Improbable Press Blog — Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging

By Dannye Chase "I went home," Pearl said. She knew she had a sharp mournful cry, and struggled to keep it out of her voice. "Your old home." "Enfield," Jessica said. "Oh, my dear, I haven't lived there in twenty years." My story of cryptids emerging focuses on the lifelong romance between a human woman, Jessica, and a swamp creature named Pearl, who is based on the legend of the “Enfield Monster.” In the story, Pearl’s memory has started to weaken with age. I based Pearl’s experience on a very good friend whom I lost to dementia. His name was...

By Neethu Krishnan I had never written a story featuring a fantastical creature before – that is, before my story "Fireflies and Thieves." My first impulse at the submission call for the Cryptids Emerging, anthology was to sigh and self-sabotage, citing the following reasons: * I was scantily, if at all, informed about the cryptid universe. * I stood no chance against excellent high-fantasy writers, who I pictured plucking a bunch of just-perfect drafts off their towering desk pile and sending them out into the world of sure-fire acceptance. * I could de facto eliminate the possibility of rejection by...

The thing we want to do with the cryptid books is what we want to do with all our books – tell adventure-mystery-eerie-cool stories about everybody else. You know who I mean by everyone else, so I'll say little other than across volume blue and volume silver we have a siren in a wheelchair, an autistic sea monster, a trans shapeshifter, gay characters, disabled characters, minority characters – these two books (and a pending third) are filled with adventure tales about people who are these things but not just, not only – and half the time simply incidentally. Breathing Deep...

By Ali Coyle I am excited to have a short story in Volume Blue of Dark Cheer Cryptids Emerging, IP's new two-volume anthology. Why write about cryptids? Why not! Mythical creatures fascinate me, especially shapeshifters. I never quite felt comfortable in my skin as a human until I learned the words 'agender' and 'nonbinary' to describe part of my identity. As a child (and teen and adult), brought up with strict certainties about gender, in my imagination I was a shapeshifter who could choose to be male or female or both or neither, human or animal or alien, whatever made...