The Concept

Times are hard. Perhaps not quite hard enough for Arthur to awaken from his long sleep, but other characters from mythology and history may still be here to lend a hand.

Are you having trouble with an unscrupulous landlord? Is your community being threatened by a multi-national corporation? Does some bureaucrat from London want to close a local factory or school?

When threatened, Welsh communities come together in solidarity, and if the community needs help, someone else might lend a hand. That might be one of Arthur’s knights, or a helpful saint. It could be one of the fair folk, a dark little coblyn from the mines, or even a monstrous giant. They are all still here, and ready to help out in our time of need.

The Project

They are Still Here (Maen Nhw Yma O Hyd) will be an anthology of contemporary fantasy tales of resistance and resilience. The threats will be very modern, but the resolution will contain a hint or more of the fantastic.

We haven’t commissioned any stories yet. That’s because we are relying on you to help us raise enough money to pay really good rates. We will open submissions once the campaign is over and we know how much we can afford to pay.

We do have a cover lined up. It features Gwydion the Sorcerer from The Mabinogion, and was created by the amazing Josh Arklin whose Welsh-themed game, WOAD, was Kickstarted here, and whose art also decorates our campaign page.

The Book

They are Still Here will be released as an eBook, a paperback and a hardcover. As with all of our hardcovers, the cover will feature an unadorned version of the cover art as well as the usual dust jacket.

All of our eBooks are DRM free, so you can load them onto your preferred reading device. If you have an old Kindle and need a Mobi version rather than an ePub, let us know.

We are aiming to include 15 stories of up to 7,000 words each. We have no authors lined up yet, because people’s willingness to submit will depend heavily on how much we are paying per story. The more money we raise here, the more we will be able to pay the authors in advance, and the better quality stories you will get.

In terms of story type, we are happy with most forms of science fiction and fantasy, though the stories do need to be set in the present day.

We will not accept stories written with the aid of Large Language Models or other such “AI” tools,  nor will we use any such tools in the creation of the book.

Visit the Kickstarter here for more information!