Theric and I are pleased to announce nine more works — and the final set of works — that we will be including in Monsters & Mormons. Everyone who has submitted should now have a decision in hand. If not, email us. But I’m pretty sure we’ve replied to all of our ~70 submitters. Thanks again to all those who sent something in. It was fun reading everything, and we do wish we could find a way to accommodate every work. But editing time and page count and the parameters of the anthology mean we had to make choices. Some tough ones even.
And so we made them. And here are the final nine acceptances:
- The poem “Water Spots” by Terresa Mae Wellborn — the kind of poem that gets under your skin. And then thrashes around.
- The short story “Pirate Gold for Brother Brigham” by Lee Allred — A classic ghost tale featuring Brigham Young and the Great Salt Lake.
- The short story “Bokev Momen “by D. Michael Martindale — Mormonism filtered through the eyes of aliens to humorous effect. Although how the abducted Mormon feels about that “humor” we shall not comment upon.
- The novelette “Allow Me to Introduce Myself” by Moriah Jovan* — A demon-fighting Mormon nun with some nifty gadgets.
- The short story “The Mission Story” by Bryton Sampson — What happens when your weird mission companion has a bit of the mad scientist in him?
- The short story “Bichos” by Erik Peterson — Newlywed couple. The Amazon. Old stories of scary beasts. (And then the fun starts.)
- The short short story “A Letter from the Field” by James Paul Crockett — the first letter home from an elder assigned to quite the unusual field of work.
- The short story “Baptisms for the Dead” by Christopher Birkhead — a missionary companionship keeps working through a zombie apocalypse.
- The short story “Out of the Deep I Have Howled unto Thee” by Scott M. Roberts — A haunted motorcycle in the Utah desert.
For those keeping track that brings us to 29 works and 30 contributors. Depending on how edits go, the whole thing will end up being between 160,000 and 175,000 words (not counting bios/forewords/afterwords). All of it Mormony, Monsterish goodness. We’ll keep you updated. And now, it’s off to work.
*So in the interest of full disclosure, Moriah Jovan will be doing the layout and formatting on the book. She also runs the publishing concern of which Peculiar Pages is an imprint. I can tell you that neither she nor Theric gave me any pressure on accepting the story, and they both know that I would have had no problem rejecting it. But I do like it, and it does fill a need — so it’s going in.
Theric would like to add that, in fact, no one was more enthusiastic about this story than William. Moriah considered withdrawing it and I was about to let her but William refused. And he was right. This story — like every other story listed in today’s announcement — fills a vital need. And now, finally, we feel complete. And boy oh boy but are these tales going to slap you around. Cue your excitement.
A Motley Vision 
Really looking forward to this. The world needs WAY more Mormon stories along these lines.
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Thanks, Chris. I can guarantee you will not be disappointed.
Really looking forward to this. Especially Moriah’s piece. The summary sounds great. And Lee Allred’s piece. And, well, everyone’s pieces…
So what’s the timeline on this? Out by this coming Christmas? Y’all need to start planning *now* to get together a panel/mass book signing/etc. for next year’s LTUE. Hey! Maybe there could be a “monsters” theme for next year’s LTUE? Someone should contact the organizers…
And let me just say again that I think it’s really, really cool that you’re doing this. Cool. Really.
Originally, I think we said Oct. 1, but I’ve since been convinced that we can’t pass up the obvious. The launch will be Oct. 31, 2011.
Also: I know I doth protest too much — but as I mentioned in previous posts, we purposefully mixed things up with the acceptances so that even though we announced them in phases, it’s clear that it’s not in some sort of ranking. There are works here in this list that may very well be your favorites of the anthology.
Yay! I can finally tell people!
Thanks, Jonathan. It was way out of my genre and totally fun to write. It needs much fixing.
Dude, it’s about the clothes. It’s ALWAYS about the clothes.
::gets fix-it tool chest ready::
(actually my sister is getting married this weekend so it won’t be this week)
I am very excited to read the Bryton Sampson story. He’s a great writer, but I haven’t yet read any of his fiction.
This is fabulous news, glad I can let the cat out of the bag (at last) after so much thrashing!
WM–
Why not release it on Oct 1 so people have plenty of time to read it in the Halloween spirit? Releasing a book like this on Halloween technically puts it just in time for Thanksgiving.
Thoughts?
We have all sorts of thoughts, Graham. Probably too many. We’ll have to see what we eventually settle on in terms of the marketing plan. But trust me, we’ll get you in spirit for Halloween no matter when it is officially published. 😉
PS–these sound awesome. I’m majorly jazzed for this book. Gonna promote it hard.
These sound wonderful–I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product.
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I feel warm inside. Don’t know if it’s camaraderie or just this darn chestworm’s vomit.
I’m kind of disappointed that no one came up with a story called “The Space Doctrine.”
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Well. I hope you’ll take that as a personal challenge should there be a next time.
Consider this another vote that there be a next time.
Can’t wait for this.