The book will be made up of original and reprinted speculative fiction stories that deal with very provocative themes. These stories will be provocative and/or confronting but with a firm purpose – they are pieces that will perhaps make readers uncomfortable because they are a bit too hard-hitting or close to the bone, but which interrogate these themes and ideas, and make a point about the world we live in.

As with most FableCroft anthologies, there's a bit of a story behind how this book came to be. Multi-award winning author Cat Sparks had asked me for suggestions of where to send a story she was finding difficult to place, due to its confronting nature, and when I read it, my response was: "Darn, I wish I had an anthology in progress to publish it in, because it's AMAZING." I couldn't get the story out of my head over the next few weeks, and then out of the blue, I was offered a small grant to create an anthology to showcase the work of Australian writers. Was I interested? Heck yes!

Very quickly, the idea coalesced into the project, and I started soliciting stories. Several have already been selected, with many more currently under consideration. 

In Your Face will be launched in Brisbane at the Natcon, Contact, in March, 2016. 

Stretch Goal!

Thanks to the grant we received, courtesy of SpecFaction NSW Inc., we have been able to offer payment for original stories of 3 cents per word (up to 5,000 words), and for reprints a flat rate of $50 per piece, for around 12-15 stories. This campaign is designed to expand the number of excellent stories we are able to include in the book by at least five stories.

As our goal is always to pay our contributors what their efforts deserve, our stretch goal once we reach our target will be to increase the amount we are able to pay per story - the aim is to pay pro-rates of 6 cents per word, as per the SWFA guidelines, but we would be pleased to increase the pay rate by any amount. 

All other costs related to creating the book are being met under FableCroft's usual business practices. 

The main potential obstacle will be time. FableCroft has an excellent track record for meeting deadlines, but if unavoidable delays are encountered that make it impossible to launch the book at Contact in March, the launch will be pushed back to be at Continuum in Melbourne in June. 

As an experienced editor and publisher, Tehani is confident of being able to finailise all aspects of the book.