From the Ground Up

From the Ground Up: An Anthology of New Fiction
Edited by Annabel Townsend
Published by Pete’s Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$21.99 ISBN 9781069000965

Annabel Townsend loved the “From the Ground Up” theme of Regina’s Cathedral Village Arts Festival (2024) so much, she used it as the theme for an anthology featuring ten Regina area fiction writers. Townsend—a writer, editor, publisher and former bookstore owner—held a “Battle of the Pitches” event at the festival: short story writers were given three minutes to “pitch” a story before a live audience and judges, with the prize being publication in the first-ever anthology by Pete’s Press, From the Ground Up: An Anthology of New Fiction. A few other writers also contributed stories.

The stories include a futuristic story by well-known, multi-genre author Alison Lohans. The piece, “Crystal Sister,” is set on the planet Terruggia, which contains a “massive crystal lode” that’s being mined. The main character is young Lytha, whose “job was to form and impress images into waiting crystal, which had the capacity to amplify and transmit halfway across a galaxy.” Legend has it that the Terruggian waters are unsafe, so what’s any self-respecting teenager going to do? You can guess.

The anthology opens with a fantastical dystopian story by Andy Whitman. Creatures the media initially termed eruptions (the beasts are also called Dirtbacks and Oxodillos) are emerging from the earth daily. Whitman writes, “The creatures looked like a muskox with armadillo’s armour, fifty stories tall and half as wide,” and “Where they emerged from their ancient hibernation, they left craters which swallowed skyscrapers.” The destruction caused as these behemoth’s erupt is widespread and apocalyptic, as they “literally moved the world.” The story takes an interesting twist when the protagonist speeds to his parents’ farm—several hours away—for safety and reconciliation, and finds only his twin brother, who doesn’t believe in the “goddamn hysteria”. Then: “Things shifted quickly. The ground trembled and buckled.” Whitman’s skill is evident in descriptive lines like “The concrete sidewalk beneath my shoes sounded like the whole planet grinding its teeth” and “The clouds were fluffy but flat, old ships serenely sailing from one horizon to another.”

Tricia Saxby’s contributed a realistic (but fictional!) story about taking materialistic and opinionated teenagers to work at a soup kitchen. Two stories feature kidnappings—including a financially-desperate bookstore owner’s kidnapping of Margaret Atwood. One can tell how much fun the writer had with this romp, ie: the bookstore owner’s name is Paige Turner.

The diverse anthology includes a six-chapter novella concerning a downed Cessna and heaps of drug money; a Snow White tale; and a story involving a talking, kleptomaniac cat.

I clicked on Pete’s Press website to learn more about the publisher: “Pete’s Press is a new, hybrid publisher intent on publishing books that make you think. The Press—named for “the late, great and bookish Cat”—which provides publication of books in various genres, “offers authors a unique blend of traditional and self-publishing advantages,” with a “one-off fee [that] covers editing and proofreading, typesetting and design, printing the books, distribution through global sales platforms and book marketing.” For more, www.petespress.ca.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM