Silver Shamrock Closes
Small-press horror press Silver Shamrock Publishing closed this weekend. While there has been no official statement from publisher Kenneth McKinley, editor Kenneth W. Cain posted the following on Twitter:
I’m sorry I’ve been quiet for so long about this matter. I’ve been working hard behind the scenes, talking to [publisher] Ken M., artists, authors, reviewers, readers, just about everyone. I haven’t slept much at all because of that, so I apologize for any typos ahead of time, but I was doing my best to do what was right by everyone involved.
Here is the end result of that effort. As of now, Silver Shamrock Publishing is no more. All rights revert to the authors. Their books will be taken down at their request (staying up only long enough for them to buy extra copies if they’d like. I can be a middle person contact for that, if anyone is interested. Let me know. Please do not hold anything against the authors, especially for things that are/were out of their control. And please buy these copies as 100% of the profit goes to them).
Their royalties will be paid out in full, and all Silver Shamrock books will be taken down accordingly. Please contact me with any questions you may have, but understand I need sleep and may not get back to you right away. I appreciate your patience as I worked on this.
The closure is the result of a controversy that followed Silver Shamrock posting the cover and back copy for Gene O’Neil’s The White Plague Chronicles, about a disease “genetically targeted to kill only the members of the Caucasian race.” Many on social media objected to the description and the premise, and some Silver Shamrock authors requested to have their rights reverted.
The Silver Shamrock website has been made private, and social media profiles are no longer active.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field.
