I am pleased to announce that my story, ‘We are the Clay’, will appear in this anthology in Autumn 2019, with Calque Press.

The cover has been designed by Vince Haig, who has also created our logo: an iceberg is an iconic image of the fight against climate change; it also represents the small percentage of visible voices available in translation. At present, independent presses are effecting real change in the visibility of translated literature. Calque would like to join this ever-growing community of projects committed to creating bridges between different readerships and cultures.

Our first project, An Invite to Eternity. Tales of Nature Disrupted, takes its cue from John Clare to address the most pressing issue humanity is facing: anthropogenic climate change.  Edited by Gary Budden and Marian Womack, and with a foreword by Helen Marshall, it includes fiction written originally in English, short fiction in translation, and also stories produced by a new generation of multi-lingual authors working in more than one language, and engaging with more than one culture. The result is a collection of ecological short fiction for our times, from an international group of writers, working from a variety of languages, cultures and traditions.

We are extremely proud of this amazing international ToC, and thankful to all the authors - Naomi Booth, Tiina Raevaara, Timothy J. Jarvis, Alexandra Manglis, DP Watt, Vida Cruz, Claire Dean, Regina Kanyu Wang, Malcolm Devlin, Gareth E. Rees, Usman T Malik, Camilla Grudova, Alberto Chimal, Helen Marshall and Kathleen Rani Hagen - who are helping launch this project.

This project is a summary of the aims of Calque’s editors, James and Marian Womack. About the press, whose remit is ‘Translation, Poetry & Nature’, its co-founder, award-winning poetry translator James Womack, said: ‘We’ve wanted for a long time to publish what we think is some of the most interesting and engaged literature around, whatever language and whichever culture it derives from. We are very happy to be starting Calque’s journey in English with such a fascinating book, and we are sure that our forthcoming titles will live up to this initial statement of intent.’

The press is launching a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the final stages of the anthology and support the larger project. This will go live on 29th of May. The book is scheduled for publication in Autumn 2019.