Crow and Rat Offered a Home in England
Their setting is among the lowest of the low in New City, known to readers of TOMBS: A CHRONICLE OF LATTER-DAY TIMES OF EARTH. They are of that world — or should one say “were” — but are not in the stories in that anthology. The story title is “Crow and Rat,” set in the same universe as TOMBS, and now it has a first-time home in an anthology to be published in England.
The anthology, HUMANAGERIE, which (to quote from the guidelines) will showcase both poetry and short fiction on the theme of animals. The book will not be about animals as such, but will instead be inspired by the characteristics that animals possess, and the points at which these intersect with — and manifest in — humanity. . . . We are interested in [image error]shifting states, in scenarios that explore duality, hybridity, and liminality. We are asking writers to consider how animalistic attributes might manifest in the human psyche — or vice versa. We want hints of scales, tails, fur and fins . . . gills, claws, paws and spines . . . glimpses of horns, tusks, teeth and tongues . . . stalking, slinking, slithering and stomping . . . roars, whimpers, howls and song. We want breath, heat, musk. We want landscapes ranging from urban wastelands to frozen tundra, from bedsits to coastlines, from suburbia to savannah — and the imagined worlds between. We want water and we want fish out of water. We want the visceral and the vulnerable, the slippery and the synaesthetic, emergence and extinction.
Quite the roundup, if one might say so. But the tragic would-be lovers, Rat and Crow, beggars and thieves who gained their names from the methods they used, were nothing if not willing to take their chances. So three months and a week from their journey’s beginning, the word came from Editor Allen Ashley, I am pleased to tell you that we would like to accept “Crow and Rat” for print publication in HUMANAGERIE, followed by (if I may say) some extremely flattering “Editors comments.” For a pair of ruffians Crow and Rat, I expect, should be proud! In any event, the acceptance came lateish Saturday evening with today spent earlier looking over some minor changes plus sending back an acceptance of terms.
If all goes as planned, HUMANAGERIE is aiming for an October release date by Eibonvale Press. More will appear here as it becomes known.
