Flame Tree Publishing Launches New Imprint Focused on “Fiction Without Frontiers”
FLAME TREE PRESS SETS OUT TO BRING AWARD-WINNING AUTHORS & ORIGINAL VOICES IN SF&F, HORROR & CRIME FICTION TO THE FOREFRONT OF TODAY’S POP CULTURE LANDSCAPE
For over twenty-five years, Flame Tree Publishing has been a widely regarded, on-trend, and commercial independent publisher of books and gifts. Founded by Nick Wells (formerly of HarperCollins), with a New York editorial office and headquartered in London, England, Flame Tree’s many successes include partnerships with prestigious museums, galleries, and licensors, such as Washington’s National Gallery of Art, Tate, and the V&A.
In 2014, the company launched a hugely popular original range of Gothic Fantasy Deluxe anthologies combining new and classic writing. The series has been particularly successful in the United States, driven by thousands of submissions from a new generation of writers.
Spurred on by the dedicated, engaged, and rapidly growing community of short story readers, in September 2018, Flame Tree Publishing will officially launch Flame Tree Press: an imprint providing a first-class home for the very best in today’s sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and crime fiction.
Led by Wells and New York City-based executive editor Don D’Auria (formerly of Leisure Books for twenty-five years and Samhain Publishing’s horror program for six), Flame Tree Press’ mandate is to bring award-winning authors and original voices to the forefront of today’s pop culture landscape. “We seek to entertain the mobile generation,” shares Wells. “To work with, not strive against, the Netflix and box set phenomenon which has highlighted the huge fascination in the genres we love to publish.”
Flame Tree Press’ debut catalog features thirteen full-length novels in the SF&F, horror, and crime genre spectrum, with 2018 releases including six titles set for September, three in October, two in November, and two in December. Their frontlist includes:
- Two highly anticipated new novels — THIRTEEN DAYS BY SUNSET BEACH [September 2018] and THINK YOURSELF LUCKY [November 2018] — from several-time World Fantasy Award and Stoker Award -winning author Ramsey Campbell. Campbell’s work has been recognized by luminaries Guillermo del Toro (“an absolute master of modern horror”), Stephen King (“better than good”), and Alan Moore (“Britain’s greatest living horror writer”), and A-list publications including The Washington Post (“a powerful, original writer”) and Publishers Weekly (“unsurpassed in the subtle manipulation of mood”).
- Prolific author Tim Waggoner’s new dark fantasy novel THE MOUTH OF THE DARK [September 2018] — hot on the heels of his 2017 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction win.
- THE TOY THIEF [October 2018] — a thoroughly original and unforgettably spooky supernatural thriller from Tennessee author D.W. Gillespie, one of Flame Tree Press’ most exciting up-and-coming “original voices.”
- A new contemporary supernatural haunted house horror novel — THE SIREN AND THE SPECTER[September 2018] — from American writer and “original voice” Jonathan Janz, whose work has been lauded by top genre contemporaries including Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Bryan Smith, and Ronald Kelly and received industry acclaim from the likes of Booklist, Library Journal, and Cemetery Dance.
Coinciding with a significant change in U.S. trade representation in Baker & Taylor, the launch of Flame Tree Press represents an exciting new direction for Flame Tree Publishing, rooted in love of the genre and existing connections with the audience.
“While horror films and television shows are more popular than ever (see Get Out, The Shape of Water or Stranger Things), larger publishers have fallen behind in publishing horror fiction,” D’Auria shares. “By their very nature, the larger houses are slower to adapt, to face trends and to provide what readers want now, not two years ago. Of course, there are small presses that can deliver books to a select audience, often collectors and hard-core fans, but Flame Tree Press will be able to get behind the books we publish with marketing, publicity and advertising in ways that no small press can, coupled with the maneuverability and agility of a small press. In a sense, the best of both worlds.”
Wells continues: “Reading is essential to intellectual growth and mental stability, but genre publishing in particular performs an essential pressure valve of escapism in a stressful modern society.
“The thirst for great stories, the notion of the darkness beyond and around, the mysterious, the unseen, is as powerful as it was in the cradle of civilization five thousand years ago. And without Shelley, Poe, Wells, Lovecraft and the like (those giants with broad shoulders), the popular works of Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, Margaret Atwood, J.J. Abrams, and Guillermo del Toro, and the rise of streaming TV simply would not exist.
“At Flame Tree we have a tradition of combining the ancient and the modern, particularly with our Gothic Fantasy series of short stories. Now, with the launch of Flame Tree Press, we focus on that pure stream of new fiction, and introduce the next generation of Fiction Without Frontiers.”
ABOUT FLAME TREE PRESS: FLAME TREE PRESS is the trade fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing, with editorial offices in both New York and London, publishing globally in the English language, in print, ebook and audio formats, with a focus on excellent writing in horror and the supernatural, crime and mystery thrillers, and science fiction and fantasy. FLAME TREE PRESS aims to explore beyond the boundaries of the everyday, finding new pathways for the imagination, with tales both from award-winners and original voices. FLAME TREE PRESS’ first list includes Bram Stoker award winners Ramsey Campbell, Tim Waggoner and John Everson, the highly-rated Jonathan Janz, the phenomenal Hunter Shea and many up-and-coming writers such as Brian Trent, David Tallerman and Robin Triggs. Learn more about FLAME TREE PRESS at https://www.flametreepress.com/ and connect on Twitter and Facebook: @FlameTreePress.
