Improbable Press Blog

The landscape was designed to mimic virgin deciduous forest. Every detail down to the colorful dots of tiny flowers and earthy fungal inhabitants. Songbirds chirped delicate melodies as small mammals darted across the ground, arguing over the trees' fertile sustenance.The plush grass yielded beneath their feet as they followed the path of a stream carved into the artificially sculpted earth, a miniscule current bubbling softly next to them. They settled on the bank of a pond, where colorful fish painted an aurora of light in the gently rippling water."You okay?" Garrett asked. "Why did you bring me here?" The tone...

I asked two creators how they felt about working together on their first collaboration for Improbable Press, the millennia-spanning Sherlock Holmes mystery-romance, A Question of Time. Their answers involved what it says on the tin, uh, in the title: nudity, corduroy, and dastardly adulthood. Kind of? So Jamie, tell me what you loved about collaborating with artist Janet Anderton? And while you're at it, any words of advice for other writers? Janet took in my naked words, fed them, gave them shelter and then dressed them in haute couture with her art. As for advice – start. Create as though...

Do you use the colours or the images when you build your stories? I always wonder what inspired who. For me it's nearly always the words, though once in awhile the images lend a hand. Last week's no lights prompt it was one single word shining out—bones. Somehow bones are elemental, like fire and water and sky. Everyone has something to say about bones. Scarpering right after bones was the prompt of light, and suddenly I knew what I wanted to write. Writing Bare Bones and Angry Oceans A sampling of last week's wonderful wee stories. Click the link above...

Electric Pink Hand Grenade is a seminal work of fiction in the Sherlock fandom. Written by BeautifulFiction on AO3, the visceral, intense, and marvelous story of love, a migraine, and picking up the pieces after, was recently turned into a hardbound book by its writer BD Strike. Atlin Merrick talked with BD about the how and why of publishing Electric Pink Hand Grenade, and she shared some exciting news about what's coming next. Of your extensive works, why did you pick Electric Pink Hand Grenade to publish? EPHG got the dubious honour of being my first fic published for several...

Thoughts skitter-scattered every which way with last week's prompt. It's always a revelation, because sometimes writers ride a wave together, looking at the words and image and each mind turns toward something similar, whether it be space or sea or snow. Maybe it depends on what's in the air you know? If so, this week I'll be curious to see if that same unnamable something is round about the place. What do you think? Piecing Together the Prompt Puzzle So yeah, each author below took a different tack writing last week, each saw something the others didn't in those simple...