Given that Untimely Books is the book publishing arm of the Cosmos Coop, we thought it would be useful to cast our net into the Cosmos waters and see what long term blue sky publishing projects might be hidden away in our members’ inner lives. It is important to keep in mind that although we are of necessity responsive to our membership, we also aspire to publish visionary works that will contribute to stewarding into existence a new society. We believe that such work must be of the highest standards to past muster, which is why we have in place a rigourous editorial board to ensure that published works meet those standards. That said, there is a lot of room for innovation. We have already published poetry, science fiction, memoir, nonfiction, and contemporary fiction, as well as both fiction and nonfiction on the queer and gender queer spectrum, but that hardly exhausts the possibilities. What else should we be publishing? And in a perfect world, what kinds of books would you most like to see?
Weird fiction and weird horror with a Lovecraft-ian vibe but not limited to that. I’m thinking of authors like M John Harrison, Thomas Ligotti, China Miéville to name a few of the big ones.
There is a small press in the UK called Broodcomb Press that’s doing really interesting things but, I’m sure there are countless others around.
Okay, Geoffreyjen, I’ll bite. My long term, blue sky project is my Integral novel-in-progress “Shadow of the Earth.”
Think “Clan of the Cave Bear” meets “Cloud Atlas” with some shades of grey. (I swear, when I get closer to a publishable draft I’ll look up some current comps. That may be a few years away).
Elevator pitch, so far: A Stone Age priestess learns the high cost of love when her frightened people beg her to go to the gods for them as a human sacrifice. Does she love them enough to die for them? Does she love them enough to forgive them when things go horribly sideways?
In case anyone reading this is further interested, I’ve posted a 5.8K word essay, “Blood Moon,” on my website. It gives the gist of the story and the core message in the form of a dramatic monologue. Groovy images included.
I should have included in my previous message that the subtitle of “Blood Moon” is “The Dying Priestess Has A Vision of Her People’s Future.” The protagonist has an out-of-body vision that shows her her own people’s “future” up the stages of civilization per current stage theory. My story continues the trajectory to give us a glimpse our own possible Integral future. Which is why I posted this notice about it here, in answer to Geoffreyjen’s call to “publish visionary works that will contribute to stewarding into existence a new society.”
Essay/short story anthologies each built around a key topic/concern could be a nice way to funnel the spirit of Cosmos into print form.
Also nonfiction/creative nonfiction books on magical and spiritual practice could be an interesting avenue to pursue. I’ve always been particularly inspired by works that talk about magic and spirituality in a way that is holistic and makes a meaningfully novel contribution to overall magical/spiritual thought, yet is personal and intimate in some way rather than technical or focused on praxis. Ramsey Dukes’ SSOTBME is probably the exemplar of that kind of thing, or Duncan Barford’s various works under the banner Occult Experiments in the Home.
These are all great ideas. Keep ‘em coming!