—Howard Andrew Jones

Why don't you tell us a little about the origins and content of your new anthology? Do you think sword and sorcery readers will find it of interest?

Magistria: Realm of The Sorcerer is a shared world collection in a day and age when books like this just don't happen anymore. I missed the old days of Thieves' World and thought why not? I came up with a fairly simple idea, a goddess burst into a billion shards, spreading magic all over the world. I didn't want to dictate to the writers but give them a jumping-off point. The concept the book is built on is that the world is ruled by different types of mages, each manipulating a single element: water, air, fire, metal, etc. I came up with a rudimentary map and then invited all the great writers I had worked with on Kings of The Night.

The authors in Magistria are international. Robert Burke Richardson and Jack Mackenzie are Canadian like myself. Ben Peek is Australian. Andrew C. Ferguson is from the UK. Christopher Sloan, Joy V. Smith, Robert J. Santa, K. A. Patterson, Robert Bee, Joshua Reynolds, Lawrence Barker, Jack Hillman and Lillian Csernica are all Americans. All of them have worked with me before on Kings of The Night and Amazing Heroes, so I knew they had the right kind of feel for the project. Mats Minnhagen is from Sweden and had done the covers for Amazing Heroes and Kings of The Night III. Everyone was there by invitation. The book was never open to submission from outside. There were a few others who I invited who had to beg off because of other projects but I hope to see them in future volumes.

With a Yahoo Group and a website we went to it, adding and filling in ideas. This went on pretty fierce for a month or two then we all went away and wrote our stories. The final result is a wide-ranging collection of tales, some definitely Sword & Sorcery, while others have hints of Science Fiction or horror. Mats Minnhagen entered the picture at that point and began sketching and painting. The final product has fourteen stories, five illustrations and two covers. Beautiful. Certainly the best book I've ever been associated with. If readers want to see some of the artwork, see our notes and read a sample story go to this site.

The really nice part is that this book was what we called "Phase One". The second book, which is being written now, will take material from the first and interlace things even more. So the swamp ghouls from "Bring me Three Severed Heads" by Lawrence Barker could end up being the central characters or villains in a story by C. J. Burch. The original idea was three stages with each getting more and more byzantine. I rather doubt this will happen any time soon though. Some of the writers are starting novels as well as stories and there is so much room in Magistria it will take more than three books to exhaust us.

You work with some very talented artists--I'd love to hear more about them and where you found them!

My two main cover artists are Eric B. Anderson and Mats Minnhagen. Eric's website is here. Eric is the consummate professional. His covers look amazing. He also writes and will have a book, In the Bones, with RAGE m a c h i n e Books.

Mats' can be found at this site. I found Mats through the Elfwood artist community, I believe it was. He stood out from all the others. In fact, two of the pieces he had there later became covers for me, Kings of The Night III and Dragontongue. Mats is currently doing the cover for Joel Jenkins' wonderful Edgar Rice Burroughs-style adventure novel Dire Planet.

What other publishing plans do you have? Through what sort of venues will your anthologies be available.

The Magistria by-invitation method worked so well I am trying it again with a few new genres. There is a Science Fiction book under way called The Big Black that is being edited by Jack Mackenzie. Those interested can check out this site. I have plans for a Weird Western and a Cthulhu Mythos book done along the same lines. The best place to hear about these books is at the RAGE m a c h i n e web site. Because these books are by-invitation only, it is best for interested writers to try their hand at our magazine first, RAGE m a c h i n e Magazine (edited by Gwenyth Love), so we get to know what they can do. We love working with writers who have surprised us before.

All of my books can be purchased two ways: in paperback through my store front at Lulu or in e-book form from Renaissance eBooks who sells through Fictionwise.com and other vendors.

Why don't you tell us a little about your previous anthologies, Kings of the Night.

Kings of the Night has three volumes, all available in paperback. The books were just the next logical extension from the website where I like to post articles on my favorite S&S topics and interviews with major writers. I have been a fan of the genre since the 1970s when a friend's sister gave me a paperback she had bought through the school book order. She didn't like it. It was Moon of The Skulls by Robert E. Howard. Reading those Solomon Kane stories was a revelation to me. I still remember the Jeff Jones cover fondly.

What are your publishing ambitions? Do you plan on continuing to publish a line of books that will be of interest to sword and sorcery fans? Do you have other publishing projects planned?

My plans are pretty simple. Publish what I like to read. What that means is lots of SF/F/H especially stuff with an adventure slant. This includes reprinting classic stuff now in the public domain. Kings and Magistria cover most of the fantasy, though Amazing Heroes is a catch-all for all three genres. The Ghostbreakers series is for occult detectives. I will also be publishing authors who I feel deserve to be spot-lighted within those genres. C. J. Burch (editor's note: C.J. Burch's work appears in Flashing Swords Issue 3) is a major talent. His Star of Kaleel series is a must read for S&S fans. Christopher Sloan will be releasing a sword-swinging trilogy. And there is always my own book, Dragontongue & Other Stories which features my own fantasy world. I have a novel called The Stealer Of Names set in that same world that just might make it onto paper one day…

Sword and sorcery has been keeping a very low profile lately. Do you think we'll see a turnaround soon?

It's funny you should ask that question. I asked it to C. Dean Andersson recently in a Kings Of The Night interview on the web site. I won't tell you what he said. You'll have to read it for yourself. Personally, I think The Lord of the Rings films will help us all a lot. There is a growing interest in Fantasy, the way there was in the 1960s and 70s. Will there be more Conan films? I hope not. Will there be more well-written fantasy with that S&S feel. I have no doubt. Will we know it's S&S? I think we will have look hard. Publishers are shy of anything that smacks of those old Frazetta/Boris style covers. They will publish S&S but they probably won't market it that way.

You've been very active in editing and writing for a long time. Can you tell us a little about your other projects?

RAGE m a c h i n e Books has taken up most of my time lately. I publish a daily genre flash fiction newsletter called Flashshot. I do have a running series of articles in Black October Magazine called "The Ghostbreakers". I also write introductions to public domain books for Renaissance eBooks. Of course, my focus is largely SF/F/H and some Mystery. It's wonderful to have a chance to read many of the books I had only heard about over the years, now available to everyone through the Internet.

What do you think the appeal is of sword and sorcery?

I think the appeal for myself is partly nostalgic. I'm only 41 so I grew up with Thongor and Savage Sword of Conan, Dungeons and Dragons, Thieves World, etc. I love the way that stuff made me feel. There is a pulse that beats through S&S that won't wait around for a story to get going. It all began in the Pulps and it carries that Pulp heritage with it. Get the story going in the first paragraph, don't stop until all the baddies are dead. It's storytelling in its purest form. Which isn't to say it is simple, unsophisticated or childish. Arthur Conan Doyle had the same spark when he wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories. Haggard in the Allan Quatermain novels. Kipling in the Jungle Books. There is a feeling when you read these authors that you have experienced something powerful. It's called STORY.

How did you get into publishing? Did you start with a background in the field, or have you learned everything "on the go?"

I've had the bug from the beginning. My friends and I used to make 'zines about Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard back in our teens. That became APAs in my twenties, then chapbooks. The POD paperback is the next logical extension, allowing me to pursue the types of fiction I love to read but big companies may not want to publish anymore. I can't claim any special training just a relentless desire to see great stories told.

Can you tell us some more about your own sword and sorcery fiction? Do you write stories that feature recurring characters?

My own fiction is centered around a fantasy world of my own creation. Unfortunately it doesn't have a name like "Magistria". The inhabitants just call it the world. There is an unpublished novel called The Stealer Of Names about a foundling seal hunter and a magicless wizard who must cross impassable mountains to slay a powerful wizard who has taken people's names (and increased his own power).

My book Dragontongue is made up of stories from this world. The recurring characters are Torel the Gelt, a woodsy hero type (he has his own unfinished novel called "The City Of The Forsaken"), Manthorn the Mouse, a wizard with a scientific bent who solves Mysteries, Vrashkor, a dragon who also solves Mysteries, as well as other single story characters. The last part of the book is forty short-short stories featuring the Rainbow Man, a four-armed wizard who travels much of this world. These stories are more moralistic fables, having been published at Fables by Megan Powell. The book ends with a short essay called "The Fantastist as Moralist" which discusses what Fantasy writing can do and say.