Black Static

Allen Ashley appeared regularly in Black Static's predecessor, The Third Alternative, with both fiction and his column "The Dodo Has Landed" (now renamed "Planet Dodo" and relocated to Midnight Street).

In 1997 TTA Press published his critically acclaimed SF/Slipstream novel The Planet Suite, copies of which can still be found in the TTA shop or on Amazon (but we're selling them half price). Other books include two short story collections, Somnambulists (Elastic Press 2004) and Urban Fantastic (Crowswing Books 2006).

For Elastic Press, Allen edited the BFA winning anthology The Elastic Book of Numbers in 2005, and this year finds him once again in contention with the final Elastic anthology, Subtle Edens.

I put some questions to Allen, about his work in general and Subtle Edens in particular.

PT: Okay, while I'll allow that nearly all the stories are subtle, many are far from edenic, so could you tell us where the title Subtle Edens came from and what you hoped to convey by it?

AA: This is something that I touched upon in my introduction to the anthology. The idea behind the title is that many Slipstream stories take place somewhere that I call 'Our world but not quite'. Something is different, common reality has taken a different course, there's a sudden gap, whatever... I could have simply called the book "The Elastic Book of Slipstream" but I wanted to draw on the fact that as SF / Fantasy / Slipstream authors we are all, to a greater or lesser degree, world builders, even if much of what we write looks like commonly agreed reality for most of its course. Hence, Subtle Edens.

PT: Subtle Edens is billed as an 'anthology of slipstream', yet what struck me is that many of the stories (e.g. the Lane, the Fry, the Sutton) would be perfectly at home in horror or SF collections. When selecting stories did you have any 'hard' concept of slipstream in mind that they had to conform to first before receiving further consideration? Did you reject any excellent stories because they were not slipstream?

AA: I never had a 'hard concept' as such but I have very often felt that I'm something of a spokesperson and a keeper of the flame for Slipstream. I often get asked to explain or clarify what is meant by Slipstream. In some ways, that's like trying to define the indefinable. As I mention in my introduction to the book, Slipstream draws on some of the tropes of SF, horror, etc without being constrained by their conventions.

To answer your specific points - firstly, all three of the stories you mention have elements that would get them comfortably into other genre collections; but there comes a point as an editor where a writer offers you a story that is of such high quality that you maybe have to broaden the definition a little because you can't let the piece go. I had to have them. I felt Joel Lane's story was right on the money with its modernity - therefore, it's Slipstream. Dave Sutton's had a confection of green issues and a search for Eden - therefore, Slipstream. Gary Fry's was an amazing concoction of Lovecraftian horrors, mental illness, time travel, etc - therefore Slipstream.

As for rejecting stories which didn't fit my definition - I wasn't looking for vampires, cuddly elves, horror revenge payback tales, space opera and so forth. The story had to feel like a Slipstream piece on some level at least. Whether I turned down anything 'excellent' - I almost certainly must have because it's only ever personal judgement, that's the whole science of it.

PT: Is the running order of stories in the book important to you? What criteria did you apply in deciding what should go where?

AA: Andrew Hook will tell you that the running order of an anthology or a collection is supremely important and something we both agonise over. One wants to create a flow. With me, it's an instinctive thing. I try the stories in all sorts of different orders and move them around - a bit like those picture cards that Simon Cowell uses on The X Factor! Of course, some readers will immediately go for the shortest piece first or a name that they recognise - that's human nature.

I read an interview with Phil the drummer of Radiohead in which he said that their first album Pablo Honey was badly sequenced. That wouldn't happen to them nowadays. The beauty of working for people like Elastic is that as the editor I get final say on all these things, it's not the decision of some marketing manager. There is no marketing manager! It was my decision to place Jeff Gardiner's non-fiction article in the middle of the book and I got some flak for that. But, hey, it's so obvious to put the non-fiction right at the end as an afterthought. This is Slipstream - we do things differently.

PT: How many submissions did you receive and what percentage made it through the various stages of the selection process to acceptance?

AA: I received several hundred submissions. 21 stories plus Jeff's article, my pompous editorial, and a surprise late, bonus inclusion from Nick Royle were all that made it to the final edit.

PT: One of the other BFA contenders in the Anthology category, Cone Zero editor Des Lewis, read submissions anonymously, with the intention that he wouldn't be influenced by the identity of the writer. Do you think this is a good idea? Is it something you would consider in future? Are you at all influenced by a writer's identity? All else being equal, would the byline sway your decision?

AA: I love what Des does and I have supported him from the beginning - after all, I had a story published anonymously in the very first issue of Nemonymous. I am hoping to be judging a story competition within the next couple of years and all the entries for that will be handed to me in a nameless state! I find that I am not at all influenced by a writer's identity or covering letters listing amazing achievements. Shakespeare said, 'The play's the thing' and with me the story's the thing, that's all. Once I get into the fictive world, the piece stands or falls on what it contains and how it affects me, not whether Dan Brown or Jane Austen wrote it.

PT: To what degree are you a 'hands on' editor, asking potential contributors for rewrites and offering guidance?

AA: I am a very 'hands-on' editor. With all the big projects I have done so far - The Elastic Book Of Numbers, Subtle Edens and the forthcoming Catastrophia - there have been stories which required a lot of rewriting to get them to the right form or to fulfil the potential they contained as ideas. I have learnt very quickly that one can't be wishy-washy with writers - one cannot simply say, I'm not sure about this bit or that part doesn't work for me - one has to be quite specific about what is needed to get the story correct.

PT: Has the experience of editing anthologies, looking at submissions from other writers, affected your own writing in any way?

AA: This is something I am always thinking about - whether doing so much editing is making me a better, more analytical writer. But I have always been very self-critical and thoughtful, anyway. Without wishing to sound big-headed, I do sometimes read stories and see people making mistakes that I used to make when I was a less developed writer. One just hopes to keep on learning and improving - as a writer or editor.

PT: What anthologies published over the last five to ten years, excepting those from Elastic, have impressed you?

AA: In truth, I haven't read all that much fiction over the past couple of years because I have gone from one editing project (Edens) straight into another (Catastrophia). I am really looking forward to catching up with the Cemetery Dance anthology The British Invasion which I suspect will sweep the boards at awards time next year. As regards past anthologies, I go further back for my inspiration, particularly to Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions, Judith Merril's England Swings and the Mike Moorcock helmed era of New Worlds and New Worlds Quarterly.

PT: You've written a few stories in collaboration with Elastic publisher Andrew Hook. What do you think are the strengths of such collaborations? How does a Hook/Ashley story differ from an Ashley story? Are there any other writers you would like to collaborate with in this way?

AA: The best part of collaborating with Andrew is that I can have an idea, start a story, and then when I hit the wall at about 750 words I can send it to him and let him do the work for a while. One is always looking for writers who are of a like mind but can bring extra qualities to one's own fiction. Andrew certainly fits that template. I think that many of the Ashley/Hook pieces are quite playful - such as "Air Hockey 3000", which I think is online at the site of our soon to be publisher Screaming Dreams. I have also collaborated with Des Lewis, Tim Nickels, Jason Gould, Andy Humphrey and Douglas Thompson and there are a couple of other possibilities on offer. People only need to ask.

PT: What can we expect to see from you in the near future, with your editor and writer hats on?

AA: I have a new collection of short stories - Once and Future Cities coming out from Eibonvale Press this September. My collection of collaborations with Andrew Hook - Slow Motion Wars is due from Screaming Dreams within the next six months or so. I have also been editing an anthology of catastrophe fiction - Catastrophia - for PS Publishing and that's due in Autumn/Winter 2010. It all sounds like overnight achievement or as if I'm knocking out books left, right and centre but the truth is far from that. Thirty years of hurt to get to this point!

For the near future, I am going to concentrate on my own writing for a while but I do intend to edit again. I've definitely got the bug now.

Thanks for your thought-provoking questions, Pete.