Hi! This is the first of many missives from Grapple Publishing. We’re here, we’re a new independent publisher and we’re keen to publish all sorts of utterly excellent things. My name’s Duncan Felton and I’m the founding editor/publisher. I’ll tell you what we’re planning and then it’s over to you.

Most importantly: submissions are now open for the pilot issue of The Grapple Annual.

We want The Grapple Annual to be a wide-ranging collection, year after year. We’re open to pretty much anything: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, comics, art, and combinations thereof and otherwise. If it can go in a book, we’re interested. And while it will be in bound book form first, we’re eager for work that can also reside in or interact with the digital and/or ‘meatspace’ realms (more on this later).

We accept submissions from people from all over the world, Australia and Canberra (not necessarily in that order), because that’s where we’re from. We’re especially keen to publish the underrepresented and the emerging, but not exclusively. We don’t mind whether the work fits into, traverses or dodges genres or forms. We welcome the experimental and the just plain original. We want quality work, really. That’s the thing.

So in terms of guidelines then, we’re ridiculously open. All we ask is that you only make one submission, and it must relate in some way to one date on the calendar. This could be a significant historical date, this could be your birthday, this could be two Tuesdays away. What’s with that date? You tell us!

The book will be released in early 2014. Digital iterations of, around and relating to each individual piece will then be published here online near each of their chosen dates. Some expansions into the outernet/meatspace are also highly likely. General submissions close November 24th, and you’d be wise to pitch anything you want to pitch well before then.

That’s just about it. For more (and more verbose) details, check out our Submissions page, and our evolving list of #grappleideas. Anything else, get in touch or comment down thataways.

We’re excited.

Okay, for now, it’s over to you.