CLOISTERFOX ZINE, A BI-ANNUAL ZINE OF BRITISH SPECULATIVE FICTION

21/1/2022

Horror, and weird fiction is in a golden period in terms of the amount of fantastic stuff being produced, it is a joyous time to be in. The latest piece of fantastic news for the genre is the announcement of a new a bi-annual zine of British strange fiction CloisterFox, the brainchild of Verity Holloway, this zine is launching later in the year, and it needs our help to get the ball rolling.

Today we welcome Verity to Ginger Nuts of Horror to talk about what the zine hoopes to achieve and how we can help, as well as some of the perks you can get when you back this project.

Hello! I’m Verity Holloway, a writer and editor in East Anglia.

I’m launching CloisterFox, a bi-annual zine of British strange fiction. Every six months, I aim to release a zine of six captivating, genre-bending short stories in an A5 perfect bound volume, richly illustrated, ideal for throwing in your bag.

Zines are once again having a moment. The pleasure of having a beautiful book to hold and admire is something every reader can relate to. It's long been a dream of mine to host excellent speculative fiction in a beautiful setting. CloisterFox is a wry creature strolling somewhere he shouldn't, lending vivid colour to dreary train journeys and bus stop ennui.

I want to publish stories that creep uninvited along quiet corridors. Stories missed by shoppers hurrying by. Secrets, miracles, universes behind locked tenement doors. Ghosts and gallows. The dress in the attic as seen through a haze of neon. Tell me things I don’t know. Tell me the dreams you can’t forget. Tell me strange things.

What We Need & What You Get

I have the contacts, I have the experience, and I have the time. But CloisterFox can’t get off the ground without money. High quality colour printing is expensive, and I intend to pay all contributors and produce a zine to be proud of, to keep, and to return to. I've costed everything: your support means I can confidently launch the first issue and hopefully also the second, which will be considerably cheaper to make as all the initial branding and templates will be done. I also intend to offer an ebook to maximise accessibility.

By backing this campaign you will be helping to pay:

The six writers in each issue
The graphic designer
Printing
Digitisation
A guest illustrator
My fee as editor
Misc fees like website costs, packaging, online vendor charges etc

If we make more than our target:

All funds that go over target will be ploughed into the next issues of CloisterFox
If we do well, I’ll look at the possibility of paid advertising or the services of a publicist for a day.
Raising a good sum opens up the possibility of little niceties like decorated envelopes, free bookmarks etc in the future.

What do you get? Perks include:

Zines! Both paper and ebook
Beautiful enamel pins featuring the words of the CloisterFox patron saint, Montague Summers: “Tell me strange things.”
Professional story critiques at a bargain price
Your name enshrined in the back of the first issue
A character named after you in Verity Holloway's next novel (no-one too evil)

Who is on board?

For graphic design, we have James Powell of Grey Bear Communications. For editing, we have myself. As for the stories, CloisterFox will be hosting these six superb writers in the first issue:

Dan Carpenter (Year's Best Weird Fiction, Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror)
Ally Wilkes (All The White Spaces)
Natasha Kindred (How The Email Found Me)
Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ (Dazzling)
David Hartley (Fauna, Incorcisms)
Robert Shearman (We All Hear Stories in the Dark)

For more information and to back this fantastic magazine please click here