Kickstarter Fundraiser is a Success

The Fantastic Fiction at KGB Kickstarter is a Success

Press Release
For Immediate Release

Contacts:
Ellen Datlow, datlow [at] datlow [dot] com,
Matthew Kressel, matt [at] sensesfive [dot] com

The Fantastic Fiction at KGB Kickstarter was a huge success, providing funds to keep the series running for five more years.

New York, NY (July 2013) – Fantastic Fiction at KGB ran a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign from June 26 to July 26, 2013 and raised $8,035*, enough to fund the New York-based reading series for at least five more years.

More than seventy different rewards were chosen by 164 different backers.  Hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel are especially grateful to everyone for the generous support.  But our Kickstarter campaign would not have been possible without the help of the following people:

Kris Dikeman, who did an enormous amount of work behind the scenes on tasks too numerous to list.  We owe her our first-born child.

Cesar Bustamante, who filmed our promo video footage inside the KGB Bar and who is in no way responsible for how ridiculously unprepared we were.

E.C. Myers, who edited our “hot mess” of our promo video reel into a near work of art.

Because of the generous help from the community, Fantastic Fiction at KGB, a bright light in the New York speculative fiction scene, will continue for many more years to come.  On behalf of all of us, THANK YOU!

We hope you will join us at the KGB Bar on Wednesday, August 21st at 7pm with guests Libba Bray and Nova Ren Suma.

About the Series:

Fantastic Fiction is a monthly reading series held on the third Wednesday of every month at the famous KGB Bar in Manhattan. The series is curated by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel and features luminaries and up-and-comers in speculative fiction and horror. Admission to the readings is free.

The Fantastic Fiction series, started by Terry Bisson & Alice K. Turner in the late 90s, has been going strong for over a decade. The readings bring together the greater New York community of Spec Fic writers, editors publishers, agents, and fans to one location every month. It’s a great place to hear and meet talented new and veteran authors, as well as make valuable connections and make new friends.

Some of Our Past Readers:

Joyce Carol Oates, Lucius Shepard, Terri Windling, Jeffrey Ford, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Delia Sherman, Scott Westerfeld, Kelly Link, China Miéville, Nancy Kress, Stewart O’Nan, James Patrick Kelly, Samuel (Chip) Delany, Holly Black, Michael Swanwick, Kit Reed, Peter Straub, Andy Duncan, Richard Bowes, Catherynne Valente, Joe Hill, Ellen Kushner, Jeff VanderMeer, Naomi Novik, Elizabeth Bear, and many other talented authors.

Why We Needed Funds:

Each month we give the readers a stipend, tip the bartenders (who never charge our guest readers for drinks), and take the readers out to dinner.  Previous fundraisers, along with several generous donations from Cemetery Dance Publications have helped us keep the series running without the need to charge a fee to our audience. But we have recently run out of funds.

About the Hosts:

Ellen Datlow
Multiple award-winning editor Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for over thirty years. She was fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and SCIFICTION and is currently a consulting editor for Tor.com. She has edited more than fifty anthologies, including the annual series The Best Horror of the Year, Alien Sex, The Dark, Inferno, Naked City, and with Terri Windling, Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells, the six volume adult retold fairy tale series beginning with Snow White, Blood Red, the four volume young adult mythic series beginning with The Green Man, Teeth, and After.

Ellen is currently tied with frequent co-editor Terri Windling as the winner of the most World Fantasy Awards in the organization’s history (nine). She has also won five Hugo Awards, three Bram Stoker Awards, eight Locus Awards, two International Horror Guild Awards, two Shirley Jackson Awards, the Karl Edward Wagner Award given by the British Fantasy Society and the Lifetime Achievement Award given by the Horror Writers Association.

Learn more at: http://www.datlow.com/

Matthew Kressel
Matthew Kressel is a World Fantasy Award-nominated writer, publisher and editor. His short fiction has appeared in such publications as Lightspeed, Clarkesworld Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Interzone, Electric Velocipede, Apex Magazine, and the anthologies Naked City, After, The People of the Book, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk, as well as other markets.

In 2003 he started the speculative fiction magazine Sybil’s Garage, and the stories and poetry therein have received multiple honorable mentions in the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror.  With Senses Five Press, Matthew published Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, which won the 2009 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. In 2011 Matthew was nominated for World Fantasy Award in the category of Special Award, Non-Professional for his work with Sybil’s Garage and Senses Five Press.

When he’s not writing, Matthew works in IT, designing websites for Columbia University, Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and many other organizations. He is a long-time member of Altered Fluid, a Manhattan-based writing group, and is obsessed with the film Blade Runner.

Learn more at: http://www.matthewkressel.net/

Links & Contact Information

KGB Fantastic Fiction:
http://www.kgbfantasticfiction.org

Fantastic Fiction Kickstarter Fundraiser Page:
https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/kgbfantasticfiction

Ellen Datlow: datlow [at] datlow [dot] com,
Matthew Kressel: matt [at] sensesfive [dot] com

Please feel free to contact us with any questions or requests for interviews.

Best,
Ellen Datlow & Matthew Kressel

* After Amazon and Kickstarter take their fees, we are left with approximately $7,275.