Did you know that the word “anthology” is Greek for “gathering of flowers”? Well, it is.
Properly, in publishing terms, an anthology is a collection of stories by several authors, while a single-author collection is just a collection, but I decided I liked the little etymology lesson too much to skip it before informing you that I’ve got a new short story collection coming out October 3, and available for pre-order some places (though not, last I checked, on Amazon).
It’s called Remembrance of Things to Come. I started assembling it early in 2023, but concluded at the time I didn’t have enough uncollected stories yet. After “To See the New Jerusalem” got published in the Worldcon anthology Grimoire, though, I decided to take another look, and discovered that back in ’23 I had somehow missed a few candidates. I had plenty of wordage now.
So here it is. Twenty-nine stories (with short introductions) and a poem.
I’m releasing a trade paperback and an ebook simultaneously. Same contents, slightly different layout. Cover art is by Luca Oleastri.
In other writing news, I’ve made some progress on Tom Derringer & the Sinister Statue, but not very much — assembling Remembrance took a lot of time and effort, we took a vacation, and we had a house-guest here for several days (who just left this morning), so writing time has been scarce.
The boarding school story I mentioned last month does have a title now, “Part Timer,” but is still only on page 4. Another new story, “About the Author” — more a gag than a story, really — is done as a one-page short-short, though I haven’t ruled out maybe expanding it sometime; it’s posted on Facebook. I may post it to Substack and Patreon as well. (Incidentally, I may be moving this newsletter to a distributor other than Substack. We’ll see.)
There’s another project I started years ago and have gone back to on a whim; I’m planning to publish my own edition of an obscure public domain story that I loved as a kid — “The Wooden Heads,” by C.L. Hales. It’s been out of print since 1925.
And that, I think, is about it on writing news. On the personal front, my wife is getting knee replacement surgery next month, so I’ll be looking after her a lot.
Hope you’re all enjoying the onset of autumn.
— Lawrence