Twenty-five years ago today (or thereabouts) I had my first short story published in Technopagan, the second anthology in Elaine Palmer’s visionary Pulp Faction series. I’d seen a poster for Skin, Palmer’s first anthology, when I was cycling to work along the canal, from Hackney to Islington. So when I saw in Time Out that contributions around the theme ‘technopagan’ were being invited for a second publication, I realised that I had an unpublished story that might fit the bill, which I sent off. My story, ‘A Pagan Day’, was a bit rough around the edges, but luckily I was in some great company as you can see from the contents page below. Pre-publication, I had a call to say that there would be a photo-shoot for contributors out in Limehouse. We all met up at Tower Hill DLR station, where I gave Palmer a copy of Tim Etchells’ short story ‘About Lisa’, which I’d just published on Piece of Paper Press and thought she might like. I’m not sure that I ever saw that Technopagan press photo. Launch events that I and others may have read at (IIRC) were at Cyberia – the world’s first internet cafe, by then moved to Golden Square, Soho – and at the then Dillon’s, Longacre.

Update: Since posting these photos I found a press release, an author letter and a flyer relating to the Technopagan anthology, which turns out to have been launched at Madame JoJo’s in Soho on 6 November, with a further reading at Dillons on 16 November. I think the event at Cyberia may have been the launch of the Homelands anthology being trailed for February 1996. I’ll try and scan these and add them to the post later on.

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