Our new book, In Conversation: A Writer's Perspective, Volume 1: Horror, edited by James Cooper, has come under justifiable flak for its all-male line up of interviewees.

When James brought the manuscript to me with a view to our publishing it I know he intended no sexism in his selection of the authors but I feel deeply sorry that I didn't flag the omission at the time.

It is disgustingly simple for a man not to notice these things, a blindness to the importance of correct gender representation that I feel embarrassed to have fallen into.

The next two volumes in the series are considerably more balanced in their table of contents but that doesn't change the fact that I dropped the ball on this initial volume.

I can only apologize and hope that the discussion has made other editors and publishers realize that this kind of lazy sexism is unacceptable and to watch their own lists in future!

The British Fantasy Society is proud to present the first in its series of exclusive, annual anthologies. Twenty writers -- from seasoned award-winners to rising stars -- offer twenty never before published tales.

Offering a broad sample of stories with imagination the only limit. Nearly three hundred, hard-bound pages, 100,000 words of the best in speculative fiction from:

JAMES BARCLAY, ALLYSON BIRD, ANDREW CARTMEL, MARK CHADBOURN, CHRISTOPHER FOWLER, GARY FRY, GARRY KILWORTH, TIM LEBBON, STEVE LOCKLEY, JULIET E. MCKENNA, GARY MCMAHON, MARK MORRIS, ADAM L. G. NEVILL, DANIEL O'MAHONY, SARAH PINBOROUGH, NICHOLAS ROYLE, ROBERT SHEARMAN, STEVE VOLK, KAARON WARREN and CONRAD WILLIAMS.

With an introductory essay from Gail Z. Martin

The only way to own a copy is by being a member of the British Fantasy Society, it is given away exclusively to members and will never appear for sale.

Sign up now at only £30.00 a year for UK residents, where you can pay by cheque or online via PayPal. Your membership also includes a £10 discount on the attendance rate for Fantasycon, our legendary, annual convention weekend as well as quarterly mailings of the society magazines Prism, Dark Horizons and New Horizons.

We hope to launch this exciting new anthology at FantasyCon 2009 - with many of the contributing authors gathered under one roof and available to sign copies of the book - how can you afford to miss the opportunity to own such a unique publication?

Following the success of the BFS booklets, the BFS began to publish fully-fledged books. Here is a list of some of them. If you know of any others, please get in touch.