-
RSS and Updates
Forthcoming
Small Beer Press
150 Pleasant St., #306
Easthampton, MA 01027
413-203-1636
[email protected]Tweets
Tweets from @michaeljdeluca/sbp-authors
The Seventh Raven
Preorder
Peter Dickinson April 2015 A Notting Hill children’s opera is suddenly on the world stage when terrorists try to kidnap one of the children. paper · $12 · 9781618730282 | ebook · 9781618730299 A Big Mouth House book. Phoenix Award Winner from the Children’s Literature Association “Going Round by the Byways” (pdf). Acceptance Speech for the Phoenix Award, […]
The Entropy of Bones
Preorder
Ayize Jama-Everett August 11, 2015 A Liminal People novel. A young martial artist finds there is more to the world than she can kick, more than she can see. paper · $16 · 9781618731036 | ebook · 9781618731043 · Edelweiss Chabi doesn’t realize her martial arts master may not be on the side of the gods. She does know […]
Prodigies
Preorder
Angélica Gorodischer August 11, 2015 An enchanting novel of the women whose lives pass through a nineteenth century boarding house. Moving, subtle, and dreamlike. paper · $14 · 9781618730992 | ebook · 9781618731005 · Edelweiss Prodigies explores the story of the poet Novalis’s birthplace in the German town of Weissenfels after it is converted into a boarding […]
Current BooksCurrent Zine
-
Young Woman in a Garden: Stories
Delia Sherman“Lightly flecked with fantasy and anchored in vividly detailed settings.” — Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year
-
Prophecies, Libels, and Dreams: Stories
Ysabeau S. Wilce“Califa: riotous carnival world of soldiers, drunks and magick.”— Kirkus Reviews
-
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 31
8.5 x 7 · 60pp · December 2014 · Issue 31 · Ebook (ISBN 9781618731067) available from Weightless. We’re almost sure this issue of LCRW is made up of more than a hundred thousand letters and can guarantee that most are in the right place. Two huge stories anchor the issue, Nicole Kimberling explains that CSA […]
Chuntering On and On
-
Kelly’s new collection is out on Tuesday Sat 31 Jan 2015
(Sign up for our email newsletter.) Taking a break from the nonstop LCRW action (new issue in the works, bonus issue for summer!) I wanted to take a moment and celebrate Get in Trouble, the first new collection for adult readers in a decade from Kelly Link (my lovely spouse!), Small Beer cofounder, editor, art […]
-
Alan DeNiro in Chicago Wed 28 Jan 2015
Look at me resisting writing Chitown! I am so strong. What: Tuesday Funk with Alan DeNiro, Cameron McGill, Patty Templeton, Christa Desir and H.Melt, hosted by Andrew Huff and Eden Robins. When: Feb. 3rd, 7 pm for 7:30 start. Where: the Hopleaf (where the Bookslut readings used to be and very close to the excellent […]
-
Snow day Mon 12 Jan 2015
Doh. So many plans. Oh well. Now I can spend more time planning my outfit for my photo op tomorrow night in the glass coffin at Holly Black’s Odyssey Books launch party for The Darkest Part of the Forest. Cough.
Latest Eruption of Fiction Into the Universe
Young Woman in a Garden: Stories
November 11, 2014 · paper · $16 · 9781618730916 | ebook · 9781618730923 · Edelweiss
A long anticipated first collection of fabulous stories with ghosts, fairies, artists, and even a merman.
Read a story: “Miss Carstairs and the Merman” · “Nanny Peters and the Feathery Bride”
Selected as one of Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year and recipient of 2 starred reviews.
In her vivid and sly, gentle and wise long anticipated first collection, Delia Sherman takes seemingly insignificant moments in the lives of artists or sailors—the light out a window, the two strokes it takes to turn a small boat—and finds the ghosts haunting them, the magic surrounding them. Here are the lives that make up larger histories, here are tricksters and gardeners, faeries and musicians, all glittering and sparkling, finding beauty and hope and always unexpected, a touch of wild magic.
“Real magic, right next door, indeed; each of the 14 stories in Young Woman in a Garden deals with some version of that equation, and it’s a testament to Sherman’s award-winning knack for fabulism that she pulls off such impossibilities with whimsy, dazzle and heart — not to mention a sharp edge of darkness.”
— Jason Heller, NPR
“Some of the people you will meet in Delia Sherman’s collection of stories include a mysterious painter, a ghost, a woman who knows her way around a sea cucumber, a young man enthralled by a ship’s figurehead, the owner of a very unusual ruby, and a prickly choirmaster — all of whom encounter someone, something, or some place that doesn’t quite fit with the world as they think it ought to behave. The witches have an unreasonably large garden; the ghost breaks ghostly rules; the man who falls in love with a fairy doesn’t get what he bargained for. But all the characters in Sherman’s stories adjust their expectations — some easily, some with more difficulty — and go on to fall more in love with an endlessly surprising world. Young Woman in a Garden is a lovely reminder to look up, and over the wall, and around the corner, even when you think you know what’s there.”
— Words for Nerds
* “Lightly flecked with fantasy and anchored in vividly detailed settings, the 14 stories in Sherman’s first collection are distinguished by their depictions of determined women who challenge gender roles in order to make their way in the world. In “The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor,” a servant girl parlays her acquaintance with an ancestral ghost into a professional relationship with the descendant whose house it haunts. The title story toggles between present and past as an art history student researching the life of an Impressionist painter unravels the hitherto unknown role his model played in the creation of his art. Although Sherman (The Porcelain Dove) grapples with serious themes, she leavens a number of her tales with gentle humor, notably “Walpurgis Afternoon,” in which a pair of lesbian witches comically discompose an ordinary suburban neighborhood when their Victorian estate springs up in a vacant lot overnight. Readers who enjoy sophisticated modern fantasy fiction, both light and dark, will greatly admire Sherman’s skill with a variety of narrative forms and the gentle touch of her magic wand.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
* “In this first collection from Sherman (The Porcelain Dove; The Freedom Maze), what seems ordinary consistently veers into the extraordinary and often downright surprising. . . . Ranging in length and style, these tales are captivating and odd, with characters and settings fully and memorably fleshed out.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
Praise for Sherman’s previous books:
“Multilayered, compassionate and thought-provoking.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Fantastic in every sense of the word, Sherman’s (Through a Brazen Mirror) second novel is a skillfully crafted fairy tale that owes as much to E.T.A. Hoffman as to Charles Perrault. . . . The Porcelain Dove is no dainty vertu but a seductive, sinister bird with razored feathers.”—Publishers Weekly
Table of Contents
“Young Woman in a Garden”
“The Ghost of Cwmlech Manor”
“The Red Piano”
“La Fée Verte”
“Walpurgis Afternoon”
“The Parwat Ruby”
“The Fairy Cony-Catcher”
“Sacred Harp”
“The Printer’s Daughter”
“Nanny Peters and the Feathery Bride”
“Miss Carstairs and the Merman”
“The Maid on the Shore”
“The Fiddler of Bayou Teche”
“Land’s End”
Delia Sherman was born in Japan and raised in New York City. Her work has appeared most recently in the anthologies Naked City, Steampunk!, and Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells. She is the author of six novels including The Porcelain Dove (a New York Times Notable Book), The Freedom Maze, and Changeling, and has received the Mythopoeic and Norton awards. She lives in New York City.
More Books
< Less Books-
Exit, Pursued By a Bear
Greer GilmanBen Jonson has written the part of a lifetime for the Prince of Wales: he will play Oberon, the King of Faerie. It’s only theater. What could go wrong?
-
Sherwood Nation
Benjamin ParzybokIt was morning and the power was not yet on. Zach and Renee lay in the heat of the bed listening to the city wake outside the building’s windows.
-
Earth Logic
Laurie J. Marks“Glows with intelligence . . . though not for the faint of heart.”
—Booklist (starred review) -
A Summer in the Twenties
Peter DickinsonA young man has to choose who to love, who to leave in the 1926 General Strike in Britain.
-
Other Worlds, Better Lives: Selected Long Fiction, 1989-2003
Howard Waldrop“Waldrop is probably the single most remarkable writer I know of who non-genre readers remain largely unfamiliar with.”—William Gibson
-
Things Will Never Be the Same: A Howard Waldrop Reader: Selected Short Fiction 1980-2005
Howard Waldrop“Howard Waldrop is the Studebaker Golden Hawk of genre fiction, a classic of structure and design. His unique stories autopsy the entrails of our eccentric past and reveal, often in oracular fashion, insanities to come.” — Lucius Shepard
-
Questionable Practices
Eileen Gunn“Combines humor and compassion in 17 short, intricate gems.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review) -
Emma Tupper’s Diary
Peter Dickinson“Loch Ness’s claims pale beside the super-exciting discovery made by Emma . . Expert mystification, the tender conscience and burning courage of the young, tantalising details, make this a compelling tall story.”
—Sunday Times -
Fire Logic
Laurie J. MarksElemental Logic: Book 1
Spectrum Award winner
Romantic Times Reviewers Choice award nominee -
Tyrannia and Other Renditions
Alan DeNiro“DeNiro has already garnered a reputation as a genre-bending experimental author with an indescribably quirky but captivating prose style.”—Carl Hays, Booklist
-
Horse of a Different Color
Howard Waldrop“The most startling, original, and entertaining short story writer in science fiction today.”
—George R. R. Martin -
Was: a novel
Geoff Ryman“In an era of bright, simple adaptations, Was is different—melancholy, beautiful, and yes, full of heartaches and nightmares.”
—Slate -
Spider in a Tree
Susan Stinson“The beautifully evoked sense of lives lived under the eye, not only of prying neighbors, but of God, with all the terror and possibility that entailed.”—Publishers Weekly
-
Cry Murder! in a Small Voice
Greer GilmanPublished in saddle-stitched and ebook editions.
-
The Poison Oracle
Peter Dickinson“I think Peter Dickinson is hands down the best stylist as a writer and the most interesting storyteller in my genre.”
—Sara Paretsky, author ofBreakdown -
North American Lake Monsters
Nathan Ballingrud“Raymond Carver territory, beautifully written and right on target for today.”
—Maureen F. McHugh (After the Apocalypse) -
Death of a Unicorn
Peter Dickinson“Mr. Dickinson has a nice dry wit and a talent for deft characterization.”
—New York Times -
A Stranger in Olondria
Sofia Samatar“Samatar’s sensual descriptions create a rich, strange landscape, allowing a lavish adventure to unfold that is haunting and unforgettable.”
—Library Journal (*starred review*) -
Trafalgar
Angélica Gorodischer Translated by Amalia Gladhart.” I found it delightful. Thought-provoking. Impressive. Brilliant.”
—Liz Bourke, Tor.com -
The Unreal and the Real: Where on Earth
Ursula K. Le Guin“There is no better spirit in all of American letters than that of Ursula Le Guin.”
—Slate -
The Unreal and the Real: Outer Space, Inner Lands
Ursula K. Le Guin“Her stories will pass into legend, to touch many generations to come.”
—The Guardian -
Errantry: Strange Stories
Elizabeth Hand“Each phrase and each sentence carefully shaped and laid in place to create the singular diadem that is a Hand story.”
—Romantic Times Book Review -
Earth and Air
Peter Dickinson“These six new stories are provocative in both variety and ideas. . . . and with Dickinson’s usual command of imaginative imagery and beautifully tooled language, this is a fitting capstone to the series.”—Horn Book
-
The Shimmers in The Night
Lydia MilletThe Shimmers in the Night is the second thrilling novel in the Dissenters series following The Fires Beneath the Sea.