A collection of short fiction with the sea as their link, by Irish writer Lane Ashfeldt. The stories in this collection cover coastlines from the West of Ireland to Santorini, Greece. A few of the stories in SALTWATER were published in magazines and literary journals, one winning a Fish Short Histories Prize. Another is currently on the shortlist for the 2012 HG Wells Short Story prize. The prize is for a story on the theme of The Sea.

Where can people read your SALTWATER stories?

Lane: "An extract from one of the stories is up at my project page on my website www.ashfeldt.com/saltwater
And there's an extract from another story at the Fish Publishing website (see link below).

So, how long did these stories take to write?

Lane: "I've been writing sea stories for a few years now, alongside my day job. The story for which I won the Fish Short Histories prize probably took the longest. Stories set in areas well known to me through personal and family connections such as West Cork and Greece, were easier to do. The contemporary stories I generally — but not always wrote more quickly. A large part of writing is rewriting.”

What made you choose to self-publish?

“A couple of years back a small press offered to publish a book of my stories, but ceased publishing before that happened. Since then it’s got easier to reach readers via ebook, so this seems the right way to go.
I also hope doing this will be fun, and offer a way to connect with readers, writers and maybe other creatives with shared interests.”

What will the Fundit support pay for?

"It will cover upfront costs to produce the ebook to a very high professional standard: included are fees for design, professional editing, typesetting and other costs, such as license fees for cover art. The writer's reward will come out of future ebook sales. "

How will funders know when the book is out?

"Funders will be invited to a launch event in Cork, and delivery of funder rewards will take place by launch date. The SALTWATER project is an ebook with electronic rewards. But hopefully lots of the funders will make itto the launch event so there will be a face-to-face element too."