No Spider Harmed in the Making of this Book
edited by Cherry Potts
Inspired by Lady Hale and her spider brooch, we realised we were coming up to our 8th Anniversary in August 2020. What better way to celebrate than with a book of Spider related stories and poems?

read a sample

978-1-909208-93-3 8th August 2020 198X129mm 144 pages ANTHOLOGY Short fiction/poetry

£9.99

Poems from
Chris Cantu
Daisy Bassen
Elizabeth Ditty
Emma Lee
Eugene Goldin
Federica Santini
Hugh Findlay
Jennifer A McGowan
Jennifer Rood
Joanne L M Williams
Kate Foley
Mark Heathcote
Natalie Rowe
Sarah Lawson
Seth Crook
Stella Wulf
Tracy Davidson
Tricia Knoll

Stories from
Amy Rothermel
Carolyn Robertson
Claire Wearne
Daniel Olivieri
David Mathews
Elizabeth Hopkinson
Guy Russell
Helen Morris
Jackie Taylor
J. A. Hopper
Katherine Wagner
Margaret Crompton
Maria Kyle
Martha Nance
Patty Tomsky
Peter Donahue
Phoebe Demeger

Eight years ago, when I started Arachne Press, I was searching for a suitable name, and came up with a short-list of 5 – I wanted something that felt like it had some history, and a strong female statement of intent. I sent that list of 5 to everyone I knew who had anything to do with publishing – authors, creative writing tutors, librarians, publishers, printers… opinion was fairly evenly divided, then someone came back saying anything but Arachne because I hate spiders and other people who hate spiders won’t buy the books; and I thought Really? Really?? and being of a contrary nature, that made my mind up for me. Arachne was on the list in the first place because we wanted out website to be integral, and because as I writer myself I often use spinning and weaving as a metaphor in my writing and as a metaphor for writing; and because one of my very first published stories was Arachne’s Daughters which tells the story of a talk given by a spider (in semaphore) at an archive meeting of the Arachno-Lesbian league, 13 years after the revolution…

Fast forward seven years and watching the historic judgement of the Supreme Court in rejecting the legality of the prorogation of Parliament, I was entranced by Lady Hale’s spider brooch, and texted my partner, who as outside the court, It’s going to be alright she’s wearing a spider. A completely illogical response, but as I turned off the TV and went back to my desk I thought, time for a spider anthology, and Oh! Its our eighth anniversary next August!

I was not expecting many stories and poems, and was resigned to publishing a slim volume of eight poems and eight stories, and possibly including Arachne’s Daughters, but no! This was the biggest response we’ve ever had to a call out, despite my strictures to avoid horror, and that no spider should die; except, perhaps, heroically. So thank you to all those writers who upheld my faith in human nature and thank you to Lady Hale for giving me the nudge to celebrate spiders properly.