What is this website? This website is the home of Fever Dreams Publications, a digital publisher of speculative fiction and bi-monthly online magazine, Fever Dreams E-zine.
Who is Fever Dreams Publications? Fever Dreams Publications is a digital publisher that was founded on the 28th August 2012 by a group of creative writing and literature students in Dundee, Scotland. In an increasingly marginalised fiction arena, we believed that the sub-genres of horror, fantasy and science-fiction were becoming increasingly ghettoised and wanted to give aspiring writers the chance to write without the constraints of being labelled. To this end, we banded together to create a small digital publishing house and to create a Speculative Fiction E-zine which we named after a short story by Ray Bradbury, who sadly passed away on the 5th June 2012 at the age of 91.
For the first few years Fever Dreams Publications was run almost extensively by a volunteer staff of students and teachers from Dundee. The combination of work and study meant that the team was constantly in flux. Fever Dreams Publications relocated to Inverness, in the Highlands of Scotland, in August of 2014. The poor IT Infrastructure caused no end of problems, this matter was complicated by the absence of long term editor, Peter Bennett, who had been the driving force behind Fever Dreams Publications. In August 2016, returning editor Peter Bennett and co-editor Al Thomas made the decision to turn Fever Dreams Publications into a full time job.
Who runs Fever Dreams Publications? Peter Bennett, editor and founder of Fever Dreams Publications, and Al Thomas, co-editor, are the only full time staff. There are a number of others who have graciously donated their time and effort to ensure that Fever Dreams continues to run and to produce work of the highest possible standard.
- Editorial Staff: Martin Williams, Dylon Harris and Andrew Mackay
- Design Artist: Cambion and LostBoy
- Proofreading: Stephanie Bennett and Richard Douglas
- Authors: Philip Meredith and Glen Kohler
What is Speculative Fiction? In short Speculative Fiction is nothing more than a broad category that book retailers use to classify Science-Fiction, Horror and Fantasy fiction. It is also referred to as Spec-fic or Genre Fiction. The title is derived from the fact that all three sub-genres deal with matters of “What If?” The categories of Science-Fiction, Horror and Fantasy were created by the publishing industry, who knew that book store owners could not possibly read every book in their store, to help identify and collect similar fiction together. In recent years, there has been a merging of influences and it is not uncommon to see sci-fi horror or dark fantasy fiction. This has meant that the broad classifications of Horror, Science-Fiction and Fantasy are less distinct than they may have once been. The resulting blend is often referred to as Speculative or Genre Fiction.
The Main Goal of Fever Dream Publications is to continue the publication of Fever Dreams Ezine. Our commitment to publishing a free, quality genre magazine is foremost in our minds. Peter likes to work with writers to help them produce work that is every bit as good as print anthologies. We hope to be able to say in years to come that famous writers got their break in our pages. We accept submissions from first-time writers, as well as requests for re-prints by experienced pros, and give every submission the chance it deserves to make it into print. We do try to limit the number of re-prints per issue because we don’t want experienced writers eclipsing developing talent. One of the main ideas behind Fever Dreams Publications is to find and support writers and such we rarely flat out refuse to publish a story. Peter does his best to provide feedback for all submissions that we feel require additional work and encourages re-submission at a later date. We consider Fever Dreams to be a launching point for writers and work hard to get them off to the best start.