I just founded a publishing company

Well, not exactly. I just didn't do it, just like that, it was a long and at times frustrating process. But now it's up, after planning it and thinking about it for many, many years.

The publishing company is called Helmivyö in Finnish. I'm not really sure what it should be called in English - literally it's a bit like "a string of pearls", but the word "helmivyö" is an old word originally meant to be the Finnish translation of "anthology". It's probably translated from the Italian "collana", which means both "collection" and "jewel". And so my publishing company does a lot of anthologies.

The first of which is Ajokortti helvettiin ("License to Hell", according to the short story the title was taken from), a collection of flash fiction stories I published in my short-lived Ässä magazine (plus three new stories from Rob Hart, Stephen D. Rogers and Anthony Neil Smith).

There is also a collection of my reviews, articles and what not about American hardboiled crime novel, called Epämiellyttäviä päähenkilöitä ("Unpleasant Protagonists"). It turned out to be almost 300 pages! There's stuff ranging from John K. Butler and old true crime mags to James Ellroy and Gillian Flynn. (Okay, I'm cheating a bit, since Flynn isn't hardboiled, but she's noir, and that's close enough.)

The third book is Kalmankylväjä ("Deathbringer" or something like that) by Petri Hirvonen, a very short and tense action novel taking place somewhere in South America.

Two of the books, my collection and Petri's novel, were designed by J.T. Lindroos, the mastermind originally hailing from Finland. The cover for the flash fiction anthology was done by Jenni Jokiniemi.

The books are available only in print-on-demand. They are not available as e-books, since there are no markets for them in Finland. (It's a long and boring story.) I have plans for future books (actually I have four almost ready), and this might be something, well, not big, but biggish. We'll see. I'm not one to boast about my possible successes. You can see more here (it's obviously in Finnish).

PS. There might be some translations in the future, as I've accumulated lots of connections through years. I'll contact you.

Patricia Abbott's short story collection – in Finnish!

Just when I finished my book on British crime paperbackers, I was notified that another book was ready to be picked from the printers. It's Patricia Abbott's Merenneidot (meaning "Mermaids") short story collection I edited and published with a small print run. The book collects six of Abbott's insightful, clever, cruel and empathetic crime stories, most of them are in the flash fiction length, but the longest story in the book is about ten pages long.

The stories are: "Mermaids", "My Hero", "How to Launder a Shirt", "Johnny Jinx", "Hole in the Wall" and "Initiation". Most of these were originally published in the web, but some were print publications. Most of the stories came out in Finnish in my magazines Isku and Ässä, but "Mermaids" and "How to Launder a Shirt" were translated for this book and were never before published in Finnish. "Johnny Jinx" and "Hole in the Wall" were translated by my friend Lotta Sonninen and I'm sure their translations are better than my attempts!

The cover is by Aapo Kukko as are my usual mini books. See the Ray Banks book here and the Ed Gorman book here. (Seems like I haven't blogged about the Gorman book, but it's a translation of his "Scream Queen".)

Most of the copies I'm selling are going to the libraries here in Finland, but this is also available through me for a measly three euros!

The new issue of Ässä ready

The cover of soon-coming third issue of Ässä, my flash fiction magazine. This issue contains stories by James McGowan, Joe R. Lansdale (two!), Sandra Scoppettone, Patti Abbott, Patrick Shawn Bagley, Paul David Brazill and Greg Schwartz plus Finnish stories by Tapani Bagge (previously unpublished funny story "The Mustache" [sic]), Harri Erkki (five word horror story, with very black comedy and almost pornographic content - try to beat that!) and someone called Mikael Ylinen and myself, with a Joe Novak story which I thought turned out to be very good.

Will be out in a week or two. The title means "ace" and the cover is by unknown.

Mysterious prose writing

I've been occasionally posting some stuff I've written with my old typewriters. They've been usually stories that I've done while trying to entertain my kids, and some of them have been written from Ottilia's dictating. This is one of the more mysterious pieces, which may've gotten its start from Ottilia's story (and perhaps based on reality), but eventually I ended up writing it as a piece of flash fiction, with an emphasis on stream of consciousness.

Translated, it goes something like this:

Kauto Teerijoki is playing with his cart: it's a nice business: We were flying in the first class. Then I realized that a new world had been discovered. It was in my wife's purse that was made from a finest sivet cat. I didn't anymore feel like writing the new verses to the Holy Bible that I'd promised to deliver to my publisher.

Valentine Day flash horrors

I'm not one to celebrate Valentine Day - I would've totally forgotten about it, if Ottilia hadn't sent me a Valentine Day's text message (yes, she has a cell phone of her own!). I more or less think that you should have Valentine's Day everyday - if you don't really care for the people, what's the point trying to once a year?

Nevertheless, here's a fine selection of Valentine Day's themed flash fiction stories, the focus on crime. Not very romantic stuff, let me tell you! The thing was concocted up by Patti Abbott, who's a very fine writer of short stories and one who I'll be publishing in Isku. I liked her and Patrick Shawn Bagley's story the best (I didn't read them all, though, I most certainly will, on a later date).