What's the haps?

It's been somewhat quiet over at Floodgate Towers this year. The last book we put out was Alan Beard's Afternoon Drinking (two events upcoming for Alan - see below), and we opened for submissions earlier in the year for our next anthology, Ghosts of Gravelly Hill. Since then? Quiet.

Or at least it may seem that way.

The reality is different.

When we open to subs, we dont like to reject outright if we see potential in the submitted work. We often go back to authors to ask them to have another go. We think this is fair, but it does extend the time we need to arrive at a long and short list of submissions. That has happened now, and it looks like Ghosts will have around 30 pieces in it. Our word count was lower this time, so the volume will still come out quite slim, we reckon. Also, for those pieces we liked from the get-go, there's still work to be done on them.

All of this to say, anthologies sometimes take a while to come together. It's a side effect of becoming more well-known in the region too - our subs count keeps going up.

But there are other factors at play. They are:

• We are a body down - since co-founder Garrie stepped away to finish work of his own we have been operating as a two-person team. In the New Year, we shall have a replacement doing socials and editing.

• We are a kitchen-table publisher - this means we don't have offices or all the time in a day to commit to the Floodgate project.

• We are busy, distracted, sick or having to re-prioritise our commitments. Often this has been because of family stuff. Personal lives are messy sometimes. This is a side-effect of being alive.

• One of us is in the process of moving house and refurbishing a property.

• One of us also has a full-time job.

• Some things take a while - cover art decisions, working with the schedule of third parties such as typesetters and printers, it all needs to slot in to place.

So all this is to say, we are still working at Ghosts. We are busy editing the 'final' contents and am still waiting for some second-goes to come back. We hope to get it done before Christmas so people can stocking-stuff with our lovely book. In the meantime, stay tuned.

Alan Beard, Floodgate friend and author of our published book Afternoon Drinking is at two events in the next few weeks.

A reading at Temper and Brown alongside Floodgate alumna Taylor Burns, and Amanda Smyth and Malachi Mackintosh, the evening of Tuesday 27th October. https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/new-writing-in-birmingham-an-evening-of-readings-author-qa-tickets-2003129306679

Alan, alongside other members of the Tindal Street Fiction group are hosted by Heath Books on 7th November at 5pm. https://www.theheathbookshop.co.uk/all-events/?event=4801

See you there!