by Jonathan Ball (Author), Gmb Chomichuk (Author), Gmb Chomichuk (Illustrator)
A home to reavers and rakes, sorcerers and slayers, undead kings and undying things ... expanding a page at a time in the stories added by the authors. In the Once Lands, a lineage of sorcerous wayfinders work to keep godlike monstrosities locked behind the crumbling walls of cursed cities by allowing the vengeful ghosts of forest gods to inhabit their living flesh. In the wild wastes, tribes of cannibal huntresses fight to balance the old ways and new in a struggle to keep their culture alive by trading in death. In the sprawling city of Khyber, ambitions dance on sword edges while clans of thieves and reavers clutch at power. Welcome to Shared World ... whose authors also invite YOU to write stories using their ideas. The first in a series of standalone books, with more books coming fast!
Author Biography
Jonathan Ball is the poet laureate of Hell. He has won numerous awards for his many books of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and comics, and holds a PhD with twin focuses in Creative Writing and Canadian Literature. He is the owner of Stranger Fiction, a publisher that develops its own stories and also provides creative services to other independent publishers and producers, and hosts a podcast called Writing the Wrong Way, which teaches serious writers what the MFA didn't. Connect with Jonathan through his newsletter and get a free story at www.StrangeInk.ca.
GMB Chomichuk is an award-winning writer and illustrator whose work has appeared in comics, graphic novels, books, role-playing games, film, television, and theatre. Gregory's work in words and pictures ranges from the heartwarming to the bloodcurdling. His other books include Apocrypha: The Legend of Babymetal from Z2, Will I See? from Portage & Main Press, The Automatic Age and Backbone of Night from Great Plains Press, Dragon Nanny, Dead Work, and many other works. He is also the host of Super Pulp Science, a podcast about how genre gets made.
J. Gillespie is an award-winning graphic designer and art director for Canada's History Society, coordinating the publications Canada's History and Kayak: Canada's History Magazine for Kids. He has also contributed illustrations to both magazines. Although James spends most of his time working behind the scenes with illustrators across Canada to bring the stories of our past to life, he is very excited to be working on the Shared World project with his fellow creators. Chadwick Ginther is the author of the Thunder Road trilogy, Graveyard Mind, and over thirty short stories. His story "All Cats Go to Valhalla" won the 2021 Prix Aurora Award for Best Short Story, and his short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Chadwick's novels have won the Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher and the Michael Van Rooy Award for Genre Fiction and been nominated for the Prix Aurora Award for Best Novel, the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book by a Manitoba Author, the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award, and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. A bookseller for over twenty years, when he's not writing books he's reading them. Chadwick lives and writes in Winnipeg, Canada, spinning sagas set in the wild spaces of Canada's western wilderness, where surely monsters must exist.
Number of Pages: 162
Dimensions: 0.41 x 7.95 x 5.13 IN
Publication Date: August 04, 2026
