Announcing: Nature Fights Back

Hello Funny People,

Apologies for this extra post, but I have one final publication announcement for this year of 2023. And it's one that's going to help a good cause. (Don’t worry, I'll keep this brief.)

Next Wednesday, December 13th 2023, a long in-progrsss anthology will finally see the light of day. The writing cohort that brought you The New Normal in 2021 and In All Our Forms last year, under Nikki Mitchell's guiding hand, will release a third compendium titled Nature Fights Back. Like the two previous books, Nature is a themed anthology, every sale of which will go to support a deserving charitable organization agreed upon by all parties involved.

This go-around, Nikki challenged each of us to write a story centered on the broad theme of "nature fighting back," stories of the natural world reclaiming what once belonged to it in some way. Beyond a word count limit of 10k, we had few limits on what we could do—which, in hindsight, may have been a mixed blessing. 

Those of you who've followed this blog over the last year will recall that I had a lot of trouble writing a story on this theme. There were at least three failed story starts that failed to grow legs on me. As the July deadline loomed, I honestly thought I'd have to bow out of the project. 

That is, until, my story "Our Roots Are Stretching Far and Deep," came to me. 

The story of a forest desiring revenge on those who'd put it to the torch came to life on me, and I was ever so grateful it did. Now it, along with a TOC of many other great stories—some comic, some dramatic, some somewhere in between—will go live.

As I mentioned before, Nature is a charity anthology, so every sale of this book will go to a charity we feel is deserving of support. In this case, for each copy of Nature sold for the first two yeara following its publication next Wednesday, every dollar will go to support The Rainforst Trust. Everyone involved thought it fitting, given how many trees will go to make this book available in print. 

Finally, I personally want to assure anyone who purchases this book upfront that not one word in its pages, nor one line of its cover art, was made using either Large Language Models (aka LLMs), such as ChatGPT, or AI "Art" Generators, like OpenArt. This anthology is 100% Human-made, and everyone involved can confirm that.

I hope you'll consider purchasing this title when it becomes available. You'll not only be supporting a good organization, but you'll be getting a beautiful book with great stories in it as a bonus.

— IMC 🙃