33% off everything on Weightless
Sat 31 Dec 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., ebooks, sale, Weightless Books | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin
It is the end of 2011 and I am very happy about it. Good-bye, old year, good-bye. Do not be coming back, thank you. Although there were lovely parts, it will not be missed. 2012 looks much brighter.
Anyway: we are celebrating with a one-day sale: 33% off all ebooks on weightlessbooks.com.
Get your LCRW sub here and Small Beer books here and tons of others here.
And, in case I don’t get to it tomorrow, Happy New Year!
get liminal!
Tue 27 Dec 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ayize Jama-Everett | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin
Annalee Newitz reviews Ayize Jama-Everett’s debut novel and if you read the review you’ll see why we had to publish the book:
“You’ll be sucked into a fast-paced story about superpowered people struggling for control of the underground cultures they inhabit…. The novel is a damn good read. It’s a smart actioner that will entertain you while also enticing you to think about matters beyond the physical realm.”
—Annalee Newitz, io9
Read the first three chapters.
No more holiday shipping
Fri 16 Dec 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., shipping | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin
UPDATED: Please note we will not shipping books from our office until December 30. (Ebooks always available? Mais oui!)
In the meantime, one of our lovely local bookstores, Broadside, has all our books in stock and we very much encourage you to shop there!
The post office reminds us that the end of year celebrations are approaching. The sun is sinking in the northern hemisphere and we must eat, drink, and be merry for if we are bury ourselves deep in winter’s cold the sun may leave and never come back.
So set off some firecrackers, dig up the turnips, unleash the sun captured in the corn, the wine, the spirits, and have at the winter until it cracks wide open and spring comes charging in.
Should your winter fancy turn to books, please note we do not guarantee holiday shipping after these post office-provided dates. (Apart from ebooks.)
USA
Free Media Mail shipping: December 1, 2011
APO/FPO/DPO AE: December 9, 2011
Priority Mail: December 16, 2011
Express Mail: December 16, 2011
Canada
1st class mail: December 1, 2011
Priority Mail: December 11, 2011
Africa
December 1, 2011
Rest of the World
December 9, 2011
Thank you!
UPDATED: Our office will be closed from 4 PM EST on December 16 through to December 29. We will be open December 30 then closed over the new year and open again, fresh-eyed and energetic on Monday January 2, 2012.
Interview + Under the Poppy
Thu 15 Dec 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Free books, Interviews | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin
A couple of months ago at a book event in Stockbridge we were lucky enough to meet Alma Katsu, author of one of those everyone-is-talking-about-it books, The Taker.
Alma was really lovely and it turns out had read some of our books. She recently decided to do some interviews about different aspects of the publishing world and sent us a few questions for her expertly titled blog, Endpaper Notes.
Big Mouth asks for typos!
Tue 13 Dec 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Joan Aiken, Lydia Millet | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin
I hate this part! But it must needs be done. Next spring we’re publishing paperbacks of two of our Big Mouth House titles and we would love to hear from anyone who has spotted a typo. (You can send in typos you find in any of our books anytime. It makes me wince, but, better to know about them than not, right? Right. Argh!)
Here are the books we’re working on and would love to here hear from you about:
Joan Aiken, The Serial Garden. This is a book with legs! So happy that people love this book. The paperback will be a few dollars cheaper but should have all the art and so on from the hardcover.
Lydia Millet, The Fires Beneath the Sea. The first edition is pretty much sold out—that Kirkus Reviews Best of 2011 listing certainly helped! The paperback will include the first chapter of the follow up, The Shimmers in the Night, which comes out in July.
Next week (+ giveaway)
Fri 9 Dec 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ach, Ayize Jama-Everett, podcast, Three Messages and a Warning | 14 Comments| Posted by: Gavin
We have a new episode of Who Is Amazon Trying To Stomp Out of Business/Subsume/Buy Out This Week. Then we will keel over in shock, shock I tells you when we discover that the $34-billion WalMart-wannabe has disclosed its teeth to the public once again. You should see what they’re like behind closed doors. Not pretty. They’ve hired some great people, they’re going to buy some great books for their publishing arm, but, man, those people are, um, not nice.
Besides that, we have a new installment of Julie Day’s excellent Small Beer Podcast. This one features two stories from Three Messages and a Warning as well as actual and real beer from our new fave beer store, TruBeer, in Easthampton.
Want to preview the anthology? You can read two stories here.
We’ll also have office copies of at least one of our January books (yes, they were December, they slipped, darn it!), Ayize Jama-Everett’s The Liminal People. We will have giveaways for that, so be ready to define liminal.
In fact, we’ll send a free galley to the first five commenters (US/Canada only, sorry) on this post who post comments either on people or liminality(!).
Remember the holiday shipping deadlines—and how they don’t apply to our ebooks!
And: we will be posting some new books. Preorders welcome! We love preorders! We send them out asap so that you get the book long before it reaches the distribution system. Go, baby, go.
What else? Next week we will be trying to finish up a lot of work before 2011 goes quietly into the night. You never know, might get it done!
Can’t argue with this
Tue 6 Dec 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin
After the Apocalypse is “The absolute most perfect thing for those post-apocalyptic fiction fans and zombie lovers on your list” says the Cleve Scene.
The things we do to books
Thu 1 Dec 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Free books, recycling | 3 Comments| Posted by: Gavin
And interns! Occasionally the returns we get from our distributor (books that have been shipped to stores, back to the distro, and back to our office) are in such bad condition that we can’t even give them away. (We mail returned copies in good condition out to various groups—including the OWS library!—and sell there here.) How do they get that way? Who knows?! (Not sure I want to know.)
We had this box of nearly destroyed books which was beginning to spill over and I decided that instead of just tearing off the covers and recycling the innards (which our lovely town will do) we’d tear up the short story collections and anthologies and include the individual stories with orders. I am hoping that those who receive them enjoy the single stories more than they’re horrified to receive them—tearing the books up has been all too much for at least one intern and the task had to handed over to someone with a stronger constitution!
So now we’re getting rid of another box of books, spreading the word about good stories, and some of us are getting a most unexpected touch of exercise . . . tearing up books!
Under the Poppy wins the Gaylactic Spectrum Award!
Mon 28 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kathe Koja | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin
Possibly the best news we’ll get this week? We are delighted to see that Kathe Koja’s novel Under the Poppy is the recipient of the 2011 Best Novel Gaylactic Spectrum Award!
Two notes: the ebook is 50%? off until Dec. 1 and Kathe just sent us the followup, The Mercury Waltz!
Here’s the Gaylactic Spectrum Award 2011 handout with the shortlist and what the judges had to say about the book:
If Charles Dickens had written an alternate reality novel about war, love, sex, death and very strange puppets you would have this year’s Gaylactic Spectrum Award winner, Under the Poppy, an amazing novel by Kathe Koja. The novel offers a rich, evocative alternate reality that is close but not quite our world, an exploration of the demimonde of the theatre and the brothel, and the tale of two lovers, Rupert and Istvan, and their tortured relationship.
Decca and Rupert own The Poppy, a brothel with a reputation for the unique and sometimes bizarre. At the core of the story is a love triangle: Decca loves Rupert but Rupert is deeply in love with Decca’s brother Istvan, a puppeteer whose marionettes know more than a thing or two about decadence. The story is set against the backdrop of war and turmoil in one of the Victorian era’s most sophisticated cities. Rupert and Istvan try to escape from the seedy underworld into high society only to find themselves embroiled in another complicated relationship. Like actors in a play or marionettes, their fate seems to be determined by others who hold the power and strings.
Under the Poppy breaks a lot of rules: point-of-view shifts, convoluted mysterious plots full of violence and decadence, relationships that run the gamut from accepted to beyond forbidden, and witty graphic language. In Koja’s skillful hands, the novel engages the reader from the start, provides a way to taste and smell the world through brilliantly-crafted prose, and presents a heart-wrenching romance. A mature love story that doesn’t flinch from revealing the truth about life in the demi-monde, Under the Poppy is well worth the read
Victorian opulence
Mon 28 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kathe Koja | 1 Comment| Posted by: Gavin
A Guest Post from Kathe Koja:
An evening of Victorian opulence with an air of genteel decay: it was Under the Poppy‘s natural terrain, and we staged the second of our on-the-road performances at District VII Detroit last Saturday evening. “Love Is a Puppet” finds Istvan closer to his destination if no closer to his goal, and in desirous company, with a young man who calls himself “Gabriel the Angel.” Our audience watched from the curtained, secluded “backroom,” they watched from the stairway above . . .
Writing these shows and their scripts—episodes not found in the novel itself, but not hard to imagine: how many nights must Istvan have spent alone, on the long road back to Rupert?—and extending the story that way, is a new way of seeing that story, as well as a great pleasure for me as a writer. And then engaging in the ongoing act of collaboration, planning the show with my co-producer, Julanne Jacobs, watching the actors give gesture and breadth—and breath!—to the words, embody them, literally—watching the audience react, laugh, flinch and gasp—oh BOY, that is fun. The intersection of the fictional and the real becomes so vivid and acute, you can practically smell the lamp oil and brandy, the reek of the mud outside . . . And aided, on this night, by the raw brick of the warehouse, the scent of the river, the very old streets just past the doors; Detroit is a city that dates to the 1700s, after all. And with our audience dressed in Victorian finery, too, it was as if the story was doubled, and the event doubly theatrical. And amazing.
So the road continues; the journey continues, on the page as on the stage. THE MERCURY WALTZ, sequel to UNDER THE POPPY, will be published in May of 2013, wherein Istvan and Rupert operate their own theatre, the Mercury, a nucleus of subtle insurrections and the passions and rivalries that play-acting always seems to arouse, aided by two very different acolytes, Haden St.-Mary and Frédéric Blum, and a remarkably ferocious young lady named Tilde. And our next Poppy performance will take place early in 2012, in a venue that might seem surprising . . . The puppets lead, the story goes on, and we make our own fun in the dark.
Ebook sale: 50% off!
Fri 25 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., ebooks, sale | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin
We’re having an ebook sale! Here’s the why of it and here’s the what:
Small = 50% off all Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House titles!
WELCOME = 25% off ANYTHING!
Engines = 50% off Livia Llewellyn’s Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors
Enter the coupon exactly as above once you’ve filled your cart and you will receive your lovely discount!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thu 24 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | 1 Comment| Posted by: Gavin
Plaid Friday
Wed 23 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., bookshops, keep it indie | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin
What with holiday shipping deadlines approaching and all the fuss about Friday, I wanted to put in a word for a fun thing the folks at the Odyssey Books in South Hadley told us about when we did our Steampunk! event there a couple of weeks ago. Apparently this Friday is being relabeled from Black Friday to Plaid Friday!
What?
“Plaid Friday celebrates the diversity and creativity of independent businesses. Plaid Friday is the fun and enjoyable alternative to the big box store “Black Friday”, and is designed to promote both local and independently owned businesses during the holidays.”
And what are Odyssey Books doing?
“This year Pioneer Valley Local First members are volunteering a portion of their sales to CISA’s Emergency Farm Fund that offers loans to local farmers affected by Hurricane Irene.”
I always recommend going to an indie store—if possible—for your books. We have links to Powell’s on our site and our book pages have links to the Broadside Bookstore here in Northampton. Last year they came to us with the idea of having a Small Beer Press section in their store where we could keep all our titles, including all the backlist, in front of readers: how awesome is that?
Why do we bother fighting the tide of huge big box stores and online behemoths? Because they’re intent on being everything to everyone and shutting down all other voices.
“Really?”
I think so, yes. They’d like us to buy one of their machines and then read, listen, and watch everything we want on it. And of course buy everything (from books to washing machines) using it. Just jack me into the mainframe now, thanks.
Every time each of us buys anything we have a choice. Sometimes that’s too much to think about. Sometimes it’s worth thinking about once and making a decision. We print all our books in the US—or occasionally Canada—on 30% post-consumer recycled paper using one of a few smaller printing firms, often C-M Books or Thomson-Shore. It was an easy decision to print domestically as we can’t be sure of the treatment the workers receive nor the environmental standards the companies are kept to abroad. Also, if we want to keep decent jobs available here, it seems worth printing books here.
This Saturday in our hometown, Northampton, was “Bag Day”—a surprisingly fun event where the town distributes a paper shopping bag in the local newspaper (shout out to the Daily Hampshire Gazette*!) and then just about every store in town gives you 20% off one item (or many items . . .). The streets were heaving, there were even more street musicians than usual, people were out doing public art, there was street food, it’s great fun as well as getting people in to shop at the local stores and keep the downtown vibrant.
Sure, we all shop at bigger stores and shops in other towns but I buy books at Broadside so that in five years time they will still be there. It’s selfish as much as altruistic. (Broadside also have a frequent buyer card which gives you a 10% discount on everything.)
I hope you’ll consider doing the same. Thanks for your time.
* Any local reader want a free subscription? I have one available!
Small Beer Podcast 4: Benjamin Parzybok’s Couch
Thu 17 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Benjamin Parzybok, Couch, Julie Day, Laura Moulton, Podcastery | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Julie
Fiction. We love it. And this week’s Small Beer podcast is over thirty minutes of nothing but imagined words.
Benjamin Parzybok’s Couch is damned funny. Well, his novel Couch is anyway.
To celebrate the release of the audiobook version of Couch, we’re running an excerpt in this week’s podcast. Don’t worry. Though we hope you’ll love it as we do and want to hear more, this section of the novel was actually published as a stand-alone story in the journal Eleven Eleven. In fact, while I was editing this podcast, my family gathered around my computer to listen in. Yes, sometimes it can be strange days at the Day-Davidson household.
Ben and his wife, the artist Laura Moulton, are both quite fascinating people. You can check out Ben’s various art projects at ideacog.net. Laura is behind the amazing streetbooks.org — a bicycle-powered mobile library in Portland, Oregon, serving people who live outside.
Episode 4: An excerpt from Benjamin Parzybok’s novel Couch.
The audiobook is available for purchase at iambik.com.
Subscribe to the Small Beer podcast in iTunes or using the service of your choice:
An excerpt from The Liminal People
Tue 15 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Free Stuff to Read, Novel Excerpts | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin
From The Liminal People, by Ayize Jama-Everett.
Chapter One
Nordeen was right to send me. I feel three heartbeats at the ridges of the ancient crater we’re resting in. Snipers. I don’t know for sure, but their hearts are tense and their trigger fingers twitchy. As soon as I got out of the car their right eyes all zoomed in on something. If they’re not snipers then they’re one-eyed caffeine freaks with muscular dystrophy in their fingers. At least they’re smart enough to know not to shoot me right away. Their boy, my date, Omar, wants what we have. If it’s not in the car and they shoot us, they’re shit out of luck.
“Stay in the car, no matter what,” I say, leaning into the passenger side of the twelve-year-old Mercedes-Benz that has dragged me to this ancient and massive hole in the ground. The meteor that crashed here centuries ago is as cold as Fou-Fou’s response to my command. His steady sub-Saharan heartbeat is the only answer I get from the 240-pound menace. He’ll play it smart. Always does. The kid in the back is who I’m really speaking to. Nineteen, can’t pee straight, and ready to scrap, the native Moroccan looks more spooked than ready. “Understand?” I bark at him in his native Berber instead of the usual French patois we play with.
“I got your back.” He says. His blood pressure is pumping a steady drum and bass beat. His rank breath is stinking up the car. I guess his family had the Third World dental plan: eat for a month or get one of your children’s teeth fixed. I know which one his parents chose. Maybe when we’re done with all of this, I’ll help him.
“Get my back by staying in the fucking car, man. Keep with the package until I call for you. Yes?”
“Yes. Yes. But if that fucker Omar starts anything . . .”
“I’ll finish it.” I barely get the words out before two heartbeats enter the gully from the opposite side. Before I get up I close my eyes. I envision the three ridge heartbeats. They’ve been waiting for this a long time. Too long. They’re tired. It doesn’t take much to nudge them into sleep. It takes a little more effort to put them into the REM state needed so that they’ll stay down, so I release the brain’s native marijuana, anandamide, into their minds in P-Funk-size quantities. With one person it would have been easy. Three folks, far away, hurt a little. Knew it would. That’s why I didn’t bother to use my abilities to warm myself up. I’ve got limits just like everyone else.
I read bodies the way pretentious, East Coast Americans read the New Yorker. With a little focus, I can manipulate my body and others’ on a molecular level. With a lot of focus, I can push organs and whole biological systems around. But if I do it too much, I get tired and hungry. I’ve got skills. What I don’t have is patience.
“Taggert.” Hate the way Omar says my name. Hate the way he slams his fucking door all the time. Hate the way his heart is always skipping like it’s lying. Hate the way he smells. Hate his Third World breath as I give him the mandatory three kisses business partners expect in this part of the world. Hate this fucking man.
“You’re late.”
“Don’t be mad, Taggert. These things take time.”
“What things?” His heartbeat is as erratic as I expected. He thinks he’s got us in a trap. It’s not the first time someone has thought that.
“Finances, my friend. We have many investors. Some are not so much forthcoming with the funds as you asked. . . .” His bad English irks me almost as much as this crap-ass play.
“I didn’t ask for anything. You know who I represent, and he doesn’t ask for anything. You don’t got the funds, we don’t have any drama. We’ll take our product back to Maximus and—”
“You are so harsh, Taggert. This is not Marseilles, this is Morocco. You must . . .” I open my jacket quickly and brace myself against the cold mountain air. Omar’s new trigger boy is as twitched as my foul- mouth nineteen-year-old. Either that or he really has no idea who I represent; he actually palms his .45. Omar—who has sense enough to know what a bad play that would be—tells him to calm down with a wave of his hand. For my part I just hold up the razor-blade necklace my boss gave me.
“Razor-neck crew,” I say in the hill language of the Berbers. “That’s who you’re dealing with. This ain’t the medina. This should be a simple exchange. It’s not. I’m not in a position to negotiate and neither are you. So we back out of this. Let our betters talk to each other and make another meet time. That’s the smartest play for you.”
“Hey, French boy! How about you don’t tell me what the smart play is?” Omar shouts like he owns something. I don’t know who told him I was from Marseilles, but I’ve never tried to change his mind. I do know why he’s so mad. At five-three he’s got the Napoleon complex bad. Anytime anyone tells him what he can’t do, it’s like setting off a firecracker. I didn’t do it on purpose, but I’ll be damned if I let some midget with an attitude and nothing but new booty for backup bark at me.
“How about you fuck the dumb shit, you son of a maggot-ridden whore, and make your move. Come on, you want to pull something. Want to try and jack the shipment? Make your play!” I open my arms wide and make a grand circle, inviting the unconscious snipers to take their shots. Halfway through it occurs to me that there might be more than three snipers, or that the new booty might be dumb enough to shoot one of the razor-neck crew in the back even with God knows who still hiding in the car. Luckily, I make my round with no shots fired. Omar’s face finally reflects what his pulse has been telling me all along. He’s scared shitless. I march up close, a nose hair away, before I start speaking again. At the same time I’ve increased the pressure on the new booty’s bladder three times over. He’s afraid to move for pissing himself.
“This is your play, ain’t it, Omar? Your bosses don’t know anything about this, do they?”
“Can you forgive your brother for—” I crack him on the jaw hard with my fist. Before he reaches the ground my elbow gets a piece in, too. Now that he’s pissed himself, the new booty feels totally ineffective, even with the .45 in his hand. Who am I to tell him he’s wrong?
“You are not my brother.” It’s a chore to keep it French. That’s how I know I’m mad. I only want to speak English when I’m pissed off. “Don’t ever let those words pass your lips again.” I look up quickly at the new booty. He almost jumps. “Go get what cash you brought. Now.” Less than a minute later, a briefcase with six hundred thousand euros is at my feet and the smell of piss has invaded my nostrils. This guy needs to drink more water.
“So we can do the deal?” Omar asks, still trying to salvage something.
“You’re short. For every day we have to wait for full payment, it’s ten percent marked on. We hold on to the product until then. If it’s over a week, we start selling it off, ten percent at a time, to your competitors, and you still owe for the full amount.”
“Taggert.” He tries to think of some way to convince me to do something else but then realizes I’m holding all the cards. To reward the comprehension I throw him a handkerchief.
“Your betters won’t be mad at you for trying to trick us. That’s the name of the game. But it was that you didn’t have a Plan B. You might lose a finger or thumb or something because you didn’t have a way to cut your losses and just do the damn thing the way it’s supposed to be done. Don’t take it personal. Just the cost of doing business.”
My back’s to them and I’m heading to the car. Neither one of them will move on me. Omar is dialing right now, trying to ring in on his snipers. I can “feel” a phone vibrating in one of their pockets now. Doesn’t matter. We got the money and held the hashish. Plus we didn’t leave any bodies behind. Nordeen will be as happy as he gets.
Chapter Two
I wake to the smell of fish, and I know I’m home. Biya, or Al Hoceima, isn’t too far from us, but the underground regiment I live with likes to stay away from there. Most of our business goes through that port, which makes it better to not be seen anywhere near by. I leave Fou-Fou in charge of the money and the kid in charge of the hash. Kif, or hash, in the Rif mountains is like water in the ocean. There’s no value in it. Six hundred thousand euros, however, is something most people in Morocco can’t even imagine. I don’t know if Fou-Fou has ever imagined it, but his heartbeat doesn’t change. I trust him to get it to the boss. For the past six years I’ve been living here. My passport works for Nordeen. In exchange I get a nice, three-bedroom, sky-blue house with a rooftop that overlooks the ocean, and peace. By peace I mean I get enough cash to buy anything I want, a beautiful young girl to clean my apartment twice a week, cooked meals, good friends, and even vacation when I want it. As I ascend my ocean-colored stone steps into my spot I can’t help but smile a little bit. This home has been a long time coming. I’m glad that it feels like a place to come home to. I don’t have a door. Everyone here knows who I work for. They know who I am. At least they think they do—and even that reputation is enough to keep people out. Still, it’s a comfort to come home and find a box filled with “supplies’ from Spain. It’s mostly American comics, chocolate, and books I’d ordered online. I’m already on the roof reading and drinking some tea when I see something that doesn’t belong. A voice recorder. The type that records onto chips, with no tape. It’s Suleiman’s. He’s recorded something for me, despite the fact that he lives a two-minute walk away. Suddenly my chocolate doesn’t taste so sweet. There’s an ugly pit in my stomach. It hurts as it expands. There’s only one way to get it to shrink. I have to listen. I don’t want to. I can tell already. Fuck.
“I’m calling.” I’m gasping for air as I hear the voice. “You said to call if I ever needed you. You said you’d come. You said if I used this number then to not use my name and that you’d find me. Find me. I need you. I need you now.”
Yasmine. Damn.
———
The second person like me I ever met was in college. Her name was Yasmine Petalas. A year older than me, and she was gorgeous. If she ever weighed more than 110 pounds I never saw it or felt it. She stood a good four inches shorter than me but could bring down the house with her lungs. Her British-born, Ugandan mother gave her excellent bronzed skin while some recessive gene from her Greek father gave her deep, red, long, straight hair. I knew her for a year before she even knew my name. When I say I fell in love with her, don’t understand it as some fantasy made flesh, or some adolescent reciprocal fascination. I would have died for her. She says she needs help, and if I’m the man I want to be then I’m dropping everything and getting on the first thing steaming out of Biya. But I am not that man. Before I leave, think of leaving, I have to get Nordeen’s permission.
———
Suleiman is Nordeen’s right-hand man. He knows Nordeen and I have a special relationship but doesn’t know what it’s based on. Nordeen likes it that way. Still, I show the man respect by never meeting with the big boss until I clear with Sully first. Otherwise he may think I’m making a play for his spot, which I am most definitely not.
Nordeen is like me. I read bodies but I’m not exactly sure what he can do. I know for sure that he can always tell when someone is lying to him. It’s a great talent for an international drug dealer, and a fucking annoying trait in a boss. But even that’s not Mr. Maximus’s real power.
In comics there’s this bit character called the Question. He’s got no face, and no powers. He’s kind of like a brokeass Batman without the Robin. I like him because of the concept of a man with no face being called the Question. It’s good in comics. It’s bad in your boss. No one knows where he’s from. Not me, not Suleiman or any of the other fifteen people he’s got working for him. Maybe Fou-Fou knows, but he’s not talking. One night we all got drunk in Segovia and tried to piece together the bits of our mystery leader. All we got was a colossal-sized riddle. He won’t leave Morocco anymore, but has bank accounts, which have to be set up in person, in his name in the U.A.E, the Cayman Islands, Scotland, and South Africa. All the royalty of Malaysia sends him birthday cards, all at different times of the year. At least five women claim to be his first daughter, he has no sons, and his grandchildren range in age from six months to thirty-five years old. We’ve never seen any of his wives. His English, French, and Berber tongues are incredible, but he massacres Arabic as though it were a heathen in the noose of the Lord. Yet he’s a devout Muslim. By the end of the night of speculation, I was more fearful of the man than I had ever been before.
“Suleiman.” I find him with his family, his wife, and his two children ages three and seven. His tastes lean toward the moderate: not a lot of foreign products in the house aside from the expansive television. Minus the drug running, and Suleiman would be the perfect model for the modern Morocco. I take my shoes off before entering his house and wave my hand at his wife, letting her know it’s OK to keep the veil down.
“Taggert, say hello to my children,” Suleiman commands. He thinks I’m from London so he speaks with a fake Cockney accent. He wants his children to speak English, so I’m put through this cross-generational farce every time I come by. I hate children. Luckily, I don’t have to tolerate them for much longer than it takes Suleiman’s wife to make the customary tea. We are left in the kitchen alone.
“Was Omar so bad?” he says, examining the scowl on my face.
“He tried to swindle. The boss will have to talk to his people; don’t be surprised if the guy comes up missing,” I say in rapid-fire Arabic only to be interrupted by Suleiman’s brief but fervent prayer for the idiot’s soul. The rumor goes that Suleiman used to be in training a mullah before the boss got a hold of him. “This isn’t about that.”
I pull out the recorder and slide it back to him. Already erased. Sully looks at it suspiciously, then brings his long-scanning, desert eyes up to meet mine. “You asked me to check it once a month when you first came to us. But we haven’t used that safe house for a few months now.”
“I’m not mad,” I lie. “I just want to know if you played it for anyone else.” Has he told Nordeen?
“I’ve only been home twenty minutes. I haven’t even had time to see the Old Man yet,” he says slowly.
“If it’s OK with you, I’d like to tell him about it myself.”
“Can I help?” I forgot that Suleiman likes me. His wife has a hard time bringing babies to term. She’s lost more than she has. I lied and told her of a tea that would help. In truth I just worked with her body. That’s the only reason they have the three-year-old. Suleiman thinks he owes me for the tea. But I don’t delude myself about his loyalties. He will check to see if I’ve told Nordeen.
“If it comes to it, yes. But for now let me see what the boss says.”
Chapter Three
Nordeen Maximus lives in the biggest house in the city, the closest to the beach. We can almost see Italy from his roof. Everyone here hangs out on their rooftops looking someplace else: Europe, a ship leaving for the States, or places they can’t see. Everyone wants to get away from here. Everyone but Nordeen. He hates the cold air on his naked skin with the vitriol of a mongoose in a cobra’s nest. Most people think he’s frail because on those rare occasions he leaves the house he’s always bundled up in layers of Berber sweaters and jackets. That’s the way he likes it, people underestimating him.
———
I never announce myself in his presence. He hates it. I just walk in to his huge living room and sit in a corner. If he’s not talking to someone else he’s either watching TV or reading. Interruptions cause this blind irritation to rise in him; even to me they come out of the blue. His heart rate doesn’t increase, his breathing remains steady, his eyes don’t even twitch. He just yells with a fury my brother could only muster when he was truly afraid. Sometimes I love Nordeen and sometimes I wish he’d just die. I’ve yet to find a subject that he doesn’t know nearly everything about, including myself. But he takes the whole “knowledge is power” thing to phenomenal heights. It doesn’t make sense to ask the man for anything without giving something in return. Not if you’ve grown accustomed to a fully functioning reproductive system, that is. He is brilliant and deadly, a combination often hard to like. But I always respect him.
An Al Hoceima whore plays housewife and offers me tea before scampering into the back room. He’s always got a parade of them. As he reclines on his floor pillows with shirt proudly open I can almost see why. I don’t know how old he is, but he looks to be able to give the nineteen-year-old a challenge. The tea I use like a prop, downing it quickly and healing my scalded throat before the shock has time to set in. It’s the type of subtle move only he’ll notice.
“You almost broke Omar’s jaw for mentioning your brother,” he says in the Rif tongue, and I’m mad. Of course he wants to talk business first. I’m gonna sidestep it, then remember he knows when I’m lying.
“He had three men on a ridge for an ambush.” True. I’ve never told him about my brother.
“You handled them?” A question. Luckily I can answer without lying.
“Put them to sleep right before he came. I needed to give him something to know me by. If I used my . . . thing, in that scenario I’d have to . . .”
“The youngster.” He smiles, finally putting down the French fashion magazine he was reading. “How’d he fare?”
“Stupid and young. But followed directions well enough. We’d both appreciate any dental care he could get. Pretty sure the Geneva Conventions outlawed that breath.” My boss laughs, and I know I’m not in the doghouse for the arrangement I’d reached with Omar.
“I doubt we’ll see Omar again. The deal’s gone sour with his people. But the parting gift of the cash was appreciated. Now, what’s this recording all about?”
“I’m asking for permission to take the razor off temporarily.” I don’t dare meet his eyes when I ask. Membership in the razor-neck crew is for life. We all have small nicks and scratches on our breastbones from where the razor scrapes our chest. They’re never to be taken off. Even when we’re having sex. I’m scared shitless that somehow he knows whenever we even think about trying to take them off.
“Ya’llah.” If that’s all the mangled Arabic I get in this consultation I might make it out of Morocco. But I know enough of my boss to know that if he ever decides I need to go, it won’t be him that’ll do it. He owes me too much.
“Tell me about it.” He says. Good. Not a question.
“I don’t know what it is. Maybe something minor, but I doubt it. In any case, it predates my association with you and the crew. I don’t want to track mud through your house.” I use French because it sounds prettier. He knows I’m not French and appreciates the sentiment.
“What will you do?”
“Find the sender. Do what I can. Get back to my life here as soon as possible.” All truth. I’m not gone yet and already I’m missing my house—my fried-fish dinners every night, tea on Suleiman’s porch, fantasies about Fou-Fou’s past. All of it. I don’t want my world to change. I’m hating Yasmine right now. But she dialed a number I swore she’d never use.
“The one who called. She is like us?” The question I was hoping he wouldn’t ask. There’s no way out of it.
“Yes.” This time I’m looking him in his eyes. Any more questions about Yasmine and I’m out the door and dodging bullets. Nordeen has an unusual obsession with people like us. I’ve never met anyone else who knows more about people with our type of abilities. I don’t want to know how he came to his knowledge. But he’s not getting any more from me about Yasmine than the sound of her voice and that she’s got power.
“Keep the razor on,” he says with no change in his face. “Fou-Fou will give you sixty thousand euros from the take. Call back if you need more.” He beckons me close, and I’m scared. I’ve healed him three times from lethal gunshot wounds. Those were the only times I was allowed to touch him. I keep low, making sure my head is never higher than his. I’m expecting a hand to kiss; his deceptively powerful arms embrace my body. Even so, I still can’t see him or feel him like I do everyone else. It’s like hugging a ghost.
“Remember, what we have is rare.” I realize he’s speaking English in that no-accent way he does when he’s trying to show me compassion. “People like us tend to stay away from each other.” I nod. I’m like a cat being held by a kid known to abuse animals. I can’t give him any reason to be pissed at me or he’ll kill me. I don’t know how he’ll do it, but it’ll be bloody and sadistic. I know because I’ve been his instrument for such tortures in the past, waiting in shadows and silence for him to finish an embrace just like this before I struck.
“But before you go”—Nordeen breaks his lips apart in an attempt to smile and reclines back to his pillows—“tell me about your brother.”
Fifteen muscles in my back spasm, arguing the pros and cons of flight and fight until I consciously remind my body that neither is truly an option. This is Nordeen at his worst, picking at my scabs. And I’ve just asked for a favor and been given finance and permission for it. All he requires is a story. By the ancient rules of friendship and service, Nordeen is in his rights to hear the whole story. I’m too tired, physically and emotionally, to think of any way out of this. So I speak the truth.
“My brother was like us,” I say and wait for a response. Nordeen takes a drag from a nearby hookah. “Only, he could push things with his mind. Make things move. He was strong with his power but weak in morality. I . . . he was four years older than me. I idolized him. Despite what he did to my family. . . .”
“What did he do?” Nordeen asks with the voice of a sadistic psychotherapist.
“He was a bully. My father couldn’t stand against him and wouldn’t report to anyone what my brother could do. My mother was sick. Depressed. She spent her days washing down Thorazine and Seconal with gin and tonics. But it wasn’t just my parents that suffered. The whole town quietly cowered in front of my brother.”
“But you didn’t?”
“I did!” I say, realizing I’m way too excited by what I’m saying. “I cowered until he ignored me. Then I tried reintroducing myself into his vision, making myself useful. But I had nothing to offer until the day he ‘pushed’ me out of the second-story window of our house. I broke my arm, then instinctively healed it. He felt it, felt me use my power, and became interested in me.” I pause, hoping it’s enough. Another damn drag off his hookah, and he’s still waiting for more.
“He let me follow him around for a few years. The understanding was simple: I healed him and only him from whatever hurts his bullying got him, and I would get his discards—money, girls, drugs, whatever. None of that mattered. I . . . he let me hang out with him. His company was the biggest prize. At fifteen, I thought I was on top of the world—”
“Until you healed your mother?” Nordeen interrupts me with a truth I’ve never told him. I know what it feels like when someone picks up a stray thought from my brain: this is not that. I can’t get bogged down wondering how Nordeen knows. He does.
“Yes. It was a tumor resting in her brain, causing pain and confusion. I didn’t mean to go against my brother. It was just an instinctual healing once I had cultivated my eyes to see illness. The tumor was the size of a quarter and took five minutes to dissipate. My mother’s tongue-lashing afterward took longer.”
“She chastised you for being morally weak,” Nordeen says looking into the corner of nowhere, eyes now milky white, voice now the sound of a whale’s cry. “She was disgusted that her womb could produce such bastards, such powerful creatures incapable of compassion.” His voice changes, as does the air in the room. My mother’s voice comes from his mouth. “Shut up. You bully. You . . . my mind is finally clear. I don’t understand any of this. But I know bad, wrong, when I see it. I could barely see for the pain I was in every half an hour for . . . years. But even in that state I knew evil when I saw it. Your brother is definitely evil. But you are not exempt, Taggert. Do you hear me?”
He waits until I wipe the tears from my face before silently demanding I go on. “She went out on her own for the first time in about ten years that day. My dad, a military man, was at the base. I waited in the dark until my brother got home, the whole time breaking and healing my bones, compacting them to be as dense as they could get. I grew extra layers of skin around my knees, knuckles, neck, anywhere my body thought calluses could grow. I hardened my body. And when my brother came home I set about beating him. I punched and kicked and battered him while he threw every part of the house at me. But as quick as he wounded me, I healed and was back on him. In his final fit of rage he brought the house down on both of us.”
“He survived.” Nordeen speaks. Knowing, not asking.
“Yes, but it takes a team of specialists to teach him how to tie his shoes each day. I caused permanent brain damage.” Nordeen nods, giving me tacit permission to leave. I hear his closing sentiment as I walk through his door.
“People like us tend to stay away from each other for good reason, Taggert.”
———
I’m out the house and I’m still alive. What does it mean? Nothing. Only that he doesn’t care if Suleiman knows that he wants me dead. Most likely he’ll have Suleiman do the deed. If not him then the stink mouthed kid. Doesn’t matter. If they come, I’ll feel them. And if they come I’ll kill them. I’ll have to.
My house feels less secure now. The walls are just as sturdy. There’s food in the fridge. I could watch satellite TV if I wanted. The crew got it as a gift for me last year. I try to read comics. I try and smoke the product that keeps us all fed. Nothing. I even think about drinking. I could ride into Al Hoceima and hit one of the hotels. Or one of the local whores, even. It wouldn’t be the first time, just something I haven’t done in a few years. But alcohol just makes it harder for me to use my power. And whores, now they just make me sad. It’s too late to get on the road now, even if I wanted to. And with sixty thousand euros in my pocket, I don’t even need to pack. I need to just relax in my home, say good-bye to it. I’ll need lots of sleep for whatever comes next, and this is the only place I know I can rest well. So I’ll sleep because I won’t be back here for a while.
———
The sun came before I realized the moon had left. All hopes of sleep were dashed by memories. And thanks to Nordeen, my memories of Yasmine were clashing with my memories of my brother. Both people like me, but both rejected me. Maybe both for valid reasons. Maybe my brother rejected me because somewhere he knew our relationship had to come down to some serious sibling rivalry. And maybe Yasmine knew I was a freak all along.
Suleiman calls ten minutes after my girl comes through with some apricots, juice, and nuts for breakfast. He lets me know Fou-Fou just dropped off a cash card for me, along with a set of keys. He’s asking where he’s supposed to take me. If Nordeen is setting me up, he’s doing a lot to make sure I don’t suspect it. I tell the right-hand man to grub with his family and then pick me up when he’s ready.
We’re about twenty minutes away from Europe. But it’s a different type of Europe. It’s filled with hash and illegal immigrants. I could get to Yasmine that way, but then I’m under the radar and still identifiable as Nordeen’s. So I take my breakfast slow and then go to the drawer I never use. The drawer from my past, in the closet. It holds the last Italian suit I ever bought and my American passport, the real one. I put both of them on, and it feels like I’m regressing a good ten years. Yasmine better be in real trouble.
———
Suleiman enters my house with a pulse that’s pounding so hard I’m thinking I’m hearing it with my ears. I can imagine his thought process. Maybe Omar made some deal that required Suleiman’s head and maybe I was the one who had to do it. It’s that kind of thinking that makes him Nordeen’s Number 1.
“How do I look?” I ask, showing him open hands as soon as he comes in. It relaxes him somewhat.
“Like a bullshit Frenchie.” He’s never seen me in civilian gear. “What’s the plan?”
“I’ve got to catch a flight from Fez.”
“And then?” Like I know.
———
I don’t even pretend to sleep until I’m installed on the plane. It’s less than an hour flight to Marseilles, but it feels like another planet. Planet Old Life.
———
From The Liminal People, by Ayize Jama-Everett. Published in trade paperback and ebook by Small Beer Press in December 2011.
The Freedom Maze
Tue 15 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Big Mouth House, Books, Delia Sherman | 9 Comments| Posted by: Gavin
November 15, 2011 · 9781931520300 / 9781931520409 · $16.95 · 272 pp · trade cloth/ebook
Kirkus Reviews Best of 2011
Andre Norton Award finalist
Tiptree Award Honor List
Prometheus Award finalist
- Audio rights acquired by Listening Library.
- A new interview with Delia Sherman on Rambling On.
- Delia Sherman Week @ Fantasy Matters: review, interview, “Judging a Book by Its Cover: The Freedom Maze,” and “The Fantastic in the Fine Arts: The Work of Kathleen Jennings.”
- Delia writes about the Big Idea behind the novel: “Eighteen years ago, I was stuck.”
- Delia’s guest post on Diversity in YA: “When I began writing The Freedom Maze, back in 1987, I didn’t intend to write a book about race.”
- Listen to an interview with Delia Sherman and a reading from The Freedom Maze.
- Download the first chapter. [PDF link]
- Launch party photos.
Set against the burgeoning Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and then just before the outbreak of the Civil War, The Freedom Maze explores both political and personal liberation, and how the two intertwine.
In 1960, thirteen-year-old Sophie isn’t happy about spending summer at her grandmother’s old house in the Bayou. But the house has a maze Sophie can’t resist exploring once she finds it has a secretive and playful inhabitant.
When Sophie, bored and lonely, makes an impulsive wish inspired by her reading, hoping for a fantasy adventure of her own, she slips one hundred years into the past, to the year 1860. On her arrival she makes her way, bedraggled and tanned, to what will one day be her grandmother’s house, where she is at once mistaken for a slave.
“Ensnares the reader with mysteries and conundrums of many varieties: social, historical, and magical. Adroit, sympathetic, both clever and smart, The Freedom Maze will entrap young readers and deliver them, at the story’s end, that little bit older and wiser.”
—Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Out of Oz
“The Freedom Maze is, frankly, a stunning book on every level.”
—Tor.com
“Delia Sherman riffs on Edward Eager’s classic The Time Garden in her deeply affecting time travel and coming-of-age novel The Freedom Maze. . . . Realistic, compelling, and not the slightest bit condescending, The Freedom Maze is all about changing your world. Well done, Ms. Sherman.”
—Colleen Mondor, Bookslut
“There are books you just know will stay with you forever. This is one of them. Rating: 10: Perfect.”
— Book Smugglers
“It’s 1960, but on the decayed Fairchild sugar plantation in rural Louisiana, vestiges of a grimmer past remain—the old cottage, overgrown garden maze, relations between white and black races.
“Stuck for the summer in the family ancestral home under the thumb of her cranky, imperious grandmother, Sophie, 13, makes a reckless wish that lands her in 1860, enslaved—by her own ancestors. Sophie’s fair skin and marked resemblance to the Fairchilds earn her “easy” employment in the big house and the resentment of her peers, whose loyalty she’ll need to survive. Plantation life for whites and blacks unfolds in compelling, often excruciating detail. A departure from Sherman’s light fantasy Changeling (2006), this is a powerfully unsettling, intertextual take on historical time-travel fantasy, especially Edward Eager’s Time Garden (1958), in which white children help a grateful enslaved family to freedom. Sophie’s problems aren’t that easily resolved: While acknowledging their shared kinship, her white ancestors refuse to see her as equally human. The framing of Sophie’s adventures within 1960 social realities prompts readers to consider what has changed since 1860, what has not—for Sophie and for readers half a century later—and at what cost.
“Multilayered, compassionate and thought-provoking, a timely read on the sesquicentennial of America’s Civil War.”
—Kirkus Reviews (*starred review*)
“Halfway through the narrative, I thought a tale like this could be improved if we can see how the transformation has changed the character—more than a glimpse given the amount of time spent developing the opening. This was exactly what Sherman did…. This is a novel worth checking out: a fine exemplar of a well-written children’s book, or of the fantastic for fans of history and especially of the Civil War, reminiscent in ways of Octavia Butler’s Kindred.”
—Trent Walters, SF Site
“While heartache thrums throughout the book–children have been sold away from their parents, bodies are worked like machines and beaten liberally, living conditions are despicable–there is the clear bell of hope, that sound in children’s literature that is too tough to destroy.”
—The Pirate Tree
“Sherman has created a finely honed work of art, a novel that deals eloquently with complex and intersecting issues of race, womanhood, class and age. In transporting the reader so fully into another time, The Freedom Maze becomes timeless. This is true magic.”
—Alaya Dawn Johnson, author of Moonshine
“A seamless blending of wondrous American myth with harsh American reality, as befits young Sophie’s coming-of-age. I think younger readers and adults alike will be completely riveted by her magical journey into her own family’s double-edged past.”
—N. K. Jemisin, author of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
“This is an absolutely fascinating story. The Freedom Maze draws you into a world of danger and mystery, of daring and change, at the dawning of the Civil War. Sophie’s adventures in the history of her family’s Louisiana plantation feel real, and lead her to a real understanding of racial truths she would never have caught a glimpse of without magic. Beautifully imagined and told with satisfyingly matter-of-fact detail: pot liquor and spoon bread, whips and Spanish Moss, corset covers and vévés and bitter, healing herbs. The Freedom Maze is deep, meaningful fun.”
—Nisi Shawl, author of Filter House
“Sherman’s antebellum story exposes a wide sweep through a narrow aperture, where the arbitrary nature of race and ownership, kindred and love, are illuminated in the harsh seeking glare of an adolescent’s coming of age.”
—Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing
“A bold and sensitively-written novel about a supposed-white child, Sophie Fairchild returned magically to a time of her ancestors who were slavemaster and slaves in the old South. This book puts the lie to those today making loose political statements about happy, comfortable slave families of that brutal era while telling a strong story that will not let the young reader stop turning pages to see how things will work out for Sophie and her fellow slaves, especially the cook Africa, and house slaves Antigua and Canada. I was mesmerized.”
—Jane Yolen, author of The Devil’s Arithmetic
“A riveting, fearless, and masterful novel. I loved Sophie completely.”
—Nancy Werlin, author of Extraordinary
“A subtle and haunting book that examines what it means to be who we are.”
—Holly Black, co-author of The Spiderwick Chronicles
“The Freedom Maze is destined to become a classic of time-travel fantasy alongside Edward Eager’s Time Garden and Elizabeth Marie Pope’s The Sherwood Ring. Yes, it is thatgood. But it’s also something more: a novel that slides skillfully past all the usual stereotypes about plantation life in the ante-bellum South, encouraging young readers to look at race, gender, and American history in a deeper, more nuanced way. It is, quite simply, one of the very best books I’ve read in years. Now I want everyone to read it.”
—Terri Windling
“Vividly realized and saturated with feeling.”
—Elizabeth Knox, author of DreamHunter
“An entertaining, cracking adventure yarn, The Freedom Maze elegantly unravels many myths of the antebellum South, highlighting the resistance of the enslaved, and showing how even the kind hearted are corrupted by their exploitation of their fellow human beings.”
—Justine Larbalestier, author of Liar
“A story that says what no story has quite said before, and says it perfectly. Stuck on her family’s Louisiana plantation in 1960, adolescent Sophie Fairchild wishes for adventure—and travels magically from the beginning of Civil Rights to the beginning of the Civil War. Enslaved by her own ancestors, Sophie finds kinship among the other people secretly traveling tangled paths toward freedom and home. No matter what age you are, this is a book for the permanent shelf.”
—Sarah Smith, author of the Agatha-winning The Other Side of Dark
“A dramatic yet sensitively-written coming-of-age story that succeeds both as classic fantasy and issue-oriented children’s literature. When Sophie Martineau travels back in time from 1960 to 1860, she discovers the painful complexity of her own heritage as a descendant of both Louisiana planters and the slave women who were forced to bear their children. Sherman offers a non-sugarcoated portrayal of life for black women under slavery, and she never falls into the trap of reducing them to simple stereotypes. Instead, Sophie’s adventure becomes a window into the daily lives of the women who manage the Martineau family’s plantation, work their fields, cook their food, and even raise their children–all while their own reality as thinking, feeling human beings remains strangely invisible to their white owners. Young readers will stay up late to find out if there’s a happy ending for Sophie and Antigua. And by the time they turn the last page, they will have gained a deeper appreciation of the real human cost of slavery–and of the intelligence and resourcefulness with which generations of women struggled to protect their families under a system that denied their most basic rights as human beings.”
—Chris Moriarty
“Vivid and compelling, The Freedom Maze will transport you completely to another time.”
—Sarah Beth Durst
Small Beer Press: In your nearly twenty years of working on this book, what was the most surprising thing you found?
Delia Sherman: “The most surprising thing, really, was finding an advertisement for a runaway slave in the library of Loyola University in New Orleans that read more or less as follows: “Wanted, [name], a woman of [however many] years. Blond and blue-eyed, could pass as white.” That was the most dramatic example, but once I’d seen it, I began to notice others, for “fair-skinned” or “red-haired” slaves escaping with darker companions as slave and master or mistress. It really made me think about how race was constructed in the ante-bellum South.”
Delia Sherman was born in Japan and raised in New York City, but spent vacations between her mother’s relatives in Texas and Louisiana and her father’s relatives in South Carolina. With a PhD in Renaissance Studies, she proceeded to teach until she realized she’d rather edit and write instead. But retaining her love of history, she has set novels and short stories for children and adults in many times and places. Her work has appeared most recently in the YA anthologies The Beastly Bride, Steampunk!, and Teeth. Her “New York Between” novels for younger readers are Changeling and The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen. Delia still enjoys teaching writing workshops, most recently at the Hollins University Masters Degree Program in Children’s Literature. After many years in Boston, she once again lives in New York City, but travels at the drop of a hat.
Delia Sherman, The Freedom Maze: a novel
11/11/11
Fri 11 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin
Small Beer Podcast 3: Michael J. DeLuca, Head Brewer and CTO
Thu 10 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Julie Day, Karen Chacek, LCRW, michael Deluca, Podcastery, small beer podcast, The Hour of the Fireflies, Three Messages and a Warning | 3 Comments| Posted by: Julie
I’m thrilled to be back from wilds of Western Connecticut where I was billeted after the recent Nor’easter. Small Beer headquarters feels like a book-filled Shangri-La. I can’t believe I’ve returned.
In Episode Three of our Small Beer podcast, Michael J. DeLuca and I talk about yarrow-infused beer, medieval brewing, his fiction and why Small Beer’s ebook portal, Weightless Books, is a bibliophile’s dream. Not content to leave it at that, in part two of the podcast Michael reads “The Hour of the Fireflies” by Karen Chacek. It’s part of our upcoming Three Messages and a Warning anthology and I don’t know how you couldn’t love it. It comes out in December.
Episode 3: Michael J. DeLuca, Head Brewer and CTO along with Julie Day and Three Messages and a Warning.
Oh, and if you’d like, go listen to Michael’s story, “The Eater,” on Pseudopod.
Subscribe to the Small Beer podcast in iTunes or using the service of your choice:
Monday afternoon listening
Mon 7 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., audio books, Benjamin Parzybok | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin
Look, a new audiobook! We love Ben Parzybok’s novel Couch and are very happy that it’s now available in audio. You can listen to a sample here:
and we will have a sample coming up at some point soon in our podcast, too.
We’re working with Iambik on a bunch of audio books so look for more of these announcements in upcoming months.
Maureen McHugh in PW’s Top 10!
Fri 4 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Maureen F. McHugh | 2 Comments| Posted by: Gavin
Maureen F. McHugh’s second collection After the Apocalypse is one of PW‘s Top Ten books of the year! The book has two starred reviews and her first collection was a Story Prize finalist. McHugh shares the Top 10 with Jeffrey Eugenides, Ann Patchett, Tina Fey, Chistopher Hitchens, et al.
There will now be a small dance of joy!
You can get a taste of the book here: “The Naturalist.”
No power, no feast, no podcast!
Wed 2 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., bookstores, Delia Sherman, events, podcast, steampunk | 1 Comment| Posted by: Gavin
Wow, did we get snowed under. The early snowstorm here in New England means that Julie is off doing sekrit real (saving the) world work for peeps without power which means we won’t have a podcast this week. Besides, we’re not even sure if the power will be on at the office tomorrow!
That also means all orders are a bit delayed—including pre-orders of The Freedom Maze, which should have shipped out Monday. My apologies!
It’s been pretty incredible here over the last few days and we know a lot of people without power. But everyone really is hanging together.
If all goes well, Kelly and I and Cassandra Clare will be reading and signing from Steampunk! tomorrow night at the Odyssey Bookstore in South Hadley:
Thursday, Nov. 3, 7 PM
The Odyssey Bookshop
9 College St.
S. Hadley, MA 01075
The Odyssey, one of our excellent local indie bookstores, never charges for kids’ events, so the reading & Q&A will be open to anyone who would like to attend. However, they do require that attendees purchase Steampunk! from them in order to get into the signing line. The good news is that you can bring as many other books from home as you like to have signed but you do need to purchase the new book from the bookstore.
Also! While supplies last they will be giving a free YA ARC to attendees in Steampunk attire.
We’re Preparing Our Electronic Feast
Fri 28 Oct 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Day of the Dead bread, Gavin Grant, Julie Day, michael Deluca, Three Messages and a Warning, Tru Beer | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Julie
Next week Mike, Gavin and I will be hosting the very first Small Beer Press, multi-state, chili-beer tasting, and it’s all going to be captured on audio for episode 4 of the Small Beer podcast.
The fabulous Tru Beer here in Easthampton donated a few bottles of Left Hand Brewing’s Fade to Black Pepper Porter. It’s brewed with Serrano, Chipolte and Ancho chili peppers. I, personally, am more than a little afraid. Let’s be honest here; I’m terrified.
To go with the beer, I’m also picking up some Day of the Dead bread from Bread Euphoria. Love your local businesses is our motto here at Small Beer Press. And, really, how could we not when they create bread people with folded arms and little raisin eyes?
All this and some fine Mexican fiction. Episode 4 is going to be fantastic. With luck, we’ll have pictures to post along with the podcast.
Small Beer Podcast 2: In Which Julie Reads a Story by J. M. McDermott
Thu 27 Oct 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., J M McDermott, LCRW, Podcastery, small beer podcast | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Julie
Who doesn’t love Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet? I shipped issue number twenty-six on my very first day here at Small Beer. In honor of that moment, and of all the damn good fiction inside, this week’s podcast is a story taken from that issue, “Death’s Shed” by J.M. McDermott.
Episode 2: Death’s Shed by J.M. McDermott as read by Julie Day of Small Beer Press.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Tune back in next week as Mike DeLuca and Julie Day discuss Weightless Books, Mexican speculative fiction and Mike’s home-brewing techniques. The week after that: beer!
Subscribe to the Small Beer podcast in iTunes or using the service of your choice:
Maureen F. McHugh & David Moles in conversation
Wed 26 Oct 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Interviews, Maureen F. McHugh | 1 Comment| Posted by: Gavin
This week we’re very proud to publish Maureen F. McHugh’s second collection of short stories, After the Apocalypse.
To celebrate, we asked another of our favorite writers, David Moles, to interview Maureen. The two of them sat down recently in LA and then sent us the results of their chat:
David Moles: So, we’re sitting here in sunny Culver City—
Maureen McHugh: Sunny Culver City. In my little apartment, which I love.
Where should we start? I think we should talk about the book.
Probably.
At some point.
Let me see, I’ve got a copy—hold on.
Oh, that’s gorgeous.
Isn’t it gorgeous?
That’s really nice.
It’s a thin book, it’s thinner than Mothers and Other Monsters. I think it’s got about the same number of stories, but a couple of the stories were much longer in Mothers and Other Monsters.
So how did this come about?
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