The Welcome: and other Sci-Fi stories is the full working title of my next anthology.

Unless you hail from another planet, you’ll be aware that apart from reading widely, I also try writing various genre. I believe all creative writers should attempt both the reading and writing of different genre. I feel it gives a greater appreciation of the craft if we step out of our comfort zone.

Just as the collection will be, I decided to produce an experimental cover. I wanted something that would at least fit as a working model prior to publication. Please note, there are no space ships, men in big white suits, or alien beings on the cover.

As I’ve done with my other anthologies, I’m aiming to produce at least 12 stories.

There is a major difference with this collection, because I am inviting stories from guest authors. As things stand, I have eight stories written by me. Three of those appear in other collections, but the other five are new and at various stages of completion.

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My aim is to have at least four stories from guest authors whose names will appear on the front cover.

Guidelines for anyone interested:

1.  Guest authors should be members of the Indie Author Support and Discussion group on Facebook.**

2.  Stories must be a maximum of 3,500 words.

3.  Stories should be completed to final edit and submitted to me by 31st December 2015. (If there is interest and the timing is too tight, I’ll be happy to extend the deadline).

4.  Copyright will remain with individual authors for their stories.

5.  Any author who contributes will have the opportunity to include a short bio (50 words), and tw0 hyperlinks of their choice added after their story.

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Who has already expressed interest?

At the present time I have offers of stories from:  CI Lopez**,   WK Tucker, and Senan Gil Senan. One more guest will fill my minimum 12 story quota, but if there were other interested authors I would be happy to increase the number of tales.

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When is the target publication date?

I had originally intended to complete formatting and publish before end December 2015, but I am now of the opinion that it would be a good boost for all concerned to publish early in January 2016.

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Where did the title come from?

I’m a great believer in a title performing more than one task, and the role of a title for an anthology is vitally important.

As I normally do, I checked my titles against Amazon’s lists and found that all eight were heavily represented. I changed one of my stories to The Welcome. It is both original in terms of Amazon listings, and a perfect fit for the particular story. I like to think that it also makes a neat invitation to prospective readers.

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If you would like to be involved in this collection and can meet the guidelines, please get in touch.

As always, I thank you for reading, and would appreciate any feedback.

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**I reserve the right to make one exception to the rule regarding IASD membership. CI Lopez is working on a debut anthology, and I believe a guest appearance alongside previously published authors will be helpful.

Tom