not really interested in fishing, and loves spending his days building mountain ranges out of mud on the lakeside. Realising Trevor’s behaviors and interests are unusual among lakers, Dr. Spyros teaches this lake monster family about autism, and the best ways to help Trevor thrive.

Marshall J. Moore

Marshall J. Moore is the award-winning author of the Rites of Resurrection trilogy, the cozy pirate fantasy novel Son of a Sailor and its sequel Prisoners of a Pirate Queen, and over 30 short stories.

Born and raised on Kwajalein, a tiny tropical island in the Pacific Ocean, he has trained a mercenary in unarmed combat, sold a thousand dollars worth of teapots to Jackie Chan, and was once tracked down by a bounty hunter for owing $300 in late fees to the Los Angeles Public Library. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife Megan and their two cats.

A Gargoyle for Toby

ISBN: 9781922904676

Imprint: Improbable Press

Pub Date: 1-05-2024

Price: A$16.95

Pages: 72

Binding: 127 x 178mm pbk

Territory: World

Subjects: children’s fiction, autism, cryptids, myths, urban fantasy

Toby didn’t ask to move halfway around the world to the Czech Republic with his mom and step-mom. He certainly didn’t ask to get sick. But now, at the start of fifth grade, Toby finds himself being treated for cancer in a hospital far from his friends and familiar surroundings. He starts feeling trapped until a strange creature offers him an escape.

A feline-shaped gargoyle has come to life! All Toby has to do is step through the window.

Follow Toby on his night of adventure as he flies over enchanting Prague with his gargoyle guide, and learns he’s not alone at all.

Sherri Cook Woosley

Sherri Cook Woosley holds a Master’s in English Literature, focusing on comparative mythology, from the University of Maryland. Her short fiction has been published in O+E Unbound, Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging – Blue Volume, and Musings of the Muses.

Sherri Cook Woosley & Marshall J. Moore

Her debut novel, Walking Through Fire, was long-listed for the Booknest Debut Novel award and nominated for Baltimore’s Best 2019 and 2020 novel. Postcards from a City of Monsters is her first children’s book.

Series Selling Points:

Our Postcards from series for kids are imaginative books about issues that are important to children and the adults who love them. Postcards from are middle grade fantasy novels dealing obliquely and imaginatively with things like cancer, autism, bullying, relatives with dementia, and adoption.

ISBN: 9781922904652

Imprint: Improbable Press

Pub Date: 1-08-2024

Price: A$16.95

Pages: 72

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

Subjects: children’s fiction, cancer, cryptids, myths, urban fantasy

Gravity defying Alexander

~ all teeth claws and appetite ~

Every hero needs an origin story. Marie Heitz talks beginnings but you get to decide whether the hero of this book is a giant lizard or a teenage boy. Alexander, the fast-growing lizard at the centre of The Diemen Alexander, is a creature born from a multi-generational line of ancestors, his genetic material coming from my lifelong fascination and study of how stuff works and why an organism operates in its singular way. So while The Diemen Alexander is a book about an animal that doesn’t exist, Alexander isn’t invented in the sense of making shit up, he’s absolutely come from what’s scientifically plausible.

If you ask what the most surprising thing was in getting to know Alexander, I’ll tell you the second was learning about an obscure dinosaur (technically an archosauromorph) which was discovered having exactly the same characteristics and in the same area as my invention. So much so it was downright spooky. Of course this giant reality fluke had to go into the book, which either blew my plot substantially off course, or produced the blazingest red herring ever, depending on how you look at it.

The most surprising thing though, known to all authors, is learning that to write a book the most important quality needed is persistence. Not vocabulary or imagination, not world building or fiendish plots, just the doggedness to keep putting the bum on the chair in front of the manuscript every day, no matter what. Yes, even when the landscape of ideas is a desolate march of dunes to the horizon, author crawling, gasping, in tattered rags under a merciless sun; sentences clunky, overwrought or downright incomprehensible; a whole hour trying to get a character to walk across a room! Even then.

I’m definitely not done with my Diemen. While all the major questions raised are answered by the end of The Diemen Alexander, there are ideas on which I plant big fluttery flags, signalling further development in future books. Sure Alexander has found his niche, but frankly he looks way too big for it. Also he likes whisky. And we still haven’t found out where his egg came from.

In a perfect world Alexander and his geeky teenage friend Luke might go to Venezuela or Guyana. Maybe the forests of the eastern Carpathians in Romania; or the Tatar Strait, between Sakhalin Island and South-Eastern Russia.

As we find out in book two, if they don’t go somewhere, a lotta someones will get hurt.

The author: just hanging. It’s not hard to see where Luke gets his adventurous spirit.

The Hobart Bookshop launch of The Diemen Alexander. l to r: Dr David Hocking, the Tasmanian Museum’s Senior Curator of Vertebrate Zoology and Palaeontology; author Marie Heitz; her editor Narrelle Harris; her launch MC Suzie Cooper; and her publisher Lindy Cameron.

Is Alexander a giant lizard or are there dragons here?

When tender-hearted, geeky teenage Luke rescues a lizard in a thunderstorm on kunanyi, he has no idea it will have a mind of its own. Or eat quite so much. Or grow so fast. Or resemble Tasmania’s lost dinosaur.

Suddenly Alexander the lizard becomes highly valuable, sought by cold-blooded and violent people.

Luke’s brains and compassion might not be enough to protect Alexander, something his anarchic sister Gatta could have told him, not even with help from the fearsome Shona – paleogeologist and footy goddess.

Meanwhile Alexander – all teeth, claws and appetite – is growing, changing and learning to communicate. Can Luke find his own ferocity and ruthlessness to counter the odds stacked against them?

A sci-fi romp through present-day Hobart – featuring zoology, comparative anatomy, venture capitalism and AFLW – that asks deeper questions about human responsibility towards animals, the earth and each other, and the truth that power goes to the person most prepared to wield it.

The Diemen Alexander an adventure full of humour, narrow escapes, an XH Holden ute, shameful misuse of excellent whisky, and a distressing amount of fast food.

Marie Heitz

Marie has spent 35 years writing what she hopes is nonfiction, given it’s doctor’s notes. Dr Heitz’ medical fields have ranged from Immunology (The Department of Obscure Diseases) to Remote Area Medicine, in Kakadu National Park, and a lot of time in big city Emergency Departments. She claims that her handwriting has survived. She now lives in Tasmania.

Marie is fascinated by how animals work: the how and why of what makes different species function. She’s troubled by the lack of human responsibility towards animals and the planet but is ever hopeful.

Praise

‘Jurassic Park meets ET in the best possible way. It’s fast paced, thrilling, funny, and fantastical. I loved it.’

Alison Goodman Author of Eon and Eona

Selling Points:

A YA novel full of humour, adventure and, possibly, dinosaurs. It also deals with questions about justice, anorexia, abuse, the environment, climate, humans v animals, evolution.

Totally believable ‘sc-fi’ based around the very real fossil of the Tasmaniosaurus... and a totally plausible dragon. A coming of age story set in modern Hobart brimming with AFLW, romantic crushes, derring-do, and found families.

Author location: Hobart

ISBN: 9781922904416

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: Oct 2023

Price: A$32.95

Pages: 314

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

Subjects: YA, Sci-fi, adventure, coming of age, AFLW, paleontology, ecology zoology, dinosaurs

To update or not to update?

20

years on from VHS and not-very-smart phones

Geoff McGeachin talks anniversaries and when not to spoil a good thing.

When we decided on a 20th anniversary edition of Fat, Fifty & Fu#*ked! the question was should it be updated?

Updating a book two decades on can introduce all sorts of problems but given the book was written in 2003 and set in 2000 how much had really changed?

In the book blurb there are discussions about instant coffee, brown suede shoes and much pining, or whining, for the great Aussie truck stop breakfast. But there were also a lot of more serious issues that we would need to contend with were we to update.

There was talk of the Vietnam war. There was Beta, VHS, Fax Machines, CDs, DVDs, Nokia – names and things lost in the mists of time. With all that and more, eventually we decided against updating. I figured my readers could deal with it.

A few years ago I met a professor of languages from Macquarie University who had a theory about characters setting up solutions to problems they will encounter later in the book, even though the author had yet to consciously plot that problem. He said it was a remarkably common occurrence according to his research with writers.

As an example of characters guiding authors, my heroes here, Martin and his friend Colin, the local cop, exchange the same awful Dad joke every morning. Later in the story the cop needs to get a warning of danger to Martin, who is on the run. Colin’s phone is being monitored and he’s being watched. He works out how to send the warning anonymously but it still needs to be in code. The solution was right there in front of me – the punch-line to their daily Dad joke. Until I needed it I had no idea it was there.

A good plot is nothing without great characters. I have a quote pinned up above my computer reading, ‘Plot is character in action.’ Characters, both good and bad, major or minor need to be as real as you can make them. I need to believe in my characters as much as my readers do; believe they are real, have a life and are off doing other things when they are not playing their part in the book.

In some ways Fat, Fifty & Fu#*ked! is a love story but along the way Martin and Faith do meet some bizarre characters and find themselves in even weirder circumstances. The bikie-run nursing home has always attracted a lot of comments.

Fat, Fifty & Fu#*ked! is also about renewal and redemption. And it’s still funny, because anything that makes you laugh when the world has gone to hell in a hand basket is a bonus.

The 20th anniversary of the hilarious

Aussie caper classic

Martin Carter is having a crook day. His home life is a misery, he’s been retrenched by the bank, and everyone has forgotten his birthday.

But a million-dollar payroll, a split-second decision, and a pistol in a biscuit tin change everything. Hurtling north on a motorcycle, with the intriguing Faith, Martin encounters a mysterious hitman, New Age bikies, a reclusive media mogul, and the booby-trapped mountain hideout of an old schoolmate.

With Faith’s help Martin learns about love again, along with some biker truths about instant coffee, brown suede shoes, and the legendary Great Aussie Truckstop Breakfast.

Twenty years ago, Melbourne-born photographer and photo-educator Geoffrey McGeachin sat down to see if he could actually write a book.

Fat, Fifty & Fu#*ked! (most definitely not an autobiography) was the result. It secured Geoff an agent and a publishing deal, and created something of a marketing dilemma:

‘From an author you’ve never heard of, with a name you’re not sure how to pronounce, comes the book you might be too embarrassed to ask for.’

Two decades later Clan Destine Press believes people will march into bookshops around the country and demand a copy of the 20th anniversary edition of Fat, Fifty & Fu*ked!

Geoffrey McGeachin

After an exciting career as a world-travelling photographer and photo-educator, Geoffrey settled in Sydney where he wrote Fat, Fifty & Fu#*ked! This was followed by three tongue-in-check spy novels starring photographer/secret agent Alby Murdoch: D-E-D Dead, Sensitive New Age Spy, and Dead & Kicking.

In 2010 he wrote the first of the Charlie Berlin series, The Diggers Rest Hotel; followed by Blackwattle Creek and St Kilda Blues. The series, set in 1947, 1957 and 1967, earned him two prestigious Ned Kelly Awards for Best Australian Crime Fiction.

Selling Points:

A very ‘Aussie’ novel with a bank robbery, a bit of romance, truck stop food, anti-heroes you can barrack for, and a road trip worth taking.

A hilarious caper adventure which starts small and gets mighty as it hits the road.

ISBN: 9781922904584

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: Nov 2023

Price: A$32.95

Pages: 232

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

The author is his natural habitat – still guarding his burger!

If you like your adventure with a cross-country chase and never knowing who the bad guys are then Fat, Fifty & Fu#*ked! is the page turner for you.

Subjects: Adventure, Crime Caper, Road Trip Mid-life Comedy

The sheer joy of fanfic and no more guilty secrets

The spark that ignited Spark: How Fanfiction and Fandom Can Set Your Creativity On Fire is exactly what it says on the tin: fandom. And yes it is a long (sub)title for the book’s one-word concept: inspiration!

As a working editor and writer, and gleeful writer of fanfiction for a double dozen years, I wanted to share the incredible power and community that can be found in fandoms, how they inspire, support, and grow creativity.

The beauty of Spark is how it organically developed over a few years, how people with wildly different experiences – scientists and singers, college professors and professional writers – came together to talk about how fandom, first and foremost, helped them find a community of like-minded people. For some, it’s also the story of how those fellow travellers ultimately helped them understand the power of fanfiction and other fan-made works, but also encouraged them to publish their original stories, books, artworks, videos, and more.

As commissioning editor I was endlessly delighted by how so many people found their place, ‘their tribe’, by finding a fandom and beginning to create within it. There’s something sweetly self-selecting about such environments – as it is for any group who gather after falling in love with a place, a sport, or a form of expression like singing in a choir. When we enter these spaces we learn we’re not alone and, for many of us, that’s a revelation, one expressed again and again in this anthology. I could have published three times as many essays and interviews, as this book contains because each person’s growth happens so uniquely that every story can inspire someone – many someones.

This anthology is all about helping to fan the flames that our love for a book, a TV show, or a film can create, then using that inspiration to help us find community and joy, and sometimes a path toward our own original creations.

There’s a reason Spark: How Fanfiction and Fandom Can Set Your Creativity On Fire is filled with quotes about fanfic from famous writers: fanfiction can set us on fire and we just never know how big that blaze of inspiration might come to be.

Fanfiction, fanart, fan works of every kind – video edits, podfics, comics, short stories, novels, paintings, badges, costumes – are all about finding your own creativity in a pre-existing shared world; of developing your own creative voice by playing in the fictional worlds that bring you joy; of finding like-minded fans to share your stuff with. And this holds especially true if your real world doesn’t seem to include you in its creative spotlight; if you’re a person of colour, female, LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent, or disabled. In fanfic you can take anything and everything you are and write or draw it into the fictional worlds you love – so you are included.

Fanfic is too often regarded as a guilty pleasure or even a secret one. How do you admit to non-fandom friends that you’ve written over two million words of Sherlock Holmes fanfiction – that only other fans get to read; or that one million of those words feature Holmes and Watson in a queer relationship, united in love and sleuthdom? Will you admit you write ongoing adventures or sexy fanfic with favourite characters from Star Wars, Star Trek, Dr Who, Xena Warrior Princess; or that you take your own version of you along on adventures with General Organa, Frodo, Seven of Nine, Bheem, Mulder, Spike, ...

Find your tribe & Spark your creativity

Spark is all about encouragement, permission, joy and firing you up.

Accepting, learning and revelling in the truth that fanfiction and fandom can fire up your creativity is what this anthology of essays and personal stories is all about.

Our aim is to help you believe that your fandom writing, drawing, podficcing – whatever you’re creating right now – is, was, and ever shall be legitimate, important, a fantastic way to develop your skills and, above all, help you find your voice in the world.

Spark features over 40 essays and interviews from best-selling writers Anne Jamison, Claire O’Dell, Diane Duane, Henry Jenkins, KJ Charles, Lyndsay Faye, Sara Dobie Bauer and many others who discuss, encourage, and shout about how fic and fandom in all their forms can absolutely inspire you, set your creativity on fire –and change your world.

Spark also includes pieces and commentary by Aussie writers: George Ivanoff ~ Narrelle M. Harris ~ Dimitra Stathopoulos ~ Natalie Conyer ~ Margaret Walsh

Neil Gaiman – author of Neverwhere, Stardust, The Sandman, and co-creator of TV’s Good Omens – used to write fanfic. He believes all writing helps you hone your writing skills, and that it matters not whether you’re writing a deep novel about modern existence or “Smeagol-Gollum slash; you’re still putting one damn word after another and learning as a writer”.

Hugo Award winner Lois McMaster Bujold wrote Star Trek fanfic as a young girl; Andy Weir, author of The Martian, wrote Ready Player One fanfic; Melissa Good had been writing Xena Warrior Princess fanfic for years when she was invited to write two episodes for the show’s final season.

Within fandom no one will ask you why. You’re already among friends.

Selling Points:

Ideal for teachers of Media & Communication; and Creative & Professional Writing.

Interviews with well-known academics in fandom studies.

Edited by Atlin Merrick

Atlin is the Commissioning Publisher of Improbable Press (IP) a Clan Destine Press imprint.

She’s anthology editor of: Dark Cheer Cryptids Rising; Things Improbable; and Anna Karenina Isn’t Dead; and co-editor, with Narrelle M. Harris, of CDP’s antho

Sherlock is a Girl’s Name.

Atlin is author of IP’s Holmes/ Watson novels The Day They Met and The Night They Met.

ISBN: 9781922904010

Imprint: Improbable Press

Pub Date: 1-04-2024

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 260

A great resource for students of Literature; Creative Writing; Pop Culture; Media; especially in subjects like: Writing Genre Texts; Exploring Iconic Texts; and Reading, Writing Criticism.

Over 40 personal stories of how fandoms help inspire creativity. Writers, singers, artists, scientists and more share how fanfic has encouraged their imaginations and their lives.

Quotes from ‘famous creators’ who’ve also written fanfiction.

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

Subjects: Non-fiction Essays, fanfic, fandom, fanart creative writing pop culture, film & TV

A Euro Bus tour, an Aussie TV crew, a Kiwi cyclone: fodder for a great murder mystery series

The Melbourne Spotlight series of crime novels started with a motorhome. The faithful ‘Kwozzimoto’ became our escape from the workforce in 2017, after my wife Cath and I quit our jobs, sold the empty nest, bought the motorhome in London, and set off for a magical seven months around Europe, Ireland and the UK.

After years as a journalist, I found being away from the pressure of media deadlines and dealing only in facts, sparked an unexpected creative urge to make things up. The idea for the first book in the series, Tugga’s Mob, started niggling at me from my past; from my days as a bus driver and guide on tours of Europe in the 1980s. Yes, those buses. Those tours.

The inspiration flowed as I revisited so many places (Cath and I actually first met on one of the tours) and they became the sites where the story was set. And so, my first novel was written as we travelled 33,000 kms through a dozen countries and almost 150 campsites. The freedom of movement – away from deadlines – got me hooked on storytelling.

Kwozzimoto continued to play his part in my evolution as a crime writer. The second novel in the series, Boxed, was mostly written while Cath and I toured New Zealand; and on that trip, when Kwozzimoto broke down and stranded us in the path of a cyclone, the seeds of book three, Kaikōura Rendezvous, were sown.

The Melbourne Spotlight series has helped me discover a freedom in my writing that I never expected after almost 40 years writing within journalism’s factual boundaries. It’s like being a kid on school camp, sitting around the fire making up ghost stories to scare your mates. I’ve been surprised at how exciting it is to develop the core characters, the current affairs crew who became my amateur sleuths.

While reporter Kim Prescott and production assistant Jo Trescowthick were minor characters in Tugga’s Mob, they had a chance to shine in Boxed, and experienced a bit of the motorhome life themselves in Kaikōura Rendezvous.

Next, with For Amy, the upcoming fourth book in the series, Kim and Jo travel to England post-pandemic, with part of the tale inspired by another real-life experience: a death on the Oxford Canal. Many years ago, I awoke on a narrowboat holiday to find a policeman at the door wanting answers about the body floating behind our boat! It remained one of my travel stories for friends and new acquaintances, like being stranded in a cyclone, until Kim and Jo claimed ownership. Now those two have become so important to my Melbourne Spotlight series that I feel like I’m almost transcribing their conversations and experiences.

Murder & Mystery on New Zealand’s Rugged Coast

Two Melbourne journalists are on a well-earned holiday, travelling both islands of New Zealand in a motorhome. But will they survive a monster storm and a killer on the loose? The third book in the Melbourne Spotlight series finds Kim and Jo on a carefree summer adventure with an idyllic itinerary: mud pools in Rotorua, the stunning Marlborough Sounds, and whale watching in Kaikōura. They won’t make it. They don’t know they’re driving into a tempest. Cyclone Gita is on a serpentine path of destruction through the tropics that will see her smash into New Zealand.

Meanwhile, debt-ridden South Island fisherman Gordie Tulloch is offered the deal of a lifetime. It’s a chance to start again after a spell in prison. Is it legal? He doesn’t care. All he has to do is survive the storm approaching the Shaky Isles.

Gordie’s unaware there’s another threat to his big payday. His every move is under scrutiny by Heath Michel whose own secrets are about to spill into public view.

The cyclone, the motorhome, the fisherman and the watcher all face an unexpected rendezvous – in Kaikōura.

Stephen Johnson

Stephen is an Australian-born television news and sports producer who swapped the TV studio for a writer’s garret overlooking the Tamaki Estuary in Auckland.

His debut novel Tugga’s Mob was inspired by his job as a tour guide on double-decker buses around Europe in the ‘80s. The sequel, Boxed, is set mostly in Melbourne and country Victoria. The third is set in New Zealand.

Stephen says the power to deal however he wants with evil and injustice is intoxicating; and the body count on the battered laptop in his attic is climbing.

The author being a doofus on the closed road between Kaikōura and Christchurch on the morning after the cyclone.

Selling Points:

Third in the bestselling crime series that seamlessly ties Australia and New Zealand together.

The author blends real life events with pageturning fiction full of action and mystery. The Melbourne Spotlight TV crew provide an often amusing insight into how news and current affairs shows are made.

The Melbourne Spotlight series: Tugga’s Mob: 9780648556770

2020 Ngaio Marsh Awards

Best First Novel finalist

Boxed: 9780645002171

Kaikōura Rendezvous

ISBN: 9781922904454

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: Aug 2023

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 240

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

Subjects: crime, mystery, adventure

Stephen at Gibraltar

Crime Mystery

From CSI to Hats, Circus Tricks to Romantic Hijinks

Life in a Melbourne Mystery

Hugh McGinlay talks origins and his love of Melbourne.

The Catherine Kint Mystery series was born on a whim and a stroll on the way to a bakery with a pregnant partner. Though it really goes back further than that.

I had written throughout my teens and twenties, while the rest of the time I was a musician. I wrote about crimes, I wrote about people, I wrote about tsunamis that came for people in their dreams (forgive me, I was 16). My best story of that time was about a man who, three months after dying, was reincarnated as a mosquito in his own backyard. That one wasn’t so much Kafka, as me trying to write the great Australian vampire story.

Then I became a Dad. I didn’t have any time for gigging as a musician, so I decided to write offbeat murder mysteries and the Catherine Kint Mystery series was born.

While it’s cute to say ‘Catherine came into my head fully formed’ which is how I recall it now, I know that through the first book, Jinx, I had to get to know her. Like getting to know any new friend, it took lots of conversations, time spent, and (since we both live in my head) the odd patch of awkward silence between us.

Some days Catherine sings to me. Sometimes she turns and says, ‘You know I’m just an imaginary friend’. The worst days are when we don’t know each other at all. Boris, on the other hand, Catherine’s trusty barman, was always easy to get along with. That’s why he’d be totally lost without Catherine; luckily he knows it.

Fortunately for me, they’ve continued to talk to me across four books, including Pachyderm, Bodysurfing, and Silks.

The best feedback I’ve consistently got is that the series has a great sense of place. Melbourne is often referred to as another character, and with three of the four books set there, the Catherine Kint Mystery series really is a long love letter to my city.

In Book 5, Catherine and Boris are off to Corryong, in northeast Victoria, moving through the events of Book 4 and trying to keep it light. Right now they’re off script and the tale is getting darker each day. Whenever they do that, I know I’m getting a good story.

Book 5 research at the Tintaldra pub in Victoria’s High County.

Hugh at The Upper Murray Writers event ‘Lunch with a Side of Mystery’ with fellow scribes: Natalie Stockdale, Janice Newnham and Kim Winter.

Catherine Kint

milliner, gin enthusiast, raconteur, sleuth

In the frosty Melbourne winter, a bored Catherine Kint looks for distraction in a night at the circus. When tragedy strikes, she and her barman Boris are drawn into a new mystery.

As they pull back the metaphorical curtain, they’re confronted with a troupe in chaos, a culture of secrecy and a family in crisis.

Add in hula hooping thugs, a desperate suspect, and a nihilistic bully and you have a recipe for carnage even Catherine can’t control.

Oh, and then there’s Boris’ love life – send in the clowns…

The fourth in the Catherine Kint mysteries, Silks follows Jinx, Pachyderm and Bodysurfing.

And Catherine may be a milliner now, but her sleuthing skills come from her previous career as a crime scene investigator.

Hugh McGinlay

Hugh McGinlay is a writer, musician and optimist. These poor career choices means that he’s also worked as a bus driver, a kitchenhand, singing teacher, and a seller of dental consumables.

Now four books into his milliner-sleuth series, he is still amazed at the levels his imaginary friends have been accepted into other peoples’ heads and bookshelves.

As a musician he has released four albums. He lives in Melbourne with his wife, two children, a cat and six chickens.

Selling Points:

Fourth in the bestselling crime series featuring the misadventures of Melbourne milliner-sleuth, Catherine Kint and her best friend Boris. There’s nothing better than a mystery laced with laughs and romantic hijinks.

A fabulous comic crime series set in Melbourne, the beaches of the Bellarine Peninsula, and next in the High Country around Corryong.

The Catherine Kint mysteries: Jinx: 9780645002164

Pachyderm: 9780645002157

Bodysurfing: 9780645002140

Silks

ISBN: 9781922904430

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: Aug 2023

Price: A$28.95

Pages: 192

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

Subjects: crime, mystery, comic crime

Hoomans, Hounds and a Very Smart Rat

the totally unique Nosy Detective Agency

My adorable Golden Retriever, Pickles, was mischievous and loyal, and he developed skills I wasn’t aware a dog could master. He could open doors and find the local pub where he’d then sit at the bar while people had their lunch in the hope he’d get a morsal; which he usually did! He was a self-taught fishing dog who caught fish, much like an Alaskan bear, standing in the river waiting for a fish to approach and then he would pounce. His sense of smell enabled him to follow a scent over great distances. This begged the question: could a dog solve crimes that human detectives can’t, using the power of his nose?

So, the inspiration for Monty the Dog Detective series was a very real hound; and his Golden Retriever siblings Lilly and Tigger. The books are set in the UK, where I hail from, and I gave Monty a female police officer as a best friend. In the first book, Monty and Me, Rose Sidebottom actually adopts Monty and together they solve the mystery surrounding the death of Monty’s previous owner.

By Book 3, Rose has left the police force and established the Nosy Detectives Agency with her partners: Monty the dog, lovable teenage geek, Ollie, and his very special rat.

I honestly didn’t expect these books to be so much fun to write. Wearing my L.A. Larkin author’s hat, I write quite dark, edge-of-the-seat crime-thrillers, like Prey. It’s such a joy to write the fun-filled Monty novels where humour is key, as well as pathos and the delicious nature of a good old-fashioned mystery that needs solving.

I really loved learning about how a dog sees the world: which senses they use, how they communicate, and all the other amazing things dogs are capable of. In my series, Monty understands what ‘hoomans’ – as he calls us – are saying. There have been some fascinating studies which prove dogs don’t simply respond to tone of voice or our body language, they genuinely appear to understand words. They’re also deeply aware of their person’s mood, such as depression, and can detect cancer or the onset of an epileptic seizure.

This research helped me create a voice for Monty who, along with Rose, is a narrator of their lives and adventures. I wanted to ensure that what he does in the story comes across as believable and exciting.

I am now working on how to get Monty and Rose invited to the USA to solve a presidential mystery, like the abduction of the First Dog.

A new Barking Mad Mystery with Monty & Rose

The Nosy Detectives agency is like no other.

For a start, one of the detectives is a dog called Monty, a rescued Golden Retriever with a super-smart nose and a heart of gold.

Monty’s human is Rose Sidebottom, an ex-copper with an uncanny ability to know when a suspect is lying.

And Ollie Fernsby is a teenage super-geek and inventor of the rat-cam. They make a great team.

There is just one problem – the agency has no clients.

Then one day, Phyllis O’Neal, a grumpy grandmother from the village of Nether Wallop, offers them an unsolved cold case they can’t refuse: who really lit the fire that killed Tony and Marie Toyne? The surviving son and only witness, Finn, hasn’t spoken since that terrible night.

Monty sets out to locate a forgotten second witness, a dog called Panda, who might just recognise the arsonist if she had a good sniff. But the tricky case gets harder when Rose is distracted by a handsome fire-scene investigator.

Can Monty get Rose back on track? Is Tiffany the Giant Cat friend or foe? And why is the whole village lying about the night of the fire?

Can the Nosy Detectives solve the pawfect murder?

Louisa Bennet

Louisa studied Literature at university and went on to learn Canine Linguistics from her Golden Retriever, Mr Pickles, which is how she discovered what dogs really get up to when we’re not around.

Monty and Rose also had a short adventure in the CDP anthology

Who Sleuthed It?

Louisa writes crime thrillers, like Prey, as L.A. Larkin; and runs courses on crime fiction and creative writing.

Selling Points:

Louisa (l) with Lilly and their CDP publisher

Lindy Cameron on patrol at a Melbourne dog park ‘paw signing’ to launch The Nosy Detectives.

The Monty Dog Detective series:

Monty & Me [USA only]: 9780645289961

The Bone Ranger: 9780645289992

For lovers of crime, mystery and sleuthing adventures. Cozy crime with doggy sleuths - what more could you ask for?

The Nosy Detectives is third in the series that began with Monty & Me and The Bone Ranger

The Nosy Detectives

ISBN: 9781922904379

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: July 2023

Price: A$32.95

Pages: 220

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

Subjects: cozy crime, mystery, comic crime, dogs, animal sleuths

Sisters in Crime Australia

it’s truly criminal what a girl has to do

Sisters in Crime Ambassador, Senior Professor Sue Turnbull, writes about the origins of a 32-year (and counting) women’s crime and mystery short story competition.

It was 1994 and the Sisters in Crime convenors were sitting around a table in St Kilda having dinner and plotting their next move. What we didn’t know then was that next move would result in a competition that is still running 32 years later, has attracted 4,582 entries and has helped launch the crime novel writing careers of many Australian women.

We Sisters love a good slogan or brand. ‘It’s criminal what a girl’s gotta do for a good read’ is emblazoned on our T-shirts. In terms of a brand, we knew we needed somthing like the UK Crime Writers Association’s ‘Dagger Awards’ - except we wanted something sharper, more lethal, more – dare we say it – more feminine/ist.

The resulting perfectly-named Scarlet Stiletto Award then inspired the best crime trophy in the world: a real red high-heeled shoe with its lethal steel heel plunging into a mount. Op shops of St Kilda were raided for every red high-heeled shoe we could find, the Sisters being more inclined towards a comfy pair of flats than a murderous pair of torturous heels.

In the early years the awards went only to first, second and third prize stories, and special commendations. But we gradually added new categories: Best Young Writer award – because we wanted to ‘get them while they were young’; then Malice Domestic, Best Film Idea, Cross Genre, History with Mystery, the Body in the Library, and Most Satisfying Retribution.

The only criteria for entering: the writer must be a woman, the main protagonist must be female, and the story must – obviously – be a crime or mystery story.

As someone involved in the judging from the start, I can testify to the professionalism with which this was accomplished. No names are attached to the stories. Judges, in pairs, start with an anonymised bundle of stories that are read ‘blind’ to produce a long list. And then the Convenors go away together for a weekend of reading, laughing and arguing fueled by ‘lashings of ginger beer’. Being a Sister has always been about having fun, even if our ultimate goal was to promote women’s crime writing and create more opportunities for this to flourish. It’s always exciting when judging is done and we discover who our winners are. We had a mild hiccup in the second year when then-fledgling writer Cate Kennedy, won first prize for the second time. Worried she would continue to do this forever, we instituted a new rule. Writers could keep entering until winning two first-prize Scarlet Stilettos, whereon they were invited to be judges. This has happened an astonishing five times.

Over three decades our winners, who’ve been librarians, editors, teachers, union officials, journalists, public servants, psychologists, hairdressers, exercise instructors, medical autopsy specialists, doctors, pharmacists, retirees, cattery managers, mothers, and ex-police officers, have given us an extraordinary diversity of characters from all walks of life.

Five of the Scarlet Stiletto first-prize ‘shoe winners’: Ruth Wykes, Jacqui Horwood, Cate Kennedy, Romany Rzechowicz and Christina Lee.

Thirty years of silver blades, scarlet stains and the most elegant of heels

...of slipping in the knife, tightening the noose, measuring out the poison ...of whispered threats and tangled plots, of murder and mayhem.

For over three decades, the annual Scarlet Stiletto Women’s Crime & Mystery Short Story Competition – run by Sisters in Crime Australia – has been uncovering dreadful deeds, righteous revenge, deadly high-jinks and wicked shenanigans, all while shining a light on the emerging and seasoned talent of Australian women who’ve taken to a life of writing crime.

We celebrate this great competition’s 30th anniversary with the gorgeous pearls that are the Scarlet Stiletto First Prize Winners, from 1994 to 2023, and discover why it’s criminal what a girl has to do, to get a good read.

The winning perpetrators are:

Cate Kennedy ~ Christina Lee ~ Siobhan Mullany

Janis Spehr ~ Josephine Pennicott ~ Roxxy Bent

Jacqui Horwood ~ Liz Filleul ~ Julie Waight

Aoife Clifford ~ Evelyn Tsitas ~ Amanda Wrangles

Ellie Marney ~ Angela Savage ~ Candice Graham

Judith Bridge ~ TJ Hamilton ~ Ruth Wykes

Rowena Harding-Smith ~ Philomena Horsley

Blanche Clark ~ Jessica Southern Reid ~ Hayley Young Fin J. Ross ~ Romany Rzechowicz

Praise:

Crime and mystery short stories of startling originality; a grim warning of what evil lurks in Australian suburbia.

Kerry Greenwood

Sponsor of the Malice Domestic Award

Selling Points:

Thirty years of first-prize winning short stories. Thirty-one edgy, cozy dark, amusing, and rivetting short crime fiction. Yes, that means a bonus story.

A superb collection of crime & mystery short stories by Australian women writers.

So many sub genres: body in the library, historical, sf, retribution, malice domestic;

So many styles: noir, cozy, creepy, amusing, dark & twisty, light & breezy.

Edited by Lindy Cameron

Lindy writes crime and historical fiction, and is the contributing editor of Who Sleuthed It?

Lindy is a founding member and current Vice-President of Sisters in Crime Australia; and is the publisher of Clan Destine Press. A 32-year judge of the Scarlet Stiletto Award competition she is especially proud of this anniversary edition of 1st-prize winning stories.

ISBN: 9781922904621

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: December 2023

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 346

Binding: Trade paperback

Territory: World

Subjects: crime, mystery, cozy crime, noir, women’s crime fiction short stories, anthology

6 Reasons Why We Love Anthologies

Or why bookshops and libraries should have dedicated anthology sections

Dear Bookseller and Librarian

What do you do when a reader says, ‘I’ve heard crime fiction is quite popular. Which author should I start with?’

Do you suggest YOUR favourite crime novel, the latest international blockbuster, the current Aussie bestseller? Do you suggest noir or cosy, urban or rural? Do you recommend a male or female author and with which gender of lead character?

Seriously – what if your suggestion makes them flee from the genre forever?

What do you do when a reader says: ‘I’d really like to try some horror, but Stephen King movies scare me to death; or science fiction but Star Wars is naff.’ Do YOU read horror or sf? Would you know which author or sub-genre to suggest?’ Space opera or hard scifi, or spec-fic? Skin-crawling horror or just creepy cryptids?

Anthologies to the rescue

A crime fiction anthology offers 18 to 22 writers for a newbie reader to experiment with; subgenres to love, or abandon; bite-size taste treats of the genre in all its variations. For both them and died-in-the-wool crime buffs it offers a smorgasbord of their favourite authors and well-known writers they’ve yet to experience; and a dessert table of new ones to try. Ditto sci-fi, spec-fic or horror anthologies. Your fledgling reader might find their new favourite authors among a myriad of options that may terrify, inspire or astound them.

The 16 anthologies in the ‘Clan Improbable’ Anthology Suite present around 345 stories –from 800 to 7000 words in so many subgenres – from close to 200 writers. And, while those authors are mostly Aussies and Kiwis, we’re not averse to a few American, Indian, Irish or European writers.

That’s why you should all carry and recommend anthologies, because if every novel opens up a new world to readers, then anthologies give them the universe. And now, Atlin Merrick – Associate Publisher and anthology editor extraordinaire – breaks down why we at Clan Destine and Improbable love publishing anthologies.

Six reasons we love anthologies - there’s more but sometimes we need to control ourselves. Anthologies are challenging things. Editors need to narrow down a topic, corral writers, sift through submissions, then edit, edit, edit, proof, layout, and publish.

Yet there’s not a single one of our commissioning editors who didn’t have blue-sky plans for another anthology after this one, and then another, ‘and oh and let me tell you about my new idea…’

The Clan Improbable Anthology

YOU are the sleuth in an interactive mystery

Murder You Wrote is a choose-your-own-investigation murder mystery set in an isolated homestead in remote Tasmania, a world of stunning beauty, dark history and deadly creatures.

You are a retired police detective invited to speak at a crime fiction writers festival. You are looking forward to a weekend with some of Australia’s bestselling authors – until you awake to discover the house is cut off by overnight storms, the internet is down... And then you discover a body in the library.

Written by a host of Australia’s best mystery writers Murder You Wrote reads as a continuous narrative – or a choose-your-own path puzzle.

The anthology novelists are: Alan Carter, E.V. Scott, Alison Alexander, Sarah Barrie, Karen Brooks, David Owen, R.B. Cole, Natalie Conyer, Craig Cormick, E.K. Cutting, Livia Day, Jo Dixon, Narrelle M. Harris, Jason Franks, Angela Meyer, L.J.M. Owen, Allison Mitchell, Sarah White, Matthew D. Ruffin, Marion Stoneman, Carys King, Maggie Veness, Z.E. Davidson.

Edited by L.J.M. Owen

ISBN: 9781922904546

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: Oct 2023

Price: A$34.95

Pages: 246

Binding: Trade pb

Territory: World

Subjects: cozy mystery anthology

LJ is the Director of the Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival, Australia’s southern-most literary festival. A passionate supporter of Tasmania’s emerging, disabled and regional writers, and literacy for adults, LJ’s novel-anthology was conceived to promote this ideal. LJ’s own crime novels include The Great Divide, and the Dr Pimms series.

Holmes & Watson in every place and time

Since his first case in 1887, Sherlock Holmes has been the quintessential English sleuth, alongside his loyal companion and biographer, Dr Watson. But what if they’d come from a different place in the world, or another time? How would they differ from Conan Doyle’s creations? How similar might they remain?

These 13 intriguing stories reimagine Holmes and Watson in new cultural contexts, in different genders or sexualities, and in stories that are rich in foreign detail yet still reflect their origins.

Fourteen writers, with specific cultural or historic expertise, explore the possibilities in mysteries set in Germany, Ireland, India, Australia, C17th England, the USA , South Africa, Russia, Poland, Ancient Egypt, Viking Iceland, and even the entire world.

Edited by Narrelle M. Harris

The authors are: Jason Franks, Natalie Conyer, L.J.M. Owen, Kerry Greenwood & David Greagg, Atlin Merrick, Jack Fennell, Lisa Fessler, Lucy Sussex, Katya de Becerra, Jayantika Ganguly, Greg Herren, Raymond Gates, J.M. Redmann.

ISBN: 9780648848783

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: Oct 2023

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 260

Binding: Trade pb

Territory: World

Subjects: crime mystery

Sherlock anthology

So why do editors do the hard work it takes to get an antho done and dusted?

We love to read

While your favourite anthology editors are probably writers, they’re readers too, which is at the heart of why so many jump into the glorious deep end to create big, rich books full of themed stories.

And those themes are the ultimate allure, covering the genre map from Atlin Merrick’s contemporary supernatural Things Improbable, to the twisty turns of genre-bending horror in This Fresh Hell, co-edited by Katya de Becerra and Narrelle M. Harris.

‘Anthologies have always appealed to me as a reader because I can discover new writers and new worlds in sample sizes,’ says Narrelle. ‘Tucking into an anthology is a lot like enjoying a box of assorted chocolates, only more substantial, and often on a theme that intrigues or delights me.’

Those themes can be as finely-focused as a cosy mystery in a country house, or wide as all Australia. It’s this ability of an anthology to be as big as an editor’s imagination that keeps them happily creating more.

‘Anthologies offer a smorgasbord of storytelling delights,’ says L.J.M. Owen, editor of Murder You Wrote: An Interactive Mystery. ‘They showcase diverse voices, styles and perspectives in one captivating package. Murder You Wrote was also designed to help improve adult literacy.

Cont’d p34

L.J.M. Owen – editor of the interactive mystery Murder You Wrote and director of Tasmania’s Terror Australis Readers and Writers Festival had the woo-hoo bonus of having her anthology officially launched by British crime writer Ann Cleeves (creator of the Vera and Shetland series).

Feelers & Paws & Claws & Wings

Solving mysteries & secretive crimey things

Who Sleuthed It? is dedicated to animal-loving mystery readers who know their furkids – and those with feathers, fins and tails – would definitely help solve all the crimes; when not perpetrating them.

An anthology of fabulous tales in which animals help their animal friends, or human sidekicks, solve diabolical crimes and whimsical mysteries.

It features 19 riveting stories by a cohort of Australian, Irish and American authors.

Despite appearances, this perplexing collection of mysteries is NOT a children’s book... although it can be read to or by them.

Edited by Lindy Cameron

The authors are: Kerry Greenwood, Vikki Petraitis, Meg Keneally

Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Atlin Merrick, Jack Fennell, Kat Clay

Tor Roxburgh, David Greagg, Craig Hilton, CJ McGumbleberry

Louisa Bennet, L.J.M Owen, Lindy Cameron, Narrelle M. Harris

Chuck McKenzie, GV Pearce, Livia Day, Fin J Ross.

Cover art and internal illustrations by award-winning author-illustrator, Judith Rossell.

A clamour of rooks ~ A mischief of magpies

A storytelling of crows

All the corvids – the rooks and ravens, jays and jackdaws, crows and magpies – have the best collective nouns: a parliament and a party; tidings and titterings, bands and trains; an unkindness.

Clamour and Mischief brings a veritable storytelling to the corvidae, this bird family known for its intelligence, cunning and connection with myth, folklore and urban legends.

and Annie McCann at the Sydney launch of This Fresh Hell, hosted by Galaxy Books.

Our storytellers come from around the world and include awardwinning and shortlisted writers, as well as fledgling authors in their professional debut. The 16 striking stories are imbued with the humour, darkness, wisdom and magic of the birds which inspired them, so you can take them as a jest, a guide, a warning – but don't, whatever you do, ignore them!

Edited by Narrelle M. Harris

The authors are: Alex Marchant, Dannye Chase, Eugen Bacon

Gabiann Marin, Geneve Flynn, RJK Lee, George Ivanoff, GV Pearce

Jason Franks, Lee Murray, Raymond Gates, Katya de Becerra, Narrelle M. Harris, Reuben White, Tamara M. Bailey, Jack Fennell.

ISBN: 9780648848769

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: 2021

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 342

Binding: Trade pb

Territory: World

Subjects: crime cozy mysteries animal sleuths anthology

ISBN: 9781922904174

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: 2022

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 342

Binding: Trade pb

Territory: World

Subjects: corvids, crows, ravens, magpies

myths & mysteries folklore, urban legends anthology

*Another fabulous thing about anthlogies is book launches with SO MANY authors all in the one place.

Jason Franks, eds: Katya de Becerra & Narrelle Harris, Claire L. Smith, Eugen Bacon and Chuck McKenzie, at the Melbourne launch of This Fresh Hell at Readings Emporium.

Right: Ann Cleeves, LJ Owen, and Kiwi crime queen, Vanda Symon.

Chuck McKenzie, Claire Low

We like the excitement

While you might think you know what you’ll get for an anthology, most editors are always delightfully stunned.

When asked about what surprised him in putting together the anthology Damnation Games, editor Alan Baxter replied, ‘Everything!’ He expected good stories, sure, but ‘the great variety I got, exploring every angle of the theme, was a pleasant surprise every time.’ Lee Murray, editor of Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa, was likewise unprepared for the breadth of stories and subgenres, as well as the switches in intensity. ‘There are creature-feature stories, tales of psychological suspense, as well as some gross-out body horror, proving that there is more to New Zealand than sheep and Marmite!’

For others the excitement comes in the curation

‘I love the process of developing themes and brainstorming which authors I would love to invite to contribute,’ says Katya, co-editor of This Fresh Hell.

‘It’s fascinating to be receiving those first pitches and see how different authors interpret the theme. And I love seeing how the stories turn out.’

Publisher Lindy Cameron, editor Lee Murray, and contributor Jacqui Greaves at the Canberra Conflux launch of Remains to be Told: Dark Tales of Aotearoa.

‘There are so many different reasons to bring a fascinating group of storytellers together, whether to support a charity or community, or have fun with a theme – like featuring the best crime writers from Australia and New Zealand,’ says Craig Sisterson, editor of Clan Destine’s two-volume (so far) Dark Deeds Down Under.

‘Or to celebrate 30 great years of a groundbreaking women’s short story competition,’ says Lindy Cameron, founding member of Sisters in Crime Australia and editor of The Scarlet Stiletto: 30 Years of Mystery Murder and Malice.

Craig Sisterson (r) enjoying the whole booksigning gig at Bloody Scotland, one of the UK’s many crime fiction conventions.

Or, as Narrelle Harris says of her anthology, The Only One in the World, ‘to lovingly imagine who Holmes and Watson would be if one or both was from a completely different time or background.’

We’re hungry for more

Speaking of the detective and his doctor, there have been hundreds of books, anthologies, and films about Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous creations. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson have travelled to the past and future, across the world and back again, they’ve been men, mice, and women. For their joint project it was the latter, stories in which Sherlock was female, that editors Narrelle Harris and Atlin Merrick were hungry.

Uncanny Disturbances, Death, and the Dank Breath of the Native Bush

Mired in the shifting landscape of the long white cloud, and deeply imbued with the myth, culture, and character of Aotearoa-New Zealand this anthology is laced with intrigue, suspense, horror, and even a touch of humour.

These dark tales of Aotearoa bring together stories and poems by some of the best homegrown and Kiwi-at-heart voices working in dark fiction today.

Remains to be Told features a foreword by six-time Bram Stoker Awards® winner Lisa Morton, and a brutal, lyrical poem by Kiwi resident Neil Gaiman.

Edited by award-winning Kiwi horror writer Lee Murray

Stories and poems by Dan Rabarts, Kirsten McKenzie, Gina Cole, Celine Murray, Kathryn Burnett, Helena Claudia, Nikky Lee

William Cook, Del Gibson, Paul Mannering, Denver Grenell

Tim Jones, Owen Marshall, Bryce Stevens, Marty Young

Debbie Cowens, Lee Murray, Jacqui Greaves, Tracie McBride.

Subversive, Enthralling, Unexpected Twisting the Tropes

A driver picks up a hitchhiker from the side of a road; a family moves into a house that may be haunted; a visit to the cabin in the woods goes terribly wrong…

We all know how those stories end – or do we?

Every story in This Fresh Hell begins with a known horror trope but ends with a twist, bringing new life and surprising resolutions to old ideas. In these unexpected tales, a Slender Man is sent to offer help to a boy in trouble; a restorer develops a bond with a cursed doll; a heartbroken influencer’s mettle is tested aboard a luxurious cruise from hell; a haunted house hesitates to scare its new residents.

From the chilling to the quirky, these stories will appeal to die hard horror fans and those dipping into the genre for the first time.

Writers from Australia and around the world reignite and subvert horror tropes in 19 wholly original, genre-bending stories.

Edited by Narrelle M. Harris & Katya de Becerra

The authors are: Eugen Bacon, Elle Beaumont, Jason Franks, A.J. Vrana Raymond Gates, Sarah Glenn Marsh, Greg Herren, C. Vonzale Lewis

ISBN: 9781922904508

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: Oct 2023

Price: A$32.95

Pages: 250

Binding: Trade pb

Territory: World

Subjects: horror, myths folklore, intrigue

New Zealand, anthology

ISBN: 9781922904348

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: 2023

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 360

Binding: Trade pb

Territory: World

Subjects: horror, myths folklore, intrigue anthology

Katya de Becerra, Annie McCann, Narrelle M. Harris, Claire Low, Chuck McKenzie, Tansy Rayner Roberts, L.J.M. Owen, Gillian Polack, Sarah Robinson-Hatch, Clare E. Rhoden, Candace Robinson, Claire L. Smith.

‘I loved Yūko Takeuchi in Miss Sherlock,’ says Atlin, editor of five anthologies for both Clan Destine and Improbable. And with our new Sherlock is a Girl’s Name, both she and her co-editor Narrelle, craved more stories about how the detective might be different – and exactly the same – if she was a woman.

It’s that piquant desire for more of a very particular something that motivates most anthology editors, such as Kiwi writer and editor Lee Murray. Remains to be Told is ‘one of only a handful of works which focus on Aotearoa horror, and since readers can’t enjoy what doesn’t exist, the time seemed right to rectify that.’ This desire also holds true for wanting more stories there aren’t enough of.

The NZ launch of Remains to be Told was held at The Boneface Tavern in Wellington. There were discussions about NZ horror, and some of the contributors read from their stories.

(l to r) Debbie Cowens, William Cook, Del Gibson, Denver Grenell, Jacqui Greaves, Tim Jones, Kathryn Burnett, Dan Rabarts, Lee Murray, Helena Claudia, and cover artist Emma Weakley.

We like avalanches

You might think it would be difficult to bring together the imaginations and schedules of dozens of writers, but most of these anthologists found that to be far from the case. ‘For our first cryptid book, Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging Volume Blue, we asked writers to give us tales about the mythical creatures of their country, their town, their imagination. We received nearly 500 stories,’ says Atlin. ‘I never imagined so many writers loved the idea of creatures in the woods and the water, the unnamed, the unknown, the uncanny, but we received such an abundance of riches we ended up with a second book, Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging Volume Silver.’

‘The response was so positive and overwhelming,’ says Craig Sisterson, about his first Dark Deeds Down Under anthology. ‘Everyone was so supportive and it was incredibly humbling to see the stories flow in over the weeks and months after the invitations went out.’

As is a refrain from most anthologists, Sisterson says they got so many ‘great stories from really great writers who’d taken the time to support and be part of our wee project that Lindy and I decided to make it a series even before the first book went to the printers.’ That book became Dark Deeds Down Under 2. And Vol 3 is already underway.

If an editor is lucky – and this lot seem to be – they get a good response to their calls for submissions. About Remains to be Told, her first anthology as editor, Lee says of her abundance of riches, ‘I could have filled this anthology four times over with wonderful tales.’

The rising dread of damn good mysteries

A horde of criminally good international horror writers were invited to take a walk down the mean streets of crime. Their task: to make your blood run cold, to scare you witless and to make your skin crawl.

And most of all to make you think.

The rising dread of a good mystery doesn’t really need anything supernatural to keep you on the edge of your seat. But put the two together – crime fiction and horror – and all sorts of nasty business comes out of the woodwork. Sometimes literally.

The stories herein include urban monsters, near future police, Victorian-era mathematicians, contemporary lawyers, and outback ghosts.

Edited by Alan Baxter

Our Damnation Games are played by: Gemma Amor, Cina Pelayo

Joanne Anderton, J. Ashley-Smith, Alan Baxter, Aaron Dries

Gemma Files, Geneve Flynn, Philip Fracassi, Robert Hood

Gabino Iglesias, Rick Kennett, Maria Lewis, Chris Mason, Lee Murray

Dan Rabarts, John F.D. Taff, Kyla Lee Ward, Kaaron Warren.

Helpful cryptids in a better than expected apocalypse

In Things Improbable you may find the apocalypse is not as upsetting as expected and that golems are good at carrying luggage. Look and you'll see today's divinities beside demons, along with hungry bone fairies and a bigfoot immortal.

Here a Māori monster is not quite so monstrous, and a fallen angel a bit less than angelic. You can look through the eyes of a Cantonese boy one spooky city night, find a rougarou cure, or solve a really tiny library crime.

Whatever improbable things you seek, open the cover and take a peek. Ghosts, giants, and changelings await.

Edited by Atlin Merrick

More than two dozen stories by: Archer Beau, Calen MacDonald, Carman C Curton, Dan Micklethwaite, Dominick Cancilla, Edy Lue, Eli Hayden Loft, Emily Wright, J Moffatt, James Dick, Jamie Perrault, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Jeremy Pak Nelson, Joanna Marsh, Kelly Stronach, Kellye Guinan, Kimber Mullen, Laura Kelly, Laura Simons, Lee F Patrick, Maggie Denton, Mara Johnstone, Naomi Eselojor, Patrick Hurley, Sarah Tollok, Stacy Lawhorne, Thomas Badlan, Věra Benedekov.

ISBN: 9780645316858

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: 2022

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 328

Binding: Trade pb

Territory: World

Subjects: crime, horror, urban fantasy intrigue, anthology

ISBN: 9781922904232

Imprint: Improbable Press

Pub Date: 2023

Price: A$32.95

Pages: 328

Binding: Trade pb

Territory: World

Subjects: SpecFic, urban fantasy, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ disability, anthology

The Martians are Here

We want to spoil ourselves

Publishing is hard work, so the owner of both Clan Destine Press and Improbable Press can absolutely be forgiven for giving herself the gift of editing a very particular sort of anthology.

‘When Narrelle pitched the idea of The Only One in the World to me,’ says Lindy Cameron, ‘an antho in which Holmes and Watson are anything but white Anglo males in Victorian England, I suggested that fellow CDP author Fin J Ross could easily write a story in which the Great Detective and his best friend were British Shorthair cats.

Why? Because Fin had already written a hilarious cat adventure – AKA Fudgepuddle – and because one of her own, real-life stud-breeding British Shorthairs was called Sherlock.’

‘Narrelle’s response: No talking animals in this book.

‘My response: Well pfft.’ Oh.

Ooh

‘My revelation led to the Who Sleuthed It? anthology, in which animals help their animal friends – or human sidekicks –solve diabolical crimes and whimsical mysteries. Those detecting animals include the feathered, furred, winged, clawed, and the multi-legged, in the form of owls, cats, dogs, penguins, squirrels, monkeys, rats, eagles, and even my own creation, Hecate Who, a huntsman spider who thinks she’s a Time Lord. And this is not a kids’ book – although it’s suitable for all ages.’ It’s not just building an antho that spoils editors, it’s buying them too says Narrelle. ‘So many anthologies have led me to the novels of writers I’ve loved, like Eric Frank Russell and Aliette de Bodard, Lee Murray, Peter M Ball, Sulari Gentill and Alison Evans.’

The very real FurSleuth Sherlock

Our imaginations are an ever-expanding spiral of this and that Creating anthologies seems a lot like how writers get their ideas. When you ask an author where they get their ideas, most are likely to say ‘forget where they come from, how do I make them stop? Or at least slow down to one at a time.’

Not one of these anthologists wants to stop, though, each concept percolating ideas for another, and another, and another.

‘I’m always easily distracted by anthology ideas,’ says Narrelle, who’d love to do a fox companion piece to her crow anthology Clamour and Mischief – which was all about corvids. ‘If only I had the time! Ooh, shiny idea. Ah, another.’

Atlin has only just put to bed her latest anthologies in Spark: How Fanfiction and Fandom Can Set Your Creativity On Fire and Anna Karenina Isn’t Dead, but says she’d happily do another; while Craig Sisterson dreams of an antho set under the Northern Lights and… Hey, perhaps these three can collaborate on an anthology of cryptid-fox-sleuths cavorting under the aurora borealis. Weirder things…

War of the Worlds: Battleground Australia sheds fresh, antipodean light on HG Wells’ 1897 invasion tale. In this anthology, with stories set in the past, present and future, Australia – home to the planet’s longest surviving people and mysteries – was also invaded by those marauding Martians.

It’s well known that Wells’ novel was inspired by the horrific plight of Tasmanian Aboriginals who, within his lifetime, were virtually wiped out by the warfare and disease brought by white invaders.

In Battleground Australia we discover that the war with Mars was not confined to England and did not end with all Martians destroyed by disease. Here in Australia some of the aliens survived and went underground, to emerge a century or more later.

Edited by Steve Proposch, Christopher Sequeira & Bryce Stevens

With stories by 16 of Australia’s best crime and speculative fiction

writers: Kerry Greenwood & Lindy Cameron, Carmel Bird, Jack Dann, Janeen Webb, Sean Williams, Angela Meyer, Jenny Valentish, Narrelle M. Harris, Lucy Sussex, Rick Kennett, Jason Franks, Dmetri Kakmi, Bill Congreve, Jason Fischer, Kaaron Warren.

Goosebumps in deep dark not-so-scary places

Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging is a two-volume collection of darkly-cheery goosebump-raising tales of ancient creatures beneath still waters, in the attic, or the shadows right by the bed. Here be stories of changelings, nix, and demons adopted, of kelpies and cambion, too. There are hulders and el chupacabras, griffins and gargoyles, a bevy of diverse and inclusive tales where an autistic hiker meets a cryptid who wants her camera, a Japanese tanuki is seeking his fox daughter, and two women fall in love, never mind one's a swamp monster.

ISBN: 9780648523628

Imprint: Clan Destine Press

Pub Date: 2022

Price: A$32.95

Pages: 298

Binding: Trade pb

Territory: World

Subjects: sci-fi, spec-fic urban fantasy anthology

ISBNs: Volume Blue

9780645042696

Volume Silver

9780645289930

Imprint: Improbable Press

Pub Date: 2021 & 2022

Edited by Atlin Merrick

With more than 630 pages in two volumes, our 75+ writers craft dozens of tales of dark cheer about the creatures we'd see if only, if only... if only we looked into treetops, behind doors, or in our own back gardens.

Here there be monsters.

Thank all the gods.

Price: A$36.95

Pages: 320

Binding: Trade pb

Territory: World

Subjects: sci-fi, spec-fic urban fantasy horror, anthology

Genre Fiction Specialists

Info, sales, & review copies: the Publisher Lindy Cameron

lindycdp@gmail.com

Clan Destine Press

Improbable Press

PO Box 121, Bittern

Victoria 3918, Australia

Ph: (61) 0423 422 317

www.clandestinepress.net

ANZ Booksellers, Online retailers, Library Suppliers

Order direct from Clan Destine Press: lindycdp@gmail.com

Standard discounts and T&Cs

Global availability is via your Overseas Wholesalers

Marketing: Dennis Jones dennisjonesbooks.3133@gmail.com