No.9 in the limited edition Small Beer Press chapbookseries is The Rose in Twelve Petals & Other Stories by Theodora Goss.Goss is one of the strongest and most distinctive voices to appear in recent years. She has very quickly made a name for herself: her stories have been reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror as well asYear’s Best Fantasy and her poem “Octavia Is Lost in the Hall of Masks” has just won the Rhysling Award. Goss’s stories reach across and through genres. She utilizes fairy-tale structures and post-modern motifs all the while building through increments a beautiful body of work.

Cover art by Charles Vess.

Reviews

“Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold” is a superb oneirism, an opportunity vouchsafed to an obscure, not overly successful academic to step through the gates of dream into — what? transcendent inspiration? death? both? Certainly out of his scholarly mediocrity. The atmosphere and invention are quite wonderful. 
– Nick Gevers, Locus

One of the most impressive debuts I can recall…. Fairy tale retellings are a dime a dozen, and Sleeping Beauty ones probably as common as any, so this story has to be special to stand out, and special it is.
– Rich Horton, Locus

“The poems sing … the stories both sing and soar.”
– Matthew Cheney, Locus

“The Rapid Advance of Sorrow” could hide, camouflaged by style and subject, within the gems of J. G. Ballard’s Vermilion Sands. The story gracefully describes a bizarre aesthetic revolution in which the city and concept of “Sorrow” conquers the world in arctic stillness, with white flowers and post-modern language. The story is haunting, possessed of its own terrible beauty, and characterized by gorgeous prose and provocative thought.
– Tangent Online

A beguiling world of fantasy and adventure await he reader…. Go. Buy it. Read it.
– Zine World, 22 supplement.

Contents

The Rose in Twelve Petals 
The Rapid Advance of Sorrow
Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold
Lily, With Clouds
Her Mother’s Ghosts
What Her Mother Said
Chrysanthemums
The Ophelia Cantos
That Year
The Bear’s Daughter
Bears
Helen in Sparta
By Tidal Pools
The Changeling

Advance Praise

“Theodora began publishing in 2002, and already she’s become one of my favorite writers. Her stories and poems are beautifully written, deliciously spiced with the flavors of fairy tales, folklore, myth, and 19th century gothic literature. This book is a feast — and one I intend to savor slowly, to make it last.” 
– Terri Windling, author of The Wood Wife

“These stories are poetic, sad, hopeful, brave. And very, very beautiful. There’s no one, in the field or out of it, who does lyrical simplicity better, or says more about the mysterious workings of the human heart, than Theodora Goss.”
– Delia Sherman, author of The Porcelain Dove

“An original voice, and an original vision: crystalline, precise, mordant and devastating.” 
– Ellen Kushner, author of Swordspoint

“By the merest chance, I had the honor to read Theodora Goss just before she broke into print. Lucky me – I’ve devoured everything she’s published since. Here’s a writer who commands the common tongue as if it were meant to serve her alone, even as her passionate stories spiral upward to surreal glory. Trust me on this: you have never read anything quite like The Rose in Twelve Petals.”
– James Patrick Kelly, author of Strange But Not a Stranger

• Another story online: “Sleeping with Bears” (Strange Horizons)
• Poems of the Fantastic and Macabre is Goss’s ongoing online poetry anthology.

About the author:

Theodora Goss was born in an imaginary city: at least, it looks nothing like she remembers. (In hers, swallows built nests under the eaves of apartment houses, and someone was always playing Liszt.) She grew up in a series of airport terminals and wonders why, wherever you go, you have to pass through Frankfurt. This may explain why most of her characters are from somewhere else, or want to go there. She’s been there, and wants you to know that the mountains are particularly fine. (She recommends the sour cherry strudel.) She lives in Boston with her husband and daughter, and the necessary number of cats. She was a lawyer, but decided it just wouldn’t do. She is now working on a PhD in English literature. She enjoys introducing unsuspecting freshmen to Lord Dunsany and Philip K. Dick, and needs more bookshelves. Her stories have appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Polyphony, Alchemy, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and online atStrange Horizons and Fantastic Metropolis. Several have been reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in magazines such as Mythic Delirium and The Lyric. She has won a Rhysling Award for her speculative poetry.

Some of the stories in The Rose in Twelve Petals & Other Stories were previously published in the following places:

These stories and poems previously appeared in the following places: The Rose in Twelve Petals, Realms of Fantasy, April 2002; The Rapid Advance of Sorrow,Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 11, November 2002; Lily, with Clouds,Alchemy 1, December 2003; Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold,Polyphony 2, April 2003; Her Mother’s Ghosts appears here for the first time. Helen in Sparta, By Tidal Pools, and Chrysanthemums, LCRW 8, June 2001; The Ophelia Cantos, LCRW 9, November 2001; What Her Mother Said will be published in The Journal of Mythic Arts, Autumn 2004; The Bear’s Daughter, The Journal of Mythic Arts, Winter 2004; The Changeling, That Year, and Bears appear here for the first time.

Reading: Oct. 16, 3-5 PM
with Vandana Singh & Greer Gilman
Pandemonium Books & Games
The Garage @ Harvard SQ
36 JFK St.
Cambridge, MA

“Wry, caustic, calculated, impulsive…. Gems of gorgeous weirdness.”
– Asimovs

“Finely wrought fiction that earns its effects. Evocative and passionate, meaningful and filled with wonders.”
– SF Site

“Butner picks up the absurdities of high-speed America and throws them back in its face, reveling in the wild, wonderful mess he creates.”
– New Pages

Contents
Ash City Stomp (audio)
Horses Blow Up Dog City
The Rules of Gambling
Lo-Fi
Drifting

Advance Praise
“Butner’s meticulous prose lays a cool surface over some twisty terrain. Understated and profound, deft and smooth, these stories sneak up on you and then don’t let go. Boxes within boxes, wheels within wheels.”
– Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“If you let Richard Butner’s sideways fiction into your brain it will slice you to ribbons so quietly that you won’t even know why you’re laughing, or crying. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
– John Kessel, Good News From Outer Space

“In the work of writers who have truly burrowed in, often I’ve a sense of there being not many stories but one continuous, ongoing story, ever growing, ever increasing, turning this way and that in shifting light — which is how I feel about Richard Butner’s.”
– James Sallis, Cypress Grove

“Richard Butner writes gorgeous, heartfelt stories that are completely his own, each propelled by an inner logic that may or may not match consensus reality, each ringing utterly true. He is unafraid of tough questions and even tougher answers. His characters sweat, grieve, exult, and struggle for understanding, and even when they terrify, they never fail to touch me.”
– Lewis Shiner, Say Goodbye

• More stories online: “Other Agents” (LCRW); “House of the Future” (SciFiction)
• An interview
• The original afterword to the story “Horses Blow Up Dog City”

About the author:
Richard Butner loves you. This is his second chapbook after Mind Snakes(illustrated by Michael Carter, Barefoot Press & The Paper Plant). His stories have been published in RE Arts & Letters, Say…, …is this a cat?, Problem Child, Scream, Mind Caviar, and the anthologies Trampoline (Kelly Link, ed),Crossroads: Southern Stories of the Fantastic (F. Brett Cox and Andy Duncan, eds., Tor), Intersections (John Kessel, Mark L. Van Name, and Richard Butner, eds., Tor), and When The Music’s Over (Lewis Shiner, ed., Bantam Spectra). He occasionally comments here.

Richard Butner read Thur., Sept. 16, 8.00 PM
Internationalist Books
405 W Franklin St
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
919-942-1740

Some of the stories in Horses Blow Up Dog City & Other Stories were previously published in the following places:
“Ash City Stomp”, Trampoline, 2003; “Horses Blow Up Dog City”, Intersections,1996; “Drifting”, Say…, 2003.
“The Rules of Gambling” and “Lo-Fi” appear here for the first time.

No.6 in the Small Beer Press chapbook series is Benjamin Rosenbaum’s Other Cities. Twelve of the stories in Other Citieswere previously published as a weekly series on Strange Horizons. The entire series is presented here for the first time and each story is illustrated with the art of Boston artist and architect Peter Reiss.

Cities are seemingly inevitable, seductive, depressing, and inebriating. In his Other Cities series Benjamin Rosenbaum takes us on a tour of fourteen imaginary cities:

• from “The White City” — where two sisters fight one another and their fate — to Bellur — which celebrates its censors –
• from Ponge — that’s already enough about that — to Zvlotsk — where by 1912 detective work accounted for a third of the economy
• from Jouiselle-aux-Chantes — the city of erotic forgetting — to Stin — the city for those who are tired of other cities –

Rosenbaum’s stories illuminate the hidden corners of the world the train rider suspects exist at the stop after theirs, the tourist knows the locals will never reveal, and the mapmakers keep for themselves.

Reviews

“Rosenbaum’s fertile sense of invention and his sly humor (”Ponge, as its inhabitants will tell you, is a thoroughly unattractive city. ‘Well,’ they always say at the mention of any horrible news, ‘we do live in Ponge.’”) make these parables a real treat.”
– Asimov’s

“Throughout Other Cities, compressed insight and wonder are compressed into but a handful of words. This small book’s crisp design and illustrations mirror the elegance of the writing: recommended.”
– Xerography Debt

“Charming…”
– Locus

“I enthusiastically urge you to get a copy and enjoy the exciting and odd metropolises in Other Cities.”
– Washington Science Fiction Association The WSFA Journal Dec. 2003

“And though the stories are tiny, they do not disappoint as a result of their brevity. When you leave one fantastic destination behind, there is another city right around the corner.”
– Tangent Online

Contents

The White City
The City of Peace
Bellur
Ponge
Ahavah
Amea Amaau
Ylla’s Choice
Zvlotsk
New (n) Pernch
Maxis
Jouiselle-Aux-Chantes
Penelar of the Reefs
The Cities of Myrkhyr
Stin

25% of the gross revenues from Other Cities will go to the Grameen Foundation USA (see below). If you would like to donate more to the Grameen Foundation when you buy Other Cities please use this link here and fill in the amount (including $6 for the chapbook), thank you.

“Rosenbaum’s little book of cities is like a box of very good chocolates, picked out by a dear friend with an intimate understanding of both confectionary and you. These vignettes are urbane without being arch, sweet without being maudlin, mysterious without being cryptic. Cities are the pinnacle of human acheivment: if you have any doubt, read this.”
– Cory Doctorow (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and A Place So Foreign and Eight More)

“Benjamin Rosenbaum’s miniature stories are like tiny arrows aimed straight at the heart of Mystery.”
– Walter Jon Williams (Dread Empire’s Fall: The Praxis)

“The eloquence and poignancy of each of these stories astonished me. “The City of Peace,” alone, is enough to make one weep. But when read as a whole, Other Cities is not only harrowing, but exhilarating. It’s a fearless exploration into both the heart of darkness and the soul of hope. Here, despair and joy are neither opposites nor antagonists — but husband and wife, brother and sister, yin and yang. In these Cities of Humanity, you won’t meet one without meeting the other.”
– Bradley Denton (One Day Closer to Death: Eight Stabs at Immortality)

(Want to see the rest of Bradley Denton’s quote?)

Benjamin Rosenbaum is troubled but hopeful. He used to live near Basel, Switzerland, but now he is moving back to the tangled superhighways of Northern Virginia, with his wife Esther, his daughter Aviva, and Aviva’s imaginary friends: Kiko, Makke, and the Happy Boy. His stories can be found in Asimov’s, Harper’s, Argosy, F&SF, Strange Horizons, Vestal Review, McSweeney’s, The Infinite Matrix,and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 11.

About the artist:

Peter Reiss was born in Brooklyn, New York. He attended The Cooper Union in New York City; Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy; and the University of Virginia School of Architecture. His artwork focuses on paintings of urban landscapes and abstracted aerial views. He now lives in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife, his son, and his cats.

About the Grameen Foundation USA:

25% of the gross revenues from the sales of this book go to the Grameen Foundation USA, which fights poverty all over the world by establishing banks that loan very small amounts to very poor people to start businesses, and helping them to coordinate and pool their resources. The effect of microcredit loans is transformative rather than palliative: every year Grameen-style loans lift hundreds of thousands of people above the poverty line. Because of the high repayment rate (typically over 95%), money donated to Grameen is highly leveraged: each dollar donated will be loaned again and again. As borrowers become successful in their businesses and begin saving, a Grameen-style bank becomes independent of donations. The original Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which loans $3.8 billion dollars to 2.54 million very poor people, is now self-sufficient.

You can find out more on their website.

Some of the stories in Other Cities were previously published in the following places:

Bellur, Ponge, Ahavah, Amea Amaau, Ylla’s Choice, Zvlotsk, New (n) Pernch, Maxis, Jouiselle-Aux-Chantes, Penelar of the Reefs, The Cities of Myrkhyr, & Stin, Strange Horizons; The White City, The Vestal Review. The City of Peace appears here for the first time.

Rowe takes his storytelling seriously and, if he can, with a generous bourbon on the side. (His readings are not to be missed.) Rowe’s recent stories, including “The Force Acting on the Displaced Body” (the lead story in the anthology Trampoline) and “The Voluntary State”, have taken him into new, deep, and exciting literary territory and have brought him many new and appreciative readers. Bittersweet Creek gathers together some of his best stories from recent years and solidifies his reputation as one of the up and coming writers in the speculative fiction field.

Reviews

“Rowe’s work might remind you of that of Andy Duncan. Both exemplify an archetypically Southern viewpoint on life’s mysteries, a worldview that admits marvels in the most common of circumstances and narrates those unreal intrusions in a kind of downhome manner that belies real sophistication.”
– Asimov’s

“As smooth and heady as good Kentucky bourbon”
– Locus

“‘Men of Renown’ is a herald of what Rowe can do best: deal with time and place without limits.”
–Tangent Online

Contents
Baptism on Bittersweet Creek
Sally Harpe
The Dreaming Mountains
Kin to Crows
Men of Renown

What is This?

This smart, sleek, scary little book is all about strange arrivals: girls coming up out of their graves, giants from their junkyards, dragons from their river beds. Add Rowe himself– striding out of the Kentucky hills into the sunlight of literature’s regard. And he looks good doing it.
– Terry Bisson (The Pickup Artist)

Christopher Rowe’s stories are the kind of thing you want on a cold, winter’s night when the fire starts burning low. They dance through godfearing communities in the deep country with the unerring steps of a shaman’s rite to show that the division between Biblical and primal deities is a perilous conceit. Reverent and irreverent in the same breath, chilling and funny by turns, they deliver the full measure required of short story tellers the world over; entertainment plus x, where x is a measure of internal vertigo caused by a sudden glimpse of a sheer drop. Terrific.
–Justina Robson (Natural History)

Christopher Rowe was a fine writer when he was one of my students back at Clarion West, in 1996; and he has only gotten better. Much better. And as good as he is now, he’ll keep getting better. Read these excellent stories, and see what I mean.
–Jack Womack (Going, Going, Gone)

About the Author:

Rowe’s story, “The Force Acting on the Displaced Body”, is the lead story in the anthology Trampoline — for which he answered these questions. He lives in Lexington, KY. His fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in Realms of Fantasy, JPPN, Pulp Eternity, The Dead Mule, and the anthologies Beyond the Last Star and Swan Sister: Fairy Tales Retold.

Rowe’s poem “Our Prize Patrol Will Find You” was published in LCRW 9. He is the editor and publisher (with Gwenda Bond) of the magazine Say….

Earlier this year Ideomancer posted an interview and three of Rowe’s stories: Horsethieves and Preachermen, Kin to Crows, and VFD Adventures. Here’s another short story.

This is not him.

This is his new blog.

About the Artist:

Shelley Jackson lives in a dark hole in a dark, dark hole in a dark, dark, dark hole.

Some of the stories in Bittersweet Creek originally appeared, in somewhat different form, in the following places:

“Baptism on Bittersweet Creek,” Realms of Fantasy, 1999; “Sally Harpe,” Realms of Fantasy,1999; “The Dreaming Mountains,” Ideomancer Unbound, 2002; “Kin to Crows,” Realms of Fantasy, 1998. “Men of Renown” appears here for the first time.

Reviews

“This chapbook of nine stories by Mark Rich offers a fine selection of some truly imaginative fiction. The stories fall open without warning, speaking their own languages with unfamiliar cadence, insisting that you give them your full attention if you plan to attend to them at all. Mark Rich has a little bit of Richard Brautigan in him, something magical in his sentences that charms, even when you don’t understand where they are taking you. My love affair with fiction has become complicated since I finished grad school, and I am heartened when I discover stories that remind me of the inherent beauty of language, and the way it can sparkle when used in the right hands (his are the right hands).”
– Xerography Debt, no.12

“There is some interesting stuff here. He seems to do best with stories that involve gardening.” – A Reader’s Guide to the Underground Press, no.20

“Rich’s confident and compact prose is spiked with sci-fi quirks that veer in unexpected but ever-rewarding directions.”
– Broken Pencil no.23

Contents

Wrong Door
Mrs. Hewitt’s Tulips
Take Me
Ashes of Penis Thrown to Sea
Kiss of The Wood Woman
Idiosynchronicity
On the Collection of Humans
Foreigners
Exfoliation

“Mark Rich is the only writer in existence who can make my mouth fall open.”
– Michael Kandel

“Humor, surrealism, a unique world view — Mark Rich’s short fiction is refreshing, original, and wonderfully written. Any new Mark Rich collection is highly recommended.”
– Jeff VanderMeer

Who is Mark Rich?

Is he A) The jaunty, offbeat stories of Mark Rich have appeared since the 1980s in venues ranging from small humor and literary zines to the slick pages of science fiction monthlies. Since the appearance of his first collection of stores, Lifting (Wordcraft of Oregon, 1991), he has published three books about toys, including the dictionary-style compendium Toys A to Z (Krause Publications, 2001). He writes a multitude of columns about toy history for collecting magazines, pens the occasional drawing, such as the ones found in this chapbook, and leads the rock band Mad Melancholy Monkey Mind, which performs in the central Wisconsin area where he makes his home with partner and fellow musician Martha Borchardt. They have no pets.

Is he B) Mark Rich first wrote stories as a child in Colorado in the 1960s. He began publishing occasional poems and reviews in newspapers and zines in his teens, and started two speculative poetry zines before entering college. In some ways, entering college meant the end to his early writing efforts, although he did win a poetry prize and edited the campus newspaper during this time. He earned a degree in music from Beloit College in 1980. In the early 1980s he made his income from a combination of music, artwork, and writing, more the first two than the last; and as a secretary and occasional house painter and cleaning person. His income never rose above the poverty level for fifteen years. In the ’80s he co-founded The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, with Roger Dutcher; managed the Turtle Creek Food Co-op in Beloit, Wis.; worked parttime as editorial assistant and arts reviewer for the Beloit Daily News; participated in local art exhibits, with awards including a Juror’s Award in a regional show; and formed the short-lived bands Auto Da Fe and the Glass Doves. His first collection of short stories, Lifting,appeared in 1991 from David Memmott’s press, Wordcraft of Oregon. Though a small book, it won the Leslie Cross award from the Council of Wisconsin Writers. Afterwards his fiction began appearing in the professional press, beginning with Amazing Stories and Bantam anthology Full Spectrum 4. In the mid-1990s he became a regular contributor to Analog; and he published the letters-oriented zine Kornblume: Kornbluthiana, focusing on the life and works of Cyril Kornbluth. In the late 1990s, he began contributing columns about toy collecting and toy history to collecting magazines, and since then has published three books on toy history. In 2001 he established the band Mad Melancholy Monkey Mind with his partner in life and music, Martha Borchardt. The band’s first CD, Drive, appeared in 2002. Now a five-piece ensemble, the band performs in the central Wisconsin area.

Or C) Mark Rich’s life has been largely unsatisfactory, from the point of view of those who measure accomplishment by the bottom results of a balance sheet. He has, however, provided some help to a few prairie plants and miscellaneous amphibians; has published a few verses; has published a few drawings; has bought people a few beers; has put together and taken apart a few bands; has published a great number of photographs, mostly of toys; has published hundreds of thousands of words about toys; has helped out a few souls in meager literary ways; has published a few stories; has published a few books; has published a little literary criticism; has rescued a few earthworms; has cooked some good meals; has mixed some fine classic martinis; has drunk some excellent beers; has gone on some excellent walks; has provided a source of worry to his family; has read some good books; has grown a few longs hairs; and has grown a few gray hairs. This is his second collection of short stories.

Or some combination. Or all three. Or something else entirely??

Here’s his website, where you can find out more about the man, the music, the toys, oh yes, the toys.

Mark’s art was featured in LCRW 11 and on the cover of LCRW 5. His short story, “Delivery”, appeared in LCRW 9.

Mark’s been writing for years, and has been published in Tales of the Unanticipated, Analog, Amazing Stories, Science Fiction Age, The Silver Web, Keen Science Fiction, Plot, Palace Corbie, Nova 5, and the anthologies The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Eleventh Annual Collection, Universe 3, Full Spectrum 4… etc., etc.

Some of the stories in Foreigners, and Other Familiar Faces were previously published in the following places:

Ashes of Penis Thrown to Sea, Stygian Articles (No. 11, October 1997)
Exfoliation, Talebones (No. 1, Winter 1996)
Foreigners, Full Spectrum 4 (Bantam Doubleday Dell: 1993).
Idiosynchronicity (as Idiosynchrasies), SF Age (3:3, March 1995)
Mrs. Hewitt’s Tulips, in Tales of the Unanticipated (No. 20, August 1999)
On the Collection of Humans, appeared originally in Nova (U.K; 1993) and Year’s Best Science Fiction 11 (St. Martin’s: 1994)

Take Me, Wrong Door, and Kiss of the Wood Woman appear here for the first time.

No.4 in the Small Beer Chapbook Series. “Election Day” is new to this collection. “Lord Stink” and “The Window” were published in Asimov’s and “Dream of Rain” was originally published in Interzone. “The Window” was a runner-up for the 1999 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and one of Locus’s Top Ten Stories of 1999.
Cover art by Shelley Jackson.

Interviews:

Reviews
“On the basis of Lord Stink and Other Stories (Small Beer Press, chapbook, $5.00, 76 pages, ISBN unavailable), Judith Berman is a skillful, passionate writer who proceeds at her own measured pace to produce quality craftsmanship from her workshop. Two stories here, the title piece and “Dream of Rain” are mythic, fairytale-like fantasies that evoke the best of Ursula Le Guin. The heretofore unpublished “Election Day,” by contrast, is a madcap Tim-Powersish romp involving talking mirrors, reanimated corpses and a touchingly awkward, nascent love affair. Finally, “The Window” moves into Carol Emshwiller territory with its tale of an Earth overrun by the Grubs, and how humanity fares as pets. Berman exhibits a sure hand and a sharp imagination. Seeing more of her work will be a pleasure, especially at possibly longer lengths.”
–Paul Di Filippo, Asimov’s

“…should whet readers’ appetites for the author’s upcoming novel from Ace, The Bear’s Daughter”
– Tangent Online

“Judith Berman hasn’t been very prolific. These stories represent most of her output to date, to my knowledge, but they are intriguing works, displaying considerable range and a fine new voice.”
– Locus Online (far down the page)

Contents
Lord Stink
Election Day
Dream of Rain
The Window

Here’s her website, which may tell you some more about her. Raised in the wilds of Idaho, Berman is an anthropologist and now lives with her family in Philadelphia, PA. Her first novel, Bear Daughter, follows on from her story, “Lord Stink” (see above).

Her essay, “Science Fiction Without the Future,” published in May 2001 in the New York Review of Science Fiction, won the 2002 Pioneer Award for Best Critical Essay. Bruce Sterling said it was “[P]robably the most important piece of science fiction criticism in the last ten years.” Berman published another essay “Models of Time: Imagining the Future,” in the New York Review of Science Fiction (September 2002).

Berman read at KGB Bar in August of 2002 (pictures).

Contents
Rossetti Song – read it now
The Sands of Iwo Jima
Akhenaten
The Sea Wind Offers Little Relief

• “The Sands of Iwo Jima” received an Honorable Mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror
• F&SF review
• Locus Online review
• Tangent Online review

He’s the winner of the Crawford and Locus Awards. Here’s hiswebsite. He had a story in LCRW No.8*, and was a John W. Campbell Best New Writer Award finalist (website), which, handily, lists many of his publications.

Here’s another picture.

Alex is also responsible (with designer Thom Davidsohn) for The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives, an amazing pulp-style colllection (which is for sale here).

Review

Read a review on Locus Online

And look what’s being said about his first novel, A Scattering of Jades:

“The characterization is nearly as accomplished as the historiography, and the two together make the book an exceedingly solid achievement, with a great deal of promise for the author’s future.”
– Publishers Weekly

“Smartly written, uncliched…. [A]n intelligent and strongly written debut historical-fantasy by a descendant of P. T. Barnum’s. Excellently researched, this fantasia about New York City, Kentucky, and the Midwest in the 1840s mixes US history and Aztec mythology.”
– Kirkus Reviews

“Irvine’s prose is rich and evocative, his plot tightly structured and beautifully paced. The denouement, when it arrives, offers no easy answers; each of the principals leaves the scene damaged. Most impressive is Irvine’s interweaving of two seemingly unrelated histories and myth structures without straining the credibility of either.”
– Washington Post Book World

* This is what we said about him then:

Alex Irvine is far too sporty to stay indoors and write, and yet he does. Look at that author photo. He has a story in the anthology Starlight 3, and probably has one in the next F&SF. His novel, A Scattering of Jades, will be published by Tor in 2002. In 2001 he was one of the writers on the A.I. webgame and has co-written a novelization (A.I.:The Death of Evan Chan) with Sean Stewart.

Author pic (with friend) by Beth Gwinn.

“a fine burgeoning talent.”
– Asimov’s

“…one admires Knez’s gift for language. It should come as no surprise that three poems of impeccable craftmanship follow the five narrative prose works…”
– Star*Line

Read a review here.

Fiction
The Good Housekeeper
The One Forbidden Thing
Vaster Than Empires
HumanitAid, Inc.
Perpetual Motion — read it here

Poetry
The Retreat of Glaciers/Kettle Pond
If I Had Wings
Stick Man

“Dora Knez shows us those small magics by which people survive. Her prose is nimble; her voice, subtle; her heroines, unforgettable. Dora! Dora! Dora!”
– Karen Joy Fowler

“Dora Knez brews a physic for the wondrous everyday pains and sorrows. Her writing is, purely and simply, magic: gentle as the touch of a child’s hands on its parent’s face; quiet as a lullabye whispered into the ear; and sometimes, fearsome as the squalling changeling who has replaced the babe you love.”
– Nalo Hopkinson

“I put Dora Knez and the short fiction and poetry collected in this chapbook in the same category as Jeffrey Steingarten’s The Man Who Ate Everything, Holes by Louis Sachar, Tove Jansson, Carol Emshwiller, Dylan Horrocks, the poetry of Carol Anne Duffy, Christine Garren, Erica Funkhauser: I want to recommend Knez to strangers and give her to friends. Dora Knez’s writing is sturdy, generous, lively and intricate. She’s a writer I think other readers should know about.”
– Kelly Link