GRP/FB’s Day of Seconds

Gray Rabbit Publications and Fantastic Books is starting the year off with a bang. And since today is the second of January, it’s a day of seconds: a second edition, a second novel, and a second anthology.

Today is the publication day for the second book in Carren Strock ’s much-loved Coney Island Mysteries series. Start out with two frightened children, their missing mother, a kidnapped nurse, a murderous lawyer, and a stupid henchman. Put them all together, stir in a dose of streetsmart teenager, big-hearted candy store owner, dedicated detectives, and rehabilitated child taker, and you get Who’s Watching the Children? Join Carren Strock’s beloved Detectives Rothman and Cardello, along with clever Moses, to a Coney Island where car thefts, break-ins, and a dead body are the least of their concerns.

Today is also the publication day of the second edition of Sarah Totton’s collection Animythical Tales. Since we’re (finally) making the book available as an ebook, we decided to update the cover and make the interior far more readable for the print book. This “deftly written” (according to the Waterloo Region Record) collection of fantastical tales “speaks to one on an emotional level… Totton’s writing has depth and is multilayered, inviting the reader to explore the deeper meaning of the issues that she covers.” (according to BookPleasures). Tangent Online said simply “the writing… is exquisite, infusing the mundane with magic.… Even when set in what is ostensibly the ‘real’ world, Totton’s writing is gifted with this intangible but lovely quality of transformative fantasia that reminds one of a child’s imagination and perspective (both dark and light), lensed through an adult’s language.… This is a collection worth owning.”

And today, Fantastic Books and editor Michael A. Burstein are pleased to announce the writers’ guidelines—and the opening of the limited submission window—for our forthcoming anthology, Jewish Futures 2. The book will be a stand-alone sequel to our best-selling and much praised Jewish Futures, which was published (after a stunningly successful Kickstarter campaign) in August. At the moment, we’re planning to publish the book right around the Jewish New Year.