The Interstitial Arts Foundation has posted an interview with me about the Clockwork Phoenix Kickstarter and other things. My thanks to them for lending me a soapbox.

In pursuit of our goal of going pro, we’ve added some new reward levels. Anita and I are offering story critiques at $100 — fair warning, I’m known for brutal honesty when I do these — and we’re also offering a “bag full of books” reward at $125.

And we’ve got another one that’s really special, that I’m really thrilled about. Please forgive me for being long-winded, because it requires a little back story.

Before I edited the Clockwork Phoenix anthologies, I edited another anthology series called MYTHIC. It only had a two-volume run, but wound up being the prototype for what we did with the Clockwork Phoenix books. I had the pleasure of including in the second MYTHIC book a delightfully whimsical little story called “The Immigrant” by a writer named Cherie Priest.

In 2006, when the “The Immigrant” came out, Cherie was in the middle of her Southern Gothic trilogy that begins with Four and Twenty Blackbirds. Three years later she came out with Boneshaker, the book that threw her career wide open, combining the Old West, steampunk and zombies. Cherie was nominated for a Hugo, won a Locus Award and Boneshaker was snatched up for a movie adaptation by Hammer Films.

“The Immigrant” displays the same seamless blend of the historical and the fantastic that marks all Cherie’s work. Here’s how Strange Horizons described the tale’s opening: “An American GI finds a young dragon, injured and alone, in the cellar of a French church during the days following the Normandy invasion.”

I asked Cherie if she’d be willing to let me reprint this story in a special limited, numbered edition just for this Kickstarter and she said yes, and that she’s willing to sign copies too. I then asked regular Mythic Delirium illustrator Paula Friedlander if she’d be willing to create the cover and illustrations, and she’s also on board. Paula works exclusively with paper cutouts; no one’s work in this field looks quite like hers.

So here’s the deal: this special edition signed chapbook of Cherie Priest’s “The Immigrant” brought to life with Paula’s art will be made available only through this Kickstarter. We’ll make as many as we need to fill the orders we receive here and no more. I’ve created a new $45 reward level that adds a pre-order of this book to the pre-order of the paperback edition of the fourth Clockwork Phoenix volume that you get at the $25 pledge level (along with all the accompanying e-books.)

Furthermore, if someone has backed us or wants to back us at one of the reward levels ranging from $50 to $100 and also wants to add “The Immigrant” to their swag, increase your pledge by $20 and it will be yours — I’ll track who does this (or you can e-mail me at mythicdelirium@gmail.com and let me know) and follow up once the Kickstarter closes. If you pledge at one of the levels that gets you listed as a supporter in all our future publications ($125 and up) this chapbook will automatically be included in your bounty.

My heartfelt thanks to Cherie and to Paula for their willingness to make this happen, and a hat tip to Rose Lemberg, who sparked this idea. And thanks again to all the rest of you who’ve backed the project so far, for presenting me with the wonderful problem of how to come with ways to make an already successful Kickstarter even more so.

Posted in Clockwork Phoenix, Editing, Interviews, Kickstarter, Signal boosts