Clockpunk Proof — Curiosities Out in Time for New Year’s Eve?

Some tales get around in curious ways. New Years Eve-set story “Appointment In Time,” for instance, may be remembered from November 26, where it and the anthology YEAR’S END: 14 TALES OF HOLIDAY HORROR (2012) were part of a bundle of books on sale from Untreed Reads Publishing. But, weirdly, it’s in the news again today, for which we must go back to. . . .

Well, came today’s email: Attached is the web proof of CURIOSITIES #9. Apologies for the tardiness. I should have had this out back in spring. I was feeling very optimistic about a lot of things early in the year, but then things kind of fell apart on everything. I did a couple of conventions in Denver this fall, and nearly everyone on Author Row had the same story to tell. “I should have had one or two more on the table, but. . . .”

So now hark us to an earlier year for “Appointment In Time” (cf. May 1 2019) and: This was a quickie, sent just eight days before submissions closed — and accepted one day after! The call was intriguing, under the rubric “Curious Gallery”: “Hello! This project is a comfortable two-headed beast at play in the curious and often dark corners of retropunk fiction. That means steampunk, dieselpunk, dreadpunk, bronzepunk, others too numerous to name punk . . . but not atompunk. Sorry, space fans, we draw our line at Sputnik. About 2/3 of rejections are for ‘bad fit.’ We buy nonexclusive rights for fiction, cover & interior art, music & sound effects usage, and narration services.” The name of the magazine, CURIOSITIES.

Then, minor editorial changes seen to three days later, “Appointment” languished. And languished. Such is the way of the writing biz. (And let us not forget worldwide pandemics.) Until now, back on track, Editor Kevin Frost continued: Hopefully I can have this uploaded to Amazon early next week, and for the conventioneers amongst you, we can all start the new year with a fresh book on our tables.

So, no corrections needed except for a minor contributors blurb update (sent back and already corrected today), it just might happen: CURIOSITIES published in time for Christmas as well as New Years.