Episode 15: Darkest of Winters
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Hello, my beautiful Cinnabar Moths or any kind of moth you want to be. I’m so excited today because we’re going to be talking about the winter anthology, which is my love child, my brainchild. It was my project at the press and I, I got to run it basically by myself because we do everything by committee. And this wasn’t done by committee, I got to make all of the decisions myself. And then of course, I shared them with the team and made sure there weren’t any big objections. And the team was pretty, pretty excited about it. And I’m pretty happy about it, which made me excited and happy. So the winter, the winter anthology is divided into two parts. It’s the Coldest Christmas and the Darkest of Winters. And I’m going to talk about the dark – the Darkest of Winters, because Halloween just passed. And so that’s what’s on my mind. And, ah, man, the stories are so good. I’m in love with each and every single story in the Darkest of Winters. So I’m not going to name any particular story. And I’m not going to give away the list that the story is appear in, but rather than going to talk about the overall feelings and overall themes that will be in the stories and try to not give any spoilers. So that’s always fun. The reason I’m not doing the list and order of the stories is because you can go check us out on Twitter. And we have that list available there. And it’s also available on the website at CinnabarMoth.com. And I don’t think that’s as interesting as talking about the vibe. And the vibe is dark. It really is. And I was hoping when I put out the open call that the stories would all be dark. But I was open to whatever the authors wanted to write. And basically the prompt was send a winter theme story. That was the entire prompt. And just by a twist of luck, we just have the most deliciously dark and twisted stories. The content notes on this… they cover everything like every content note you’ve ever read, applies to these stories. They are seriously dark, even the ones with a really playful kind of – so some of the fantasies ones are kind of playful in parts. But they have their darkness too. And that’s really exciting to me to have playfulness. And then all of a sudden, just wow, that got really dark really fast. Some of the stories I’m like, huh, because I know the author some of some of the authors that we’ve published their books. They also sent in stories for the anthology. And one in particular, I was reading the story and I was like, this is completely different than what I was expecting the author to turn in based on the book that we have published, which is exciting. And then it’s like, huh, this is a really a dark story. It’s more austere. And then bam, it got twisted. It just went left and stayed left, and I loved it. I really did. And a lot of the stories are like that, where you’re just like cruising along. It doesn’t seem to be that bad. And then we’re having it’s just dark. Like you know, you’re just like cruising down the street. I don’t know if you’ve ever like hung out at night. And all of a sudden you’re like, where’d the sun go? Like I miss the sunset and it is just pitch dark now. And that’s really the feeling of the darkest winter. It is – they are dark. They are really dark, which is really exciting to me. I love dark fantasy. I’m a huge fan of dark fantasy. And I’m a huge fan of – like in Pixies in the Mist, how it’s dark Pixies. For me, I’ve never been a fan of like the whimsical fae I’ve always been a fan of when we go into that realm of fantasy when they’re dark and twisted and angry and violent.
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For me, that was really exciting. And when people were asking like can we send horror is horror, okay. And I was like, Oh, yes, please. And we have Have some horror, like it is straight up horror, and it is so good. It’s so good. But it’s blood drenched, blood soaked. And that’s really exciting to me. And we have another horror story that’s just twisted. It is just from the beginning, it’s twisted. And the end is so twisted and shocking and surprising. Like I thought I knew what the end was going to be. And then it wasn’t what I thought it ended in a surprising way. And that was really exciting. A lot of them. Just like I said, Turn left. And for me, what that means is, I’m walking down the street, and all of a sudden, I noticed, I think I’m walking, right and then all of a sudden, I notice I’m walking left. And a lot of stories have that surprise ending. So Delicious and shocking news, like I didn’t see the story going here. And some of the stories, they feel really peaceful uncomfortable, like a warm blanket, and then all of a sudden, wham, the blankets just ripped off of you and you’re left feeling freezing cold, emotionally, and then others are just dark, right out the gate. And that goes for the literary fiction that we have in there. The fantasy that we have, and the horror that we have. So it’s a really good mix. And the contemporary fiction that we haven’t there were some of the stories start off in a really unassuming way. And really do a great job of building and building suspense and curiosity. What where’s this going? What, what does this mean? And I think it’s really cool that a lot of the stories have sort of a moral tale to them. But they’re still just really fun, great stories. And if you take a second reading of them, you’re like, wow, okay, that’s actually really deep, and has a really cool message. And that was exciting for me, discovering that. And discovering that message. while still being told a really great story. It was never the stories, none of the stories are preachy. None of the stories come straight at this is our point. All of the stories make their point while still encompassing, great storytelling and great world building, and everything that we love about stories, right? Everything that we want, we want to be entertained at the end of the day. And I think all of them are really entertaining. And the writing level is really even there aren’t. There may be stories that stand out for you based on your preference and storytelling. But for me, I felt like the way that I put them together. I felt like there was a nice flow. And I don’t feel like the anthology is building to anything that’s not it’s not that type of anthology. I feel like it’s a smooth ride through darkness, and dismay, and levels of peril. Because the stories are just so perilous from the word go, like they come out of the gate being seriously dark, like the first paragraph is like okay, buckle in. This is going to be a dark and twisted journey. And fun. If you’re a horror or horror fan it just tons and tons of fun horror, and a few like dark pixies and dark magic tons and tons of dark pixies and dark magic and if you like dark stories that don’t take themselves too seriously. We do have quite a few of those two couple in particular that I’m thinking of made me chuckle That made me feel bad inside for laughing like I shouldn’t think this is funny, but it was hilarious to me. And it’s it’s dark humor you know? So we do have some dark humor in there a couple of stories really funny. And we have a few stories that are also just really sad. My make you want to cry sad kind of stories where just breaks your heart. And I find that having the heartbreak and heartache in there with the horror and the dark fantasy. I
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feel like there’s a good balance and the way that I put the stories together i It wasn’t just bam bam bam heartbreak after heartbreak after heartbreak. I intermix the heartbreak stories throughout and for me, it just feels really balanced. So y’all might not agree. If you pick up the anthology, feel free to come back to this video and be like I disagree with you. And that’s completely fine. You can pick up your free arc of the anthology three books on sirens, and, you know, check have added on could read, say what you say express yourself. I love reviews, good reviews, bad reviews. For me, I think our reviews are good review, because it gives me a chance to learn and grow as someone who this was my first anthology that I’ve ever put together. And that very exciting for me. And it is to my taste and my preferences. And my taste is really dark. And finding, I actually had to send stories back and saying I’m sorry, the stories too happy. There’s not any place for it. They’re just sweet, lovely winter stories. But they came in on the last day. And I found that really to be interesting that all of the dark stories, and twisted stories, and stories of manipulation and betrayal. All those stories came in really early. And I found the closer that we got to the deadline, the happier the stories got. And I don’t know if the authors were feeling like happiness will will sell the story. I kind of felt like there hadn’t really looked at or paid attention to what we were saying we were collecting in a story because we did lots of tweets on Twitter while we were doing the process to share what the stories were about. And all of them are dark. There’s, they’re they’re happy for now stories with some of the endings. But most of the endings aren’t happy endings, most of the endings are satisfying. I found all of the endings myself to be satisfying. I didn’t feel like there were any cliffhangers. I do feel like some of the stories could be made into books. And, you know, as a publisher, you hope when you get a really great short story that that author will be like, hey, if I wrote a, if I turn this into a book, would you publish it? And we did have that happen with one of the stories, which is really exciting. And I hope it happens with more of them. Because the authors are just so amazing. And I think just a wonderful, impressive lineup of authors for myself, when I saw them, and I was looking at things like oh, man, they’re so good. They’re just so good. And I know I’m gushing and to my own horn, but if I don’t too well is my thinking. But I really hope that you guys check out the anthology and that, you know, pick up your free art get up books around or wait until it comes out in December. And, you know, pick up a copy can wherever good books are sold. That’s also pointed. Like if you don’t care in the anthology, you’re not selling good books. It comes out on Tuesday, December 7. And hope you like what you read. Strap in, get ready. Thank you so much for checking out our YouTube channel. Feel free to check us out on Twitter at cinnabar moth pub. And that’s our only social media. We’re here on YouTube and Twitter. And that’s it. And we hope to you know, we hope if you liked this video that you give it a like, smash the subscribe button and leave a comment. Let us know what you’re thinking or hit us up on Twitter. Thanks for your time and we’ll talk to you again next week in a couple of weeks. Talking to you in a couple of weeks got a surprise for you next week. I’m not gonna spoil what it is. Bye