Space Cat Press

Despite that, our personal / work circumstances have changed dramatically. And it feels a natural time for us to start winding down this project. We are closing our website shop now but will continue to sell our books at occasional pop-up events. So do come say hi if you see us in the book wild!

We’ve had an absolute blast flying this small press from 2019. And are very proud of the 5 beautiful books we produced with your help during that time. A big thank you to all the wonderful writers we worked with, artist Sally Barnett and our loyal readers. You made it a joy!

Hi Space Cats.

We’re calling home to tell you our little indie press rocket is docking permanently from here on. You will still see us at a few pop-up events, such as Leicester Libraries Local Writers Fair on Sat. 12th October. But we won’t be doing any new publishing.

Scattered Across the Stars by J.K. Fulton (extract): Gertie grinned. ‘Best thing is, we think we’ve seen some biomorphic signs in the rocks. We’ve been breaking off bits of the Nakhla meteorites and sending them around the world for analysis, and some bods at NASA found something that looked like the paths left by bacteria.’ ‘Alien bugs?’ ‘Could be. Or just natural formations. Or maybe even my grandad’s cold germs. I told you how my grandad was working in Egypt for old man Hume when they discovered the meteorite?’ Miranda nodded. ‘That’s probably why you’ve been obsessed with the mouldy old rocks for so long.’ Gertie glowered. ‘But it makes you think, dunnit? I mean, Mars is dead, now, but it wasn’t always. What if there was primitive life there? What if there are fossils?’

The second part of J. K. Fulton’s SCATTERED ACROSS THE STARS is set #OTD in 1992 and features otherworldly rocks, the search for sentient life and a meteorite from Mars that may be carrying 'space bugs'... ☄️👾🪨

Read the full story in #UnchartedCons:
spacecatpress.co.uk/shopfront/un...

CONVERSATION BETWEEN AN ALIEN AND A TREE by Abida Akram unfolds a surprising bond between unlikely duo 👾🌲. EXTRACT: I speak to you in puffs of purple. Your reply is the silence between snowy sky and summer sea. I send out tendrils of pink, gently curling into your spaces. You breathe, so slow, over years. You harden and grow tall reaching for the sun while I hide behind iridescent scales. We slant towards each other curving over the horizon like a fan unfurled. Read the full poem in Bark & Bone: https://spacecatpress.co.uk/shopfront/bark-and-bone/

THE STONE FOREST by Ivan Richardson crash-lands an astronaut couple onto a distant moon that no one has bothered to name 👩‍🚀🧑‍🚀 EXTRACT: Leo was still limp, the beat on his heart monitor the only sign he hadn’t left her. Rose recalled the day they first met. It was a training simulation in zero gravity, practising repairs to the thrusters. Her line got caught. She fought to unhook it but every movement seemed to entangle her further. Then Leo’s calm voice came over the radio. She turned to see him moving across the hull. A hand reached out to help. At first she pushed him away so the trainers wouldn’t see her struggle. But something in his eyes made her feel safe. Together they unhooked the line and completed the repair. From then on the two of them became an unstoppable team. Read the full story in Bark & Bone: https://spacecatpress.co.uk/shopfront/bark-and-bone/

CHANGES OF LIFE by Jennifer Ruth Jackson sees an ageing couple creep away from a retirement party in order to slip into their true skins 🐺 EXTRACT: Orchestra and guests prepare for one last song. She leaves behind her walker and shoes. Grimacing as her skin shivers and shifts, she sprouts grey fur and grows a snout. Canine ears perk at her lover’s shifting sounds. They lope past the house to the forest beyond. Walker and cane, abandoned friends, wait. Two piercing howls echo in the darkness. Read the full poem in Bark & Bone: https://spacecatpress.co.uk/shopfront/bark-and-bone/

THE FOREST KING by Mark R Brandon unravels a love story amidst the druids, rogue kings and forest deities of Celtic myth 👑☘️ EXTRACT: Cian looked darkly at his manservant and handed a plate to Fionn. The druid ate hungrily and, when he had finished, said: ‘Domnall is set upon his course, Prince Cian, but you are not your father. I see you on a different path.’ Then he reached out his hand to Cian and the prince took it tenderly. Padraig saw this, and a bitter flame grew in his heart. ‘It is too late for me,’ said Cian. ‘It is not too late,’ said Fionn. ‘Trust me.’ Read the full story in Bark & Bone: https://spacecatpress.co.uk/shopfront/bark-and-bone/

Happy Valentine’s Day 😻

To celebrate, here are 4 forest-themed love stories from our Bark & Bone anthology:

CONVERSATION BETWEEN AN ALIEN AND A TREE by Abida Akram 👾🌲

THE STONE FOREST by Ivan Richardson 👩‍🚀 🧑‍🚀

CHANGES OF LIFE by Jennifer Ruth Jackson 🐺

THE FOREST KING by Mark R Brandon 👑 ☘️

Happy Imbolc and/or St. Brigid’s Day, Space Cats 💐 🌞

Icewood by J.K. Fulton (extract): What those heroes of the first expedition don’t tell you on the podcasts and glossy exclusives is that in the process of making their oh-so-momentous discovery, they left an RTG on the floor of the ocean. Right in the middle of an icewood forest. Seriously. A radioisotope thermoelectric generator. A nuclear battery. In the middle of the first alien biome we’ve ever found. There’s littering, and then there’s what these clowns did.

Europa was discovered #OTD in 1610 by Galileo Galilei.

J.K. Fulton’s BARK & BONE story, Icewood, plunges a team of interplanetary trash collectors deep into the oceans of this fascinating moon 🌕🧑‍🚀👩‍🚀👨‍🚀

Read the full story in #ForestOfBarkAndBone:
spacecatpress.co.uk/shopfront/ba...

Back to work today! Ah the joy of opening a laptop and checking emails! Also what need to remember what I actually do!

When editing a really strong story, my biggest crit is to tell the writer to trust their readers' intelligence, and delete those over-explaining lines.

Less-established writers can end up overwriting in an attempt to make sure their work is understood by all - but subtlety is also strength.

Julia LaFond reads her story ‘One Set of Footsteps’ from Space Cat Press’ Bark & Bone anthology. Buy the book at: https://spacecatpress.co.uk/shopfront/bark-... One Set of Footsteps | Bark & Bone | Prose

Because I just can't stay away from horror, my next entry was included in Space Cat Press's Bark and Bone anthology: "One Set of Footsteps." Genre: weird horror/crime mashup. spacecatpress.co.uk/shopfront/ba... Oh, and there's also an author reading on YouTube: youtu.be/995UxSghSkQ

(13/18)

Photo of a woman in a costume. Image credit: Antonio Friedemann (https://unsplash.com/@tokaito)

Write her story.

#writingprompt #prompt #writing #weekendwriting

Kaleidotrope Winter 2024 - Artwork ("Flight" / a young pink dragon looking over a cliff edge) by Francesco Crisci

It's not just a Happy New Year! It's a Happy New Issue of Kaleidotrope!

kaleidotrope.net

And this morning the Shed is a time capsule, containing the Sheds of winters past, like Russian dolls, for eternity.

Amazing.

Photo of a jaguar lying on a branch. Image credit: CHUTTERSNAP (https://unsplash.com/@chuttersnap)

#DidYouKnow that jaguars get their name from the indigenous word 'yaguar', which means 'he who kills with one leap'🏃

DESERT BLOOMS I (extract): Siobhan Logan discusses Operation Paperclip, which brought Nazi scientists to the US & classified their war records: And now the Germans have arrived paperclipped, denazified, civilianised their Fort Bliss ID cards bleached as the salt floor of Alkali Flats their futures exotic as flowering yucca grassy feet fastened on sand. On Sundays Wernher plays Mondschein Sonate on the clubhouse piano for his Peenemunde comrades. Soon sheet metal cacti sprout spiky tips on the range, scrawl rocket contrails on Texan skies and intercontinental blossoms gouge huge petals of dust unfurling towards space. RESURRECTION: Siobhan Logan blends references to Egyptian gods & the Rosetta spacecraft: Isis is defying death her outstretched wings wafting air into her murdered husband’s mouth. So Rosetta at sundial stroke lifts panelled limbs to the light. Yawning startup codes our spacecraft burps a signal home then turns an Egyptian eye kohl-painted hieroglyph upon the rock.

In Pioneer's Dilemma, Yevgeny Salisbury introduces us to a group of self-aware androids in no rush to have their human masters join them on their promising new world. EXTRACT OF THE PIONEER'S DILEMMA: He sat down on the grass, beneath a tree, and watched a fledgling bird being fed. A Lo-3 for birds would put a stop to most of that; the majority of them just wouldn’t feel the urge to reproduce. They wouldn’t be unhappy about it. Problem solved, had the problem been too many birds. Except it wasn’t, and the birds were beautiful. Everything was idyllic. Everyone had worked hard: on the planet, on themselves. He looked at his hands. Indistinguishable from human hands. It hadn’t been part of the brief. Not at all. But there’s artistry in terraforming. To really get it, you must live it. Love it. The humans would love this place. And he hated lying to them.

In Translation, Phillip Irving introduces us to an alien who has been sent to Earth in the hope that our planet could be his people’s new home. EXTRACT OF TRANSLATION: It was this adaptability that paved the way for the Arrangement. One of us implanted into a blank human brain would be able to reshape the existing structures in such a way as to continue living as though no change had taken place. There were two reasons they sent me first: one, they needed to find out if it was safe, and two, due to the adaptation we ourselves would need to go through, the process, once complete, will likely prove irreversible. What we did not know, until now, is that our intercommunication is, for their brains, an adaptation too far.

In Rewild Me, Charlie Winter discusses small town cruelty, trans identity and the ecological concept of rewilding. EXTRACT OF REWILD ME: I walk on water until the cold surrounds me, firming up the shape that once melted. New growth through my skeletal self that lives instead of dies, fed instead of burned. Flowers I’ve never seen. New grasses, softer, blunt-edged. A forest ahead, smoky green, vibrant, living, alive. I slip beneath her shadows. I vanish into the trees. Murdered once, I’m ready to be born again. My revenge is living past my death; my revenge is that you will never know me again. Seeking winter, I turn my back on the sun.

Happy New Year's Eve, Space Cats!

To celebrate, here are 5 pieces that revolve around new beginnings:

Siobhan Logan's DESERT BLOOMS I and RESURRECTION 🚀

Yevgeny Salisbury's THE PIONEER'S DILEMMA 🤖

Phil Irving's TRANSLATION 🛸

Charlie Winter's REWILD ME 🏳️‍⚧️

See alt text for more info

Merry Christmas, Space Cats! 🎄 ☃️ 🎁

Victoria Haslam author photo

Author Profile for Victoria Haslam. Bio: Victoria Haslam lives near Melton Mowbray and is fascinated by history, landscape and folktales. She won the Poetic Republic Short Story Prize in 2015, has work in the Comma Press ebook Mismatched Metacarpi and also The Forgotten and the Fantastical 4. She is a member of Leicester Writers’ Club. Piece description: Her thoughtful Bark & Bone story, Treez™, updates our woodland lore for the digital age by dropping us into a synthetic forest full of silicone trees.

Extract from Treez™: I nod. He is from the hinterland then. Traditional farms are illegal for Mankind communities so I cannot rule out dissident as a possible alert yet. ‘Have you been back then, home at all?’ ‘Nope, I no longer have a home. I rely upon the tradition of hospitality.’ He raises his cup to me then continues. ‘Strangers, like you, take me in for a time; a month, a night...’ He glances to the sofa. ‘I know you belong to a Mankind community.’ He sighs and looks me in the eye. His eyes are brown and somehow gentle. ‘I mean no harm.’

Our final shoutout is for BARK & BONE #SpaceCatStar Victoria Haslam.

Victoria lives near Melton Mowbray and is fascinated by history, landscape and folktales 📜 ⛰️

#ForestOfBarkAndBone

We're so lucky to have the National Space Centre on our doorstep here in Leicester ... and not just because it makes for such great photos 🚀📸

#walk

Lyndsey Croal author photo

Author Profile for Lyndsey Croal. Bio: Lyndsey Croal is an Edinburgh-based author of speculative and strange fiction. She’s a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awardee, British Fantasy Award Finalist, former Hawthornden Fellow, and LOHF Writers Grant Recipient. Her novelette Have You Decided on Your Question was published in April 2023 by Shortwave Publishing. Piece description: Her Bark & Bone piece, Be Still, Iron Heart, pits its human protagonist against a ghoulish Green Man.

Extract from Be Still, Iron Heart: The further I walked, the darker the forest grew, trees packed so closely together that roots had become exposed, forming channels between them, everything connected. It was quieter than it should be for the middle of the day. No birds or insects, just a stillness that seeped into every nook of the forest. A chill crept down my spine. Hairs rising, like I wasn’t alone. My hand reached instinctively to my dagger and remained there.

This morning’s shoutout is for BARK & BONE #SpaceCatStar Lyndsey Croal.

Lyndsey is an Edinburgh-based Scottish Book Trust New Writers Awardee, British Fantasy Award Finalist, former Hawthornden Fellow, and LOHF Writers Grant Recipient 🏆

#ForestOfBarkAndBone

Good Morning! 😺 How are you all doing?

#MascotMonday

Youtube thumbnail for Phil Temples' A Zone of Peace and Tranquillity. Background image credit: Samuel Fyfe (https://unsplash.com/@sfyfe)

In today’s Author Reading, Phillip Temples reads his a wry dystopian BARK & BONE tale, A ZONE OF PEACE AND TRANQUILLITY ⛔️ 🐿️

Watch Phil’s Author Reading here:
youtu.be/eZadnioDNRk

#ForestOfBarkAndBone

Author Profile for Erin Jamieson. Bio: Erin Jamieson (she/her) holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University. Her writing has been published in over eighty literary magazines, including a Pushcart Prize nomination. She is the author of a poetry collection (Clothesline, NiftyLit, Feb 2023). Her latest poetry chapbook, Fairytales, is available from Bottlecap Press. Piece description: Her Bark & Bone poem, ‘Family Tree’, brings a failed marriage to a dramatic end.

Extract from ‘Family Tree’: the rot begins deep at the roots peeling bark sweetly putrid we pretend not to notice planted a year after we married

Today’s shoutout is for BARK & BONE #SpaceCatStar Erin Jamieson.

Erin’s writing has been published in over eighty literary magazines, including a Pushcart Prize nomination 🏆

#ForestOfBarkAndBone

We couldn't resist picking up some Christmas reading while we were there ... or treating ourselves to some phenomenal cakes from Chloe's Gourmet afterwards...

BARK & BONE is now in stock at Fox Books (St Martin's Square, LE1 5EW) 🦊 📚

This wonderful indie bookshop is well worth a trip for any Leicester-based booklovers out there. They have an impressive array of titles, including works by many local authors ✍️

#ForestOfBarkAndBone

Photo of an Indian giant squirrel in Nelliyampathy, Kerala, India. Image credit: aboodi vesakaran (https://unsplash.com/@aboodi_vm)

#DidYouKnow that Indian giant squirrels can grow more than 3 foot long 🐿️

Terry Grimwood author photo

Author Profile for Terry Grimwood. Bio: UK-based Terry Grimwood teaches, acts and directs on the amateur stage, and also sings and plays harmonica with The Ripsaw Blues Band. His first love, however, is writing. He has three published novels, three textbooks and five novellas to his name, as well as numerous short stories in various anthologies and magazines. Piece description: In his Bark & Bone story, Moon Forest, the discovery of a mysterious crystalline forest on our Moon triggers an aggressive space race.

Extract from Moon Forest: Li stood on the summit of the crater wall and stared down at the twinkling tangled mass that filled the basin. Shen and Hao stood on either side of her. She could hear their fast breathing in her suit speaker. She also heard Hao’s shocked expletive. Time was short. Li calculated that they had just over two hours of life support left to them. She signalled the others to follow her down into the crater to the edge of the forest.

Our next shoutout is for BARK & BONE #SpaceCatStar Terry Grimwood.

Terry teaches, acts and directs on the amateur stage, and also sings and plays harmonica with The Ripsaw Blues Band 🎬 🎙️

#ForestOfBarkAndBone

Morning #walk along Grand Union Canal 🌊

Richard Urwin author photo

Author Profile for Richard Urwin. Bio: Richard Urwin is a semi-retired embedded software engineer. When he’s not writing speculative fiction, he is playing role-playing games or programming microcontrollers. He had a non-fiction book on Artificial Intelligence published by Arcturus in 2016 and a short story in Uncharted Constellations published by Space Cat Press in 2020. Piece description: His Bark & Bone poem, ‘Suspended Belief’, contemplates the magic of a simple aspen leaf.

Extract from ‘Suspended Belief’: This morning in the wood an aspen leaf twirled, arrested in its autumnal descent, midway between branch-tip and tranquil earth; a shy ballerina. Perhaps the last fairy, expending power she’d hoarded, condensed all of eternity down to an instant she could hold fast in the palm of her hand.

This morning’s BARK & BONE shoutout is for returning #SpaceCatStar Richard Urwin.

Richard is a semi-retired embedded software engineer who had a story in our UNCHARTED CONSTELLATIONS anthology 🌌 👨‍💻

#ForestOfBarkAndBone