X
a novellantho
6
occult strange uncharted  unfamiliar concealed mysterious unknown veiled unexplained hidden enigmatic unnamed forgotten unvoiced invisible
will be published in mid-2009. The development diary page gives you an insight into the work
being done to bring you this unique speculative fiction anthology, including cover concepts,
story development and extracts, and unique opportunities to share the exsix journey.
Development Diary
X
6
copyright  coeur de lion © 2008

March 09
And about that cover... I thought you may like to see the process of developing the cover from messing
around with a few ideas to finished concept. So have a look here.

March 09
coeur de lion is proud to announce the story line up for X6 - a novellanthology

'The Library' by Terry Dowling,
'Sea-Hearts' by Margo Lanagan,
'The Absent Men' by Louise Katz,
'Wives' by Paul Haines,
'Iron Temple' by Trent Jamieson, and
'Heart of Stone' by Cat Sparks.

Also the cover will be unveiled in a wee while - after it's designed that is - darned causality!

Apart from that I've been getting the ISBN (978-0-646-51035-4), calling in favours on the cover (as
mentioned above - and I think it looks awesome [hint: It's the first cover to use the colour palette of our
logo. Other covers I've felt the logo looked a bit out of place due to the colouring but this one is loud
and proudly CDL]), and trying to finalise the contracts. Given we have a mindblowing array of authors
who have kindly agreed to give me the rights to their stories for a period of time after publication I'm
hoping I can sell X6 to another publisher in another territory to make a bit of money for CDL and
generate a bit more revenue for the authors.

On the writing front, two of the pieces are in rewrite and due back at the end of the month then I'll be
starting the copyedit. So we're still on track for our publication date of September/ October 2009. In fact
- oh, breathless exsixers - fingers crossed we might even make it before then.

August 08
Time keeps doing what it does best, although seemingly only in the one direction, and the exsix writers
are working away on their respective jaw-dropping offerings. For a tempting taste, here's what you can
expect (subject to change at the last minute):
Terry Dowling is currently polishing 'The Library' an unpublished Tom Rynosseros tale which was
one of Peter MacNamara's favourites,
Cat Sparks is working on a science fiction tale of cultural infection provisionally titled 'Wildflowers',
Margo Lanagan is working on a tale about a 'seal-wife',
Paul Haines is tracking down an ending for 'Wives', a particularly nasty future tale of marriage
outback style,
Trent Jamieson's 'Iron Temple' is, 'a space opera-mystery-love story about memory and the end of
the universe with secrets hidden beneath beds and in vast library archipelagos', and
Louise Katz Louise is currently tidying up an interview with the devil.

June 08
Well it’s all exsix author Louise Katz’s fault. There we were bemoaning the fact that lots of writers we knew had novellas that they couldn’t sell anywhere when Lou suggested publishing an anthology
specifically for novella length stories. It was an exciting prospect because novellas (which weigh in at
anything from 17,500 words up) provide authors with a great amount of freedom and space to really
develop their worlds, characters and ideas. However working effectively at that length also takes a great
deal of writing skill. Rather than open it up to general submissions, we needed authors who we knew
would be guaranteed to deliver the goods. So over the last few months we've been developing the
novellantho concept and approaching some very distinguished authors, all of whom have really jumped at
the idea.

The last thing we had to do was to think up a title that would describe what will be a very diverse group
of stories, while giving a speculative fiction flavour and making people sit up and take notice.  After a lot
of talk we've decided to call the anthology X6 - a novellantho. X is the quintessential unknown and the fact
that we have six powerhouse authors who are really going to stretch the imagination of our readers made
us think of raising that unknown X to the sixth power. After that X6 was the obvious choice, and
'novellantho' was a way to make people realise that this was something a bit different from the general
spec fic anthologies that are out there.

Our next task it to make announcements in all the lists and forums we can find to start the buzz about
X6. We want everyone who loves spec fic to become part of this very special publishing event. And you
can help too. If you have an idea that would help to spread the word or you can suggest a website, group
or list you think would like to hear about exsix, drop us a line at exsix.