British speculative fiction icons Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane chat with Lauren McMenemy about their latest anthology for the Flame Tree Beyond & Within series, Witch Craft, plus their approach to putting together anthologies and how you, dear writer, could stand out from the submissions crowd.
Watch the full interview over on our YouTube channel.
It’s all our fault—at least, the British Fantasy Society is the reason Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane say they first started working on anthologies. The first was BFS Celebration, back when Marie was BFS Chair (2004-2008) and Paul was Special Publications Editor, and this was followed by some calendars and anthologies, plus work editing Prism and Dark Horizons.
“We just started working together, really,” says Paul. “When we’d done Celebration, we started batting some ideas around. One of them was—because I’m the Hellraiser guy—we thought about doing Hellbound Hearts, an anthology of Hellraiser stories, because Clive Barker has been to Nottingham as Guest of Honour in 2006. And it went from there, really. We just carried on and never stopped.”
In the last 20 years, the dynamic duo has curated a stack of very different speculative anthologies, from an anthology of works inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to the fairytale darkness of Cursed, dipping into Dark Academia with In These Hallowed Halls and These Dreaming Spires, and stepping away from straight horror to bring the romantasy collection The Secret Romantic’s Book of Magic and the Christmas murder mysteries of Death Comes at Christmas. And that’s far from the full batch.
The latest, though, has them back with Flame Tree’s Beyond & Within series, following up their Folk Horror anthology with Witch Craft. It was, they say, an obvious next step after reading the subs for Folk Horror—especially considering the amount of witch-based stories under consideration for that earlier volume.
“Folk horror and, you know, folklore and superstition, a lot of it is to do with wise women, that kind of thing,” says Marie. “One feeds into the other, in a way, so they do become intermingled.”
Adds Paul: “Witchcraft is everywhere at the moment; there are so many witchcraft books and films and things. It’s like that was the next logical thing to do, and it is all connected to folk horror. And we’ve both got an interest in it. I just think that it’s got such a resonance, especially at the moment.”
Especially at the moment: Yes, there’s a reason why tales of people, especially women and other marginalised people, reclaiming their power are proving incredibly popular with readers in this bleak and uncertain world. As Marie says, “it’s an empowering kind of story; it’s women claiming their own power and using it, either to protect themselves or others”. She recommends Tracy Fahey’s recent novella They Shut Me Up—released through Absinthe Books, which Marie leads—for those looking for a strong example of the empowerment possible through witchcraft narratives.
And certainly the tales in Witch Craft feature a helluva lot of feminist rage, as the featured authors—drawn from all over the world and different cultures—reflect these unstable times through magic.
“I think there’s a comfort in revisiting the old at times like these, which takes you into the folklore and traditions and superstitions,” says Marie. “There’s an appeal, and there’s also a form of escapism in the literature like that. The world’s not the nicest place at the moment, and there is a comfort, I think, in escaping into the traditional, even if it’s a modern telling. It’s carrying on the traditional voice, and I think there’s a lot to be said for that.”
Paul refers to our greater awareness in the modern age of why things like the historic witch hunts happened; that we can now “see behind the curtain” and see that “some people are trying to do that again”. It’s the resonance with the world around us that is drawing people to witch tales, too.
“The world is quite a scary place for a lot of people, so there is comfort in that. It’s also wish fulfilment in a way, I suppose. I was talking on a podcast the other day about why horror is having a resurgence, and it’s because it’s a safe scare. You can deal with the monster, you can switch the TV off, you can put the book down and be scared in a safe way. And maybe there’s wish fulfilment in the witchcraft thing as well—if you haven’t perhaps got as much power as you would like in real life.”
Which brings us to Beyond & Within: Witch Craft, which is out next week through Flame Tree Publishing. The table of contents includes such writers as Eugen Bacon, David Barnett, Eliza Chan, Alison Moore, Angela Slatter, Ally Wilkes, and Amanda Mason; each explores what it means to be a ‘witch’, including the rediscovery and reclaiming of that power, its links to nature, and witch mythology form around the world.
As with other Flame Tree collections, too, some of the stories were selected from an open submissions call. With two of the UK’s most famed anthology editors captive, we of course had to ask them for their tips on standing out when submitting to a massive open call like this one. And unfortunately the answer is, it depends.
“You want to have a nice flow,” says Marie, “so when you’re putting it together, it’s theme, it’s story, it’s the writing, it’s length as well. Whether it’s first person, third person, and so on. You want to have a nice flow. But I always say, try and think outside the box. That doesn’t mean think in a mad way—follow the guidelines—but try to think of something that’s not the first thing that comes to mind. Try to think of something that might not have been done before. If you pick up a themed anthology and it’s got, like, 20 stories, things can get a bit samey.”
“It’s kind of an alchemy to it,” laughs Paul.
Marie: “You know whether something’s gelling or not.”
Paul: “And also what you would like to read yourself, what would entertain you?”
Marie: “I like being surprised as well. We always read the whole story, because you never know where something will end up.”
Editing an anthology is like putting together mixtapes back in the day; everything has to fit, everything has to flow, tell the right story. This story, the one of reclaiming power, is one that both editors are still happy to revisit, even after reading and editing and proofing and generally being surrounded by these stories for months and months. How’s that for a sign of the quality awaiting you in its gorgeous pages?
Leave a Reply