Recapitulation and Revenant Revenge

After a brief recap of some recent happenings in the land of Chuffed Buff Books we'll move on to the subject of revenant revenge, but for those of you who can't wait for your ghostly fix, feel free to scroll down!

Between the launch of new poetry e-zine, Kigo: Seasonal Words Four-monthly Poetry (free to download here) and taking part in the A to Z Challenge, April is proving to be a busy month indeed!

And, in light of National Poetry Month (in the UK it's October but we appreciate the customs of other locales to hold it in April!) we've been running 99p promotions of the kindle editions of Journey to Crone and Cities: A Book of Poems. The paperback edition of Journey to Crone is also currently on sale at £4.99. Whether your penchant is for haiku, women's poetry, or verse on the city, the above titles are packed with intriguing poems written by a talented group of poets! Or, if you're looking to mix poetry with the visual and a spot of short fiction, look no further than Sunday Snaps: the Stories, an eclectic collection that combines the lot and sends profits to charity (Details here).

Submissions are now rolling in for our two current projects - which couldn't be  more different from each other. There is the call for submissions of summer haiku, tanka and haiga for the next issue of Kigo, and then for our next print anthology, Tales of Mystery, Suspense and Terror, there's a call for short fiction styled in the theme of the 19th century ghost story. If you haven't already sent your submission in, not to worry, there's still time! Short story writers take note; the deadline for ghostly tales is 31 May. For haiku aficionados, the deadline for the Kigo summer issue is 13 June. If you're feeling stuck for words be sure to pop over to the kigo a day page for a collection of suggestions that might help get the ideas flowing!

Finally, in case you missed it, here's a brief recap and links to the first half of the April A to Z Challenge:

• 'Ambience & Artful Apostrophe'
• 'Brief Blurb on the Baneful Banshee'
• 'Cracking Characterisation'
• 'Day of the Dead'
• 'The E's of Editing'
• 'F is for Favourite Phantom'
• 'Ghosts, Graves, Guides & Gadabouts'
• 'H for a Haunting Tale by Henry James'
• 'I is for Ikiryo, Interlude & Inaugural Too!'
• 'J for James...M R James'
• 'K is for Rudyard Kipling'
• 'L for Literary Le Fanu'
• 'Mapping your Manuscript'
• 'N for Nathaniel Hawthorne'
• 'Otherworldly Orb' 
• 'P for Poe'
• 'A Quirky Quattro of Quick Quintessentials to Quash the Quasi-Quagmire...'

 Now moving on to the more fitting and ghostly topic of revenants by P Michaelson!

Today's blog follows from our previous post 'F for favourite phantom' and, as promised, will focus on my personal favourite phantom, the revenant! The term revenant is derived from the Latin reveniens meaning 'to return' and is derived from European folklore dating from the Middle ages. Such folklore detailed accounts of ghosts or animated corpses which were believed to have returned from the dead. In most depictions the revenant is described as having returned in order to seek revenge.

The premise of an angry spirit returning from the netherworld to take revenge upon the living seems like speculative gold and there are numerous examples of tales which employ this theme. The malignant figure described in The Mezzotint by M. R. James bears the hallmarks of a revenant. Albeit modern, the novel Ghost story by Peter Straub is another superb example and if you haven't read this book, I strongly recommend it. The movie The Crow, starring Brandon Lee, is a cinematic version of a revenant tale detailing the actions of a corpse which has risen from death to exact brutal vengeance upon his murderers. Lastly, recent press releases indicate that there will be a Leonardo DiCaprio movie scheduled for release in autumn 2015 entitled The Revenant, which is based upon real events involving the fur trapper Hugh Glass.

So if you are considering submitting a story to our current callout but are still working out the details, we hope you may find this post regarding revenants most inspirational!

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This blog post was written in the spirit of the April 2014 A-Z Challenge whereby a post is written every day during the month of April (with the exception of Sunday). The theme of each post is meant to correspond with a letter of the alphabet in sequential order. Tomorrow's blog is on S. For details and to visit the A-Z Challenge website, click here.