Anthology Getting Even Closer To Being Print-Ready!

OK, so if you know me and my writing, you may well know what the Anthology mentioned in the heading of this post is. For those who don’t know, this particular is possibly the biggest and most important writing thing I’ve done yet.

The Anthology is “Plague Invasion” subtitled “Creative Writing Responses to Covid-19”. I put out a call for submissions to this project last year, and the submissions rolled in, and kept on rolling in right up to the end date for it. I was overrun by an amazing variety of fantastic works all about Covid-19, the thing that has turned so many things upside down, and sideways.

So I had poetry, and prose, fiction and non fiction, and had to organise it all in a way that makes sense, and is easy enough to navigate for the interested reader. I could have gone with ‘theme’, but that would have been beyond me in terms of the work that might require, and I feel that may be limiting to some extent anyway.

Instead, I took the easiest way, and split the anthology in two sections, Poetry first, then Prose. And the pieces are in alphabetical order, based on the surname of the relevant writer. Simple, easy to work with and now almost all done!

I’ve spoken with the printer I wanted to use, and they have agreed to do the work, and have seen a first draft of the anthology, as has the person I approached for a foreword for the book, who has done that, and sent it to me, so is in the anthology, and the same for the person I approached for the back blurb.

So, I have the back cover done, a front cover on the way and almost done, and almost all of the inside matter of the book in place and ready. The next thing I needed to get done was getting the official agreement to publish, from each contributor, which is almost all done.

Most of the pieces in the book are from Australian poets and writers, but it was a thrill to get great works from writers overseas as well. Having such responses adds to the anthology, in terms of greater ‘oomph’ and cachet. it adds to the cost of sending the free copy out to each contributor too, of course, but I’m fine with that, and feel further book sales will cover that.

Contributors will be able to purchase further copies at a reduce rate, and the book will be available for purchase by the public, and libraries. So obviously i am going to have to be the book marketer, as well as the editor, and contributor also. And for such an important work, I am more than happy to put money into the project.

So, there is a date set in place for the launch of the book, and as soon as I have this anthology with the printer, (which will happen by mid next week, I hope), I will announce the details of when and where “Plague Invasion” will be launched. I’m so close to announcing this, it is exciting, and feels incredible that little old me, could achieve such a big and important thing!