Crowdfunding Spotlight: Behind The Revolving Door

By John Freeman on March 21, 2025 • ( 1 )

Behind the Revolving Door: An Anthology of Choices is a project created by Celestial Echo Press, their fifth short story anthology. The independent American publisher has assembled a great team of invited writers already for this planned project, seeking backing on Kickstarter.

Each of us makes a multitude of choices daily, some minor and some with major consequences. Do you eat cereal or oatmeal for breakfast? Skip it entirely? Do you or don’t you wear your lucky shirt to the sports event? What do you think the consequences would be if you didn’t wear your lucky shirt?

If those sort of Might Have Beens or Roads Not Taken intrigue you, Behind the Revolving Door may just be the kind of story collection you’d support on Kickstarter.

Invited authors already on board include thriller writer Chris Bauer, whose latest novel, I Heard You Paint Cowboys, launches next month; Charley Heenan, author of the novel Danny’s Boys; Rik Hoskin, a multi-award-winning writer of novels, graphic novels, video games and animation, co-conspirator with Robert Jordan and artist Marcio Abreu on The Wheel of Time comic, The Great Hunt, out in collection next week from Tor Books; and Marisca Pichette, a queer author whose work appears in Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, and others. Her new cli-fi novella, Every Dark Cloud, is available now in March 2025 from Ghost Orchid Press. Plus, five-time nominee for the Nebula, a two-time nominee for the Hugo Susan Schwartz, author of such acclaimed novels as The Grail of Hearts, Shards of Empire, and Hostile Takeover.

Celestial Echo Press is a woman-owned hybrid publisher, run by Ann Stolinsky and Ruth Littner, based in Roslyn, Pennsylvania, who have published several anthologies, including two short story collections under the title of Ruth and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel, and novels. They want to publish Behind the Revolving Door this year, and plan to continue publishing anthologies and novels.

“After our last Kickstarter, for Ruth and Ann’s Guide to Time Travel, funded, we opened submissions,” the Celestial Echo Press explain. “We had so many great stories that we decided to create Volume I and Volume II.

“This anthology will be a collection of text stories that will take you on a journey with the author’s protagonist as they make a decision. We will ask for stories that take them through a trial and force them to take an action, to make a choice. For example, the character comes to a fork in the road. Do they take the right path or do they take the left? Does the character find a wallet on the ground? Do they open it? Return it to the owner, or keep it? What are the consequences? Do they encounter a second choice, going back through the revolving door? Do they find classified information, implicating a family member in a coup? What do they do with it? What happens next? Is the character hiking through the woods, and finding a portal, not knowing where it will take them if they enter? What happens? Is it so bad that they try to return, hence going through the revolving door?

“There are many, many ways this theme can be interpreted.

“The revolving door on the cover will not be required in the story; if a door and/or a revolving door is in the story, that will be a plus. We anticipate receiving stories in genres from humor to horror, from romance to fantasy. Authors will be given the theme of making a choice and will have free rein how they interpret that theme. We can’t wait to read what they write and are sure you can’t wait either.”

• Check out the Behind the Revolving Door: An Anthology of Choices project here on Kickstarter

• Celestial Echo Press is online at celestialechopress.com

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.