BookNook is here!

I’m thrilled to announce that our BookNook is now live!

In collaboration with The Art Cafe in Whitby (North Yorkshire), we have put together a curated selection of small press books to bring you the very best of lesser-known and innovative literature.

It is our impression that small, independent presses don’t get much attention in big book stores, yet they are busy taking creative risks, supporting challenging works, and translating world favourites into English for the first time. We think such books are a great fit for fans of contemporary art and look forward to drawing them out from the margins and into readers’ hands.

We have installed a bespoke bookcase, designed and made by local blacksmith James Godbold, and it looks fantastic next to the staircase commissioned from the same.

The Art Cafe is open Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm (with possible seasonal variation), and consists of two spacious floors of contemporary art, an espresso bar, and the open studio of textile artist Judith Reece.

In addition to the physical location, all our BookNook books are available to buy from our online store. We offer flat rate shipping within the UK, which means you can buy as much as you like without increasing P&P.

Press News

I am thrilled to announce that Orchid’s Lantern will be publishing Stephen Oram’s latest short story collection next year!

Extracting Humanity is a thought-provoking collection of near-future fiction, inspired by conversations with artists, scientists, and technologists.

Stephen has already had stories featured in our anthologies Vast and Abyss, and his novel Quantum Confessions was one of the very first books to be reviewed on Orchid’s Lantern, so it’s a pleasure to be working with him again.

You can read more about Stephen and his previously published work here.

Dreams

We are busy working on a print edition of our first journal, Dreams, which will be available exclusively on our website and in the Book Nook. We have an awesome line-up of writers, poets, and artists. Another thing to look out for in November!

Book Nook – Coming Soon!

We are excited to announce a new venture in collaboration with The Art Cafe contemporary gallery in Whitby, North Yorkshire.

Book Nook will occupy a beautiful bespoke bookcase in the gallery and feature a curated selection of small press titles to bring you the very best of lesser-known and innovative literature.

Small, independent presses don’t get much attention in big book stores, yet they are busy taking creative risks, supporting challenging works, and translating world favourites into English for the first time. We think such books are a great fit for fans of contemporary art and look forward to drawing them out from the margins and into readers’ hands.

Featuring titles from:

  • 404Ink
  • And Other Stories
  • Chaco
  • Clash Books
  • Dead Ink Books
  • Galley Beggar
  • Inkandescent
  • Lolli Editions
  • Peninsula
  • Prototype
  • Story Machine
  • Tilted Axis Press
  • Valley Press

And more.

We anticipate the launch of Book Nook in November 2022. Watch this space for updates!

In addition, all Book Nook books will be available from our new webstore.


Header Image courtesy of Unsplash.

Press News

I’m thrilled to announce that Orchid’s Lantern will be publishing Mark Bolsover’s debut novel next year!

Notes of a Vanishing Quantity is a Modernist-inspired experiment in psychological realism and prose poetry, so it’s a great fit for the press.

Mark’s work has already featured in Abyss, our second anthology, so it’s a pleasure to be working with him again.

Announcement: New Journal

After listening to your feedback, and considering lessons learned from previous projects, we are pleased to announce a new format for submissions at Orchid’s Lantern. The website will now operate as a quarterly online journal, opening for set periods throughout the year, with a fresh theme every 3 months. There will then be an annual print journal, collecting all accepted submissions from the previous 12 months together with some brand new material from invited authors.

Our first theme is Dreams! Tell us your wildest. Explore the visions, the language, of sleep. Think surreal and peculiar; think repeating motifs and layered metaphor. Imagine a precognitive unconscious, paralysis, waking up in a different land… Surprise us. It’s up to you.

Full details can be found on our Submissions page.

The Internoise by Ellinor Kall

Choices too granular. Illusion of will. Trapped in hyperfreedom. Triage of prayers, conveyers and the ephemeral hellmachine. The gravity of reality distortions. What gains attention gains value. Event currents. Too many zeros multiplying the messages. The manicfacturing of junk thoughts in pursuit of revenue instead of renewal. Pararotting vomitted words to fill in the added gaps. Transsentenced entirely by non-breaking spaces. Carriage makers of reverberating noise. Carpenters as content producers. No nutrition in sawdust. Kids taste everything and numbed adults learn to eat anything. Pointless rumination without stomaching it. Widespread digital coprophagy. The dark ages, the enlightenment, the dazzlingment – so fucking much of everything at once. Lost in formation. Forgetting stars. Every number becomes either null or infinite. Zebra patterns all over reality. The path goes to sephira eleven. Trapped in fiction. We need an anti-thought to this affliction.


Ellinor Kall is a liminal writer who grew up kinda lost among the forests and mountains in northern Sweden. A queer shadow with sparks in between worlds. Born out of emotion and will, glamorized photos and words. Once quoted saying: “I’m not lost, I just don’t know where I am.” Maybe that says it all.

Visit ellinorkall.com for more demi-fictional essays, poetry and ideas.


Header Image Credit: Gareth David via Unsplash.

Abyss: Stories of Depth, Time and Infinity is OUT NOW!

Are we more than the sum of our memories? Does time always pass the same or can it be influenced by thought? What happens to consciousness after death?

This is our second anthology – an exciting mix of horror, science fiction and experimental prose exploring these questions and many more. With contributions from:

William F. Aicher
Jasmine Arch
Mark Bolsover
R. A. Busby
Merl Fluin
Robert Guffey
Ayd Instone
Thomas Kendall
Tomas Marcantonio
David McAllister
Ross McCleary
L. P. Melling
Soumya Sundar Mukherjee
Kurt Newton
Stephen Oram
Nadia Steven Rysing
Vaughan Stanger
Antonia Rachel Ward

Buy now directly from our shop and get free shipping in the UK!

Also available from Amazon (where it is currently #1 in the Hot New Releases for Horror Anthologies), Waterstones, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository and many more.

Want to read it but not ready to buy? Why not add it to your list on Goodreads?

We’d love to know what you think, so please leave a review if you can. We will link to our favourite ones here on the website.

Abyss: Stories of Depth, Time and Infinity

The paperback of Abyss: Stories of Depth, Time and Infinity is now available for pre-order on our shop and the ebook from Amazon. I’m so excited to finally see this come to fruition!

With contributions from:

William F. Aicher

Jasmine Arch

Mark Bolsover

R. A. Busby

Merl Fluin

Robert Guffey

Ayd Instone

Thomas Kendall

Tomas Marcantonio

David McAllister

Ross McCleary

L. P. Melling

Soumya Sundar Mukherjee

Kurt Newton

Stephen Oram

Nadia Steven Rysing

Vaughan Stanger

Antonia Rachel Ward

Book Response: Tomorrow by Chris Beckett

“Tomorrow I’m going to begin my novel.”

Thus begins Chris Beckett’s latest novel, Tomorrow. A single sentence that said so much to me. At once a knowing nod, a jibe, an amusing paradox of sorts. Because I am putting off my novel – if not starting it, at least from tackling it in earnest – and for the same reasons as the protagonist of Tomorrow: I want it to be a novel about everything. It’s unwieldy, it grows in all directions whenever I spend time with it, try to pin it down.

It is the promise of a novel to beat all other novels – ‘chasing a mirage’ – that keeps the protagonist (and me) producing, exploring; and yet it is also what keeps us dissatisfied. The feeling is one.

Sometimes I wonder whether it will always be the case that I will have ‘the novel’ looming over me, the MacGuffin that keeps me moving, but that the real body of work is what happens incidentally in the peripheries. The preparation, the experimentation, the spin-offs and the alternate takes. Often the most interesting things happen by accident or on whims, so doing something wonderful on purpose can seem like a futile pursuit.

Continue reading “Book Response: Tomorrow by Chris Beckett”

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