Improbable Press Blog — Volume Silver
Fairies in Your Garden (and the Grundylow)
Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging Julie Ann Rees The Grundylow Volume Silver
By Julie Ann Rees Are there fairies at the bottom of your garden, or something a little…darker? I've always rescued things. I say things because they could be anything, animal, bird, insect, plant. Like having to put two peas into the food waste bin as a child if I'd dropped one to the floor, because then they could go on an adventure together, whereas one would just be lonely. Now our climate is changing it breaks my heart that all these things are suffering and the little bit I'm doing to help isn't enough on a global scale. It's not...
It's a Love Story: The Enfield Monster
Dannye Chase Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging Volume Blue Volume Silver
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...
On Creating an Indian Cryptid (and Not Quitting)
Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging Fireflies and Thieves Neethu Krishnan Volume Silver
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...
Breathing Deep: sirens in wheelchairs, trans shapeshifters, and autistic sea monsters
Atlin Merrick Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging Volume Blue Volume Silver
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...