Here’s One For The Folkloric Fantasy Fans!

Attention folklore and fantasy lovers! There’s a wonderful Kickstarter campaign underway featuring a lot of BFS members, and we wanted to draw your attention to it.

Whispers in the Earth: World Folklore Reimagined is an enchanting anthology where ancient tales bloom anew, featuring a short story from Fantasycon 2024 Guest of Honour Stephen Ayran and many more British Fantasy Society members.

The book includes twenty captivating short stories inspired by myths and legends from around the globe, each one a fresh take on a timeless tradition, and has been called a “collector’s dream come true”. In partnership with the Broken Binding, there are limited special editions available.

Hand-printed linocut illustrations by writer and artist Gabriela Houston breathe life into every fantastical world with a unique work of art, carved into lino, inked and printed by hand – see the examples below, or head over to Gabriela’s Instagram account to see how she’s been creating these.

Says Gabriela: “Whispers in the Earth is a fully illustrated anthology of 20 short stories inspired by word folklore. It’s written by a collective of writers seeking inspiration from how the ancient stories can travel, grow and acquire new meanings along the way.

“As an artist and writer and I have always felt that books should be made beautiful, if at all possible. And so the anthology is illustrated throughout with my linocut print. The partnership with The Broken Binding allows us to really elevate the concept and create beautiful book finishes for our backers.

“Throughout, this has been a labour of love, and it means so much to see the love and the support this project has already received.”

Featured authors include a who’s-who of folkloric speculative fiction:

• Stephen Aryan
• Melanie Bell
• Jeremiah Brown
• Matthew C. Brown
• Eliza Chan
• Sarah J. Daley
• Jan Edwards
• David Elikwu
• Tracy Fahey
• Genevieve Gornichec
• Dan Hanks
• Caroline Hardaker
• Helen Harradine
• Sam Horton
• Gabriela Houston
• Nadia Idle
• Shannon Ives
• Teika Marija Smits
• Rachael Twumasi-Corson
• Sophia Vahdati

Get full details of the Kickstarter – already so close to its fundraising goal just one day after launch! – over here, and be sure to follow all the writers involved on your social media platform of choice.