Author: admin

You’ll have seen our short story contest is open once again this year, and thank you so much to all of those who have already submitted, responding to our theme of ‘ink’. 

The short story is a beautiful thing, and just over a week ago, a man who left an indelible mark on the form sadly passed away. His name was Roger Angell, and as well as being a revered sports writer, for a long time he was also the Fiction Editor at the New Yorker. In this role he shone a spotlight on many of the most interesting writers in the world, each taking the form in their own unique direction. In no small part it’s because of him that the New Yorker has continued to shape the evolution of the short story.

One of the writers he gave a chance to and continued to edit afterwards at the magazine was called Donald Barthelme, and this man is possibly my (John’s) favourite writer – ever! Possibly. Barthelme’s short fictions were absurd and funny and clever and wonderful. If you’ve read any of his work, you’ll know he loved to experiment with language, and often his stories didn’t really read like stories. Some people have described them as word collages, some people have called them Impressionistic Fictions (ooh la la!), some people call him a Stylist, similar to Robert Coover or maybe Grace Paley. I’m not sure any of those descriptors really work, or perhaps they all do a little. Needless to say, he was a true master of the short story, uncompromising in his style, and if it weren’t for Roger Angell giving him a chance, and nurturing his writing for years afterwards, it’s highly unlikely Barthelme would have gone on to complete all of the remarkable stories he did. And I’m sure the same could be said for many other writers!

Now, I didn’t get to meet Roger Angell, however thanks to a friend of mine that was lucky enough to spend some time with him, I do have a tenuous connection! When this friend told Roger (can I call him Roger?) about my admiration of him and of Barthelme, Roger told him to share with me a little memory he had.

A deadline was looming for the magazine, and Roger was doing his final edits for the issue, in which Barthelme had a story featured. In this story, Barthelme (as he would) wanted to insert a full page consisting solely of the word Butter.

Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. Butter. 

Something like this. It would have filled three columns in the magazine. Of course, this would probably have been awkward for Roger to swing on any week as Fiction Editor at the New Yorker, as if he allowed Barthelme to get away with that, it would be pretty hard to explain to future contributors why he was asking them to cut far more reasonable portions of their work. However, this week in particular Roger really didn’t have a choice in the matter, as already he had been told he would need to shorten the piece to fit the magazine’s makeup for that week’s issue.

So, Roger called Barthelme up. He said, “Donald, how do you feel about cutting out some of the ‘butter’ stuff? The thing is, if we don’t the story won’t fit.” To which Barthelme paused, and then replied, “Well, okay. But no more than two spoonfuls.” 

A tenuous connection, but it’s mine! Thank you, Roger Angell. 

Don’t forget, the deadline for Blackwater’s short story contest is the 30^th June. We’re very much looking forward to reading your entries!

May flew by! We’re excited to be less than a month away from publication of Melanie McGee Bianchi’s short story collection The Ballad of Cherrystoke and Other Stories, available for pre-order here. If you are a lover of the short story, we promise it doesn’t get much better than this.

‘The complex, the quirky, and the sublime are interwoven with humor, love, and above all, grace, in contributing to a tradition of powerful storytelling. The landscape is steeped in the voices of the people.’

– Tony Robles, author of Cool Don’t Live Here No More – A Letter to San Francisco and Fingerprints of a Hunger Strike

For more Cherrystoke reviews click here, for Elizabeth’s conversation with Melanie click here, and to check out the book trailer click here. Click, click, click!

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And there’s more! In July we’re releasing Robert R. Davis’s debut novel The Various Stages of a Garden Well-Kept, and it is also available for pre-order, with publication in mid-July. This is a heartwarming and quirky tale of three generations of the Kageorge family, as they navigate through life and unearth the family secret that unites them. Read Davis’ blog post here about the inspiration behind the story, and watch his talk with the real-life Frieda Kahlo the Cat (a major character) here.

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Speaking of short stories, our second contest on the theme of Ink ends on June 30, so there is still plenty of time to enter. All pertinent details as to entry requirements and prizes can be found on this page.

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In our efforts to become a continue our growth as a press, we now, thanks to the funding from the Charleston Area Alliance, have digital review copies of our books available on Edelweiss. Edelweiss is a popular book industry platform where publishers, reviewers, librarians, and bookshops can read, share, and review before publication. We’re just getting to grips with all the bells and whistles, but we’re glad to be there and see how much interest our titles are generating. Please tell the bookshops, librarians, and book influencers in your life that they can find us there. Our authors are now listed on Storygraph, as well as Goodreads, so if you’re a user of either (or both!) please give us a review.

We’ve added more photographs to the companion website for Tuscawilla: Stories of a Farm, and have a blog post by Kaaren Cary Ford telling of her mother’s welcome to the farm after her marriage in January 1948.

I forgot to mention that as newlyweds my mom and dad, Mary Elizabeth Reaser Cary and George Edward Cary, lived in the cottage behind the brick house. Imagine my mom’s surprise (dismay) when she was carried over the threshold to find a bathtub full of baby Tamworth pigs under a heat lamp. I don’t remember exactly why the pigs were in the bathtub, other than they needed a place to stay extra warm. As you can probably guess baby pigs are very cute, but they make lots of noise, and after a while there is a smell. Then, one night in the middle of the night, mom and dad were awakened by a great noise—cow bells clanging, pots and pans being banged together and people making whooping and hollering noises. All of this racket was because Ralph Warren and others had come to serenade them, an old tradition among the Cary friends. The fun part was when dad was made to push mom up and down the farm lane in a wheelbarrow of frozen manure. Lesser women would have gone home to their parents, but mom stuck it out and thoroughly enjoyed all her years at the farm.

If you’ve ever attempted to write anything more creative than a shopping list, you’ve probably felt the dread of that blank page staring back at you. The white expanse of infinite possibilities, a world too dauntingly large to take that first step into it … Right?

Well, you’re not alone, and as the saying goes, commune naufragium, omnibus solacium. Which basically means that grief, when shared, doesn’t smart quite as much. It is honestly SUCH a common feeling among writers! I’m sure many can relate: you finally sit down and open a document, THE document; you stare at it for a minute (or 10), and suddenly you get the urge to put up that shelf that’s been sitting in the corner for three months. Or you remember that odd pain you got in your back last week and start looking up symptoms on the internet, and after 45 minutes you know everything about cervical spondylosis in the Humboldt penguin. Or you spend an afternoon perfecting the layout, formatting, pagination, font, size, colour etc. only to end up not writing anything anyway.

Whether it’s writing a thesis, or a poem, or a novel, or even just a letter, starting feels like the worst ordeal. The utter panic of having to sift through the thousands of options available can sometimes feel too much.

I’m here to give you one tip to get over that fear.

Yes, one tip. And it’s an easy one.

DIRTY THAT PAGE.

That is really all there is to it. Do not keep that page immaculate. Once you have ‘soiled’ that uninterrupted vastness, you have a grip on it. You have conquered it. Whether you’re staring at a computer screen or a paper notebook page, it’s the same.

Have a title? Start with the title.

No title? Maybe there’s a quote that fits what you want to say: write it down.

No quote? Try bullet points. At random, without following a scheme or an order: just write bullet points. You’ll fix the plan later.

No exact plan? Write down your ‘why’. Why do I want or need to write this? Start with that. The magic will unfold as your thoughts make their way onto the page.

No ‘why’, but just a desire to express yourself? Doodle, or paste an image that inspires you onto the computer document.

I hear your brainwaves: but what if it doesn’t turn out perfect, if I start my thoughts in the wrong order, if I don’t put my best foot forward? What then? Will I ever be able to improve it or will my writing be too far gone in the wrong direction?

Well, there is no limit to how much you can edit (but this is a story for another time). You can absolutely perfect anything you write, and turn it into your masterpiece.

But you’ll never have a masterpiece if you don’t start, right?

That’s why I entreat you to just attack that blank page. Once that first ink, or those first words or images are on there, I promise you it will all gradually fall into place.

(And when you’re done, of course send it over to us at Blackwater Press!) ;-D

I could give you all the facts – names, dates, places, relationships – of my family history, and you would fall asleep quickly. I know this because I would drop off into a deep slumber myself in the telling. And yet, hidden in the dry folds of this history, there was a story to be told. While I grew up in my family’s house, the untold secrets of the past rattled about the closets and slowly trickled out, waiting to be discovered. Gradually, I gathered a loose framework of a past comprised mostly of empty spaces. A lot of empty spaces. A paint by number project with no key to correlate which color belonged to which number. It was time for the fun to begin – the unleashing of my imagination. I spent countless hours sitting in coffee houses, and countless more sitting at home late nights with intense conversations with my cat, as I poured my stream of consciousness onto my computer keyboard. I found that giving each of the major characters a voice in first person permitted me to get into each their head and to flow out of their thoughts and observations. Eventually, I had favorite personalities to inhabit – Marieta as a child, Irini as she crossed the ocean, and Frieda the Cat (my confidant throughout the process). Unfortunately, I was unable to properly confer with these three favorite characters, as Irini was long gone, Marieta was lost deep in dementia, and Frieda, well, she’s a cat. As I worked my way through to my own generation, I began to take great liberties in actual events and in the characters themselves. While Herman Kageorge is largely based upon myself, he is not me, though I have used many anecdotes from my own life to create his story. The hardest part to me was deciding who to give admittance to and who to delete from the story. And then there was the challenge of blending ninety years’ worth of snippets and short choppy chapters into one smooth story. My solution – adding the constants of the garden, the coffee houses, and of course, the observations of Frieda the Cat.

We’re very excited that Davis’ wonderful novel – The Various Stages of a Garden Well-Kept – will be released in Spring 2022.

So long, 2021. We really hope that all of your Christmas and New Year plans haven’t been totally sabotaged by the most unwelcome of guests, Corona, and that you’ve been able to spend some quality time amid friends and family (and books and booze, of course!). Strange as everything may have been, we have thoroughly enjoyed Blackwater Press’ first full calendar year, and are so proud of how everything has turned out. Much of this has come down to all of you: the people who buy our books, who use our editorial services, engage with us on social media, and just generally encourage us when so much of today’s world seems designed to make small businesses fail. It means a lot! The three books below are the result of our work, and with reprints of Tuscawilla: Stories of a Farm and I Piped, That She Might Dance having just arrived, we are glad they’re going down well. And yes, they’re available for purchase here 😉

We are also very pleased to see so many authors trusting us and our editorial services. Back when we were writing the business plans for Blackwater Press a year or so ago, the model we hoped for involved funding our own publications through our editing work, and now that we’ve started to build a strong reputation this seems to be working. Our manuscript assessment service has a waiting list of two months, and we firmly believe that every author who comes to us gets a lot closer to being published in the places they want to be following these reports. But hey, don’t take our word for it: It was a tremendous pleasure to work with Blackwater Press on a manuscript evaluation for my forthcoming novel. The feedback was perceptive, insightful and also very supportive and encouraging. Awesome! (Jayna Sheats, author of Hanna’s Climb) So there you go! A quick reminder that our 2022 short story contest is now open; we’re delighted to once again see your submissions start to pop into our inbox. Head HERE for full details. And with that, we’ll see you in 2022. We have HUGE plans for the coming year, so stay tuned, and have a happy new year!

Happy 30-Days-After-Halloween

Forgive me for bringing up ghosts in the wrong month, but I was battling some seriously scary deadlines in late October. Now that it’s mid-November, I have a lull from work and more time to dwell on the dark side.

My house is a very small, middle-aged cottage that turned 60 this year. It has a view of Chestnut Mountain and Frady Mountain from the back hill and a curious flyspeck of a kitchen with no windows. I make food for my family in this kitchen, but I’m not quite sure how it really happens.

Last week, I brought home a smoked ham-hock to make a pot of split-pea soup. That thing looked enormous, sitting on my countertop. Aggrieved, obscene. When the butcher shrink wrapped it and handed it to me in the grocery store, it had no vibe at all. Somehow it grew to own the space.

And ever since last winter, whenever I stand at the sink, I sense a presence behind me, watching: a thick, hovering something that clears off in the nanosecond it takes to turn around. I grew up in much older, much creepier houses: houses with outhouses still on the property; houses that had rooms my friends refused to enter — houses well within their rights to be haunted.

So I’m a little annoyed that some half-baked phantom has decided to show up in a home that still has a mortgage and its original wiring.

I think most of the characters in my short stories live haunted lives. Siobhan in “Ballad of Cherrystoke” is haunted by memories of her vibrant, pre-accident self. Yuri in “Abdiel’s Revenge” moves in with a woman twice his age and finds he’s also taken on her family’s legacy: a two-century-old murder and its seemingly immortal aftermath. One of the four Brandons in “Bad Tooth Brandon” is haunted by the death of his lover, a soldier; meanwhile, the story’s narrator moves away to escape the specter of her gentrifying hometown.

We’re all haunted by something. Sometimes by more than one thing. So I guess I can handle an occasional unexplainable kitchen presence. Maybe I’m just inside these walls way too much — but for me, getting to work from home is a privilege that’s worth any poltergeist.

November, where did you come from?! First thing’s first, we would like to once again thank all of those who have pre-ordered Tuscawilla: Stories of a Farm for their patience. The printing landscape has never been so backlogged, and as a small press we sadly don’t get prioritised for any front-of-the-queue treatment. Scandalous, we know! Rest assured that the book is with the UK and US printers, and it should reach you in November.

Haven’t pre-ordered? Well, if you’ve not started your Christmas shopping yet, this one would make an excellent stocking-filler …

One book that very much HAS made it back from the printer is the Blackwater Press Short Story Collection 2021! This collection of ten wonderful stories, based on the theme of the Blackwater Bird, features tales from writers all over the world who submitted to our short story competition. Thank you also to those who entered our cover contest for this book; your designs had us spoilt for choice. So, whether you’re a bird-lover or simply a fan of great stories, this is the one for you.

Looks pretty, doesn’t it? And we’re not resting on our laurels. So happy were we with the success of this competition that we see no reason to delay the next one. Stay tuned for full details of submission dates and prizes, but in the meantime we are going to hold a vote for what our second collection’s theme should be. Our team have come up with three options that we hope will inspire more great fiction:

Ink

Flight

Seasons

People will be able to vote via our social channels (Facebook/Instagram/Twitter), so follow us on there to have your say next week. For anyone who doesn’t have access to these, feel free to reply to this email and we’ll be sure to add your vote. Exciting!

Finally, it’s that time of year again for students, with exams and deadlines coming thick and fast. To ease the load, we are offering a 20% discount on our editorial services for all current students, to help with any formatting and proofing needs. A fresh pair of eyes can make all the difference. Head here for more information.

Have a lovely week!

September has been a big month here at Blackwater Press for two reasons: The first is that we’ve (finally) published a book! I Piped, That She Might Dance by Iain MacDonald exists in hard copy at last … in Scotland, at least …

We didn’t realize what an impact Covid-19 has had on the book production industry, and so the North American copies are delayed, but should be in the American and Canadian shipping locations by the end of this week (they’ve shipped from the printers!), and then off to our (very patient) pre-orders. Thanks again to all who have received or are still waiting for their book; we hope you will agree that it is worth the wait. Steve thinks so!

The second reason is that we’re a year old. In the past year we have, without ever meeting in person, fought time zones and communicated daily thanks to Zoom and Messenger, learned about setting up an LLC under West Virginia law, navigated some personnel changes, got our editorial services up and running, created a successful short story contest, met many wonderful authors and supportive colleagues, hosted a popular online event for Piping Live! with Iain MacDonald and Hugh Cheape, learned about non-United States citizens who own American businesses negotiate with the IRS (not fun!), dealt with the Library of Congress’s control number system, figured out how to turn a file into a physical book, and more. Most importantly though, John now knows as much about pìobaireachd as Vivien and Gaelic names as Elizabeth!

It’s been a steep learning curve, but we are finally starting to see the rewards of all our hard work, and we are looking forward to continuing to improve as publishers in the future. And, by the end of this year, we will have published three books, one of which – Blackwater Press Short Story Collection 2021 – is at the printers as we speak!

Hello:)

You’ve likely run across a few of these pieces before, advising prospective authors on what to do and what not to do, and most of them are very useful indeed! But we thought that instead of repeating what you might have already read, we’d try and think of a few slightly more particular things that you might not have thought about, which could help you before submitting to publishers.

This means that we’ll be glossing over some of the most obvious (but also the most important) things: perfect spelling and grammar; easy-to-read formatting; concise cover email and synopsis; meticulous revision; avid reading … You’ve heard all of these before, and for good reason. But taking all of that as read, let’s dive into some slightly less rudimentary tips that might help set your manuscript apart from the others.

1) FIND THE RIGHT BALANCE FOR YOUR MANUSCRIPT. This is one of the most common reasons we have for rejecting manuscripts that are sent to us, and that’s because it’s the hardest thing for a writer to achieve. Every book – fiction or non-fiction – has its own unique relationship between its plot and the language it uses to convey that plot. Finding the balance in which those things best complement one another is what makes great books feel as though they have been crafted rather than written. In basic terms, sometimes writers focus too much on making each individual sentence sound intricate and wonderful, when in fact there has to be more attention paid to building tension via the plot. Other times, manuscripts are plot-heavy, and in fact would benefit enormously if the author slowed down and found a better way to express their message through richer language. Now, we know what you’re thinking. How am I meant to know if my manuscript isn’t balanced properly, one way or the other? Well, no one said it was going to be easy; in fact, to tell the truth, it’s very bloody difficult! But hopefully our next tip can offer some guidance in that respect.

2) TREAT YOUR FINAL DRAFT LIKE A STRANGER’S. Notice we said final draft. Up to that point, this is probably not sage advice! Writing good early drafts requires belief and compassion and patience, and this is because as a writer you have to be willing to make thousands of micro-mistakes (and therefore thousands of micro-fixes). But when that magical day comes when you find that you have something like a final draft in front of you, this is the time to start looking at your work with the same healthy scepticism with which you would look at someone else’s book you happened to pick up. Reading in this way will help you keep an eye out for any hijinks that this ‘stranger’ might be trying to pull. This should hopefully help you to objectively find the best plot-language balance as mentioned above, among other things. But how can you look at your own manuscript as though it belongs to a stranger? An easy, simple, and cheap solution is to try physically engaging with your manuscript in a different way. If normally you stare at it on your laptop screen, then print it off, or read it on a tablet or on a phone, or send it to a different computer to read on. You could experiment with recording yourself reading the opening chapters and then listening to it (trying not to cringe too much at the sound of your own voice!). Even changing the font and the layout can help you see your writing through fresh eyes. The point is to try and disconnect yourself from the person who wrote the book in the first place, so that you can spot things you wouldn’t be able to spot otherwise. Of course, this disconnect can only go so far, and giving your manuscript to a real stranger – best of all, a professional editor – is simply the number one way of making sure your manuscript can be elevated to publication-standard. And we promise we’re not just saying that!

3) DON’T SUBMIT YOUR MANUSCRIPT UNTIL YOU TRULY BELIEVE IT’S READY. This might sound obvious, but here is another very common thing we see in manuscripts coming through our editorial service. As editors, authors who come to us want us to point out plot holes, loose ends, dips in tension, etc. Yet, when we do, often we are surprised to find that the author already knows exactly what we are talking about! Our feedback might be met with something like: ‘Ah, yes, I was wondering if you would notice that …’ Or: ‘I was hoping maybe I could get away with it, given what happens later …’ If only! It’s safe to say that if there is something about your manuscript that is gnawing away at you, and that you know deep down is causing discord with the rest of the text, then other readers are going to notice, and this is more often than not enough to see your book rejected.

4) WORLD-BUILD THROUGH YOUR CHARACTER’S EYES (this tip is probably geared more towards the fiction writers). Often when people think of spectacular examples of world-building, they immediately look to genres like fantasy and science-fiction. True, there are fabulous examples to be found here, but really, world-building is just as important in literary fiction as well. It has to feel authentic, whether it’s a post-apocalyptic wasteland or a real-life suburban neighbourhood. Be warned, even some novels that are submitted to us that have found their unique sweet spot between plot and language end up getting rejected, if the story-world doesn’t feel authentic. There are a number of reasons why this might be the case. Perhaps the author has not put enough thought into the world around the story, even if they have effectively described the setting directly involved (it’s worth remembering that most world-building should not end up on the page). This lack of a surrounding world can create a sort of vagueness which is so often seen in weak writing. Other times, it can feel as though the minute details that bring a world to life aren’t there, or even if they are, they feel as though they have been thrown in to go alongside the rest of the story, rather than arising organically. Again, we’re not saying this is easy, and it takes time – most writing that feels as though it’s flowed out of someone organically hasn’t! However, one excellent method we can recommend and which almost all good authors utilise is looking at the world through their character’s eyes. This helps build a more vibrant and visceral world than can be achieved when merely examined from the writer’s perspective. Just as in real life, characters inhabit their story-worlds differently, and will do different things when presented with the same scene. Describing the particular ways in which a character chews her sandwich or gets out of her car or says goodbye to her grandma can do so much. These things might feel insignificant, but they really will vary depending on age, class, mood, health, race, gender, financial situation, political persuasion, relationship status, etc. What would your character do that another character might not? Even if you’re using a third- or second-person narrator, writing with the immediate detail of first-person can really bring a world to life.

5) HELP US MAKE MONEY! All publishers need to keep making money to stay afloat, but depending on their size, how they make money is different. Big publishers tend to publish hundreds of books a year and hope that a handful become bestsellers, whereas smaller publishers really need to make money with every book. If an author shows us that they have faith not only in their manuscript, but in how our business could profit from turning it into a book, then we’re on to a winner! At Blackwater we try and tailor our marketing for each book we publish, but if an author comes up with innovative ideas – even at submission stage – about how they could help successfully promote and sell their book, and prove to us that they would actively help us to make more money, this will ensure that us and any publisher look at their text more favourably. It’s the least romantic tip in this list, but it’s just as important as the others!

We hope that this was useful for all those authors working away on their manuscripts, and that at least some of it was fresh! We should caveat it all by adding that writing is a wide-ranging medium, and not all works will necessarily benefit from the same treatment. Even if they had the same word count, a short story by Alice Munro would be a wholly different experience to a short story by George Saunders, and likewise a novel by James Joyce would be incomparable to a novel by J.K. Rowling, and then again to George Orwell, and then again to Margaret Atwood. Yet all of these writers are considered great, which brings with it the welcome relief that there is a lot of room for idiosyncrasy in this field. Enjoy the process and good luck!