This podcast was something akin to seventies concept album, think The Allen Parsons Project or Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I seem to remember a intense discussion with the proprietor of the fabulous craft beer store, Tru Beer, in Easthampton, Massachusetts. A rapid convert, he donated a few beers to the cause. From Bread Euphoria, we acquired Day of the Dead bread. And then, like so many concept albums, the production requirements along with the obligatory aviator sunglasses and hair mousse almost brought the entire project to a screeching halt.

We are absolutely thrilled we’ve finally got our act together enough to finish this particular podcast.

Episode 5: Julie Day, Gavin Grant, Michael J. DeLuca and Three Messages and a Warning.

Subscribe to the Small Beer podcast in iTunes or using the service of your choice:

Table of contents and final release date TBA but the book will be out in time for Liz’s guest of honor spot at the World Fantasy Convention in Toronto.

January 31: Iowa Review Awards
Prize: $1,000 + publication in the Iowa Review for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction; $500 for runners-up in each genre.
Eligibility: Current faculty, staff, students of the University of Iowa are ineligible.
Manuscript: (SS) Up to 25 pages of double-spaced prose or 10 pages of poetry. Must be unpublished. Include cover page with name, address, email and/or telephone, plus the title of each work. Your name should not be on the manuscript.
Fee: $20 to Iowa Review (add $10 to get subscription)
The Iowa Review
Contest: (genre)
308 EPB
Iowa City, IA 52242
www.uiowa.edu/~iareview/mainpages/iowaaward.html

January 31: Glimmer Train Press
Prize/payment: varies between $300/$2,000 + publication in Glimmer Train Stories.
Manuscript: (SS) Unpublished stories with limits ranging from 3–20,000 words (length depends on the month). Submit online. Multiple submissions ok.
Fee: $0–$18
Please visit website for as guidelines change every month depending on theme (such as: July 31, “Very Short Fiction Award” or Oct. 31, “Family Matters,” etc.)
Susan Burmeister-Brown and
Linda Swanson-Davies, Coeditors
Glimmer Train Press
1211 NW Glisan Street, Suite 207
Portland, OR 97209
(503) 221-0836
www.glimmertrain.org
January 31: Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize
Prize: $10,000 + all-expenses paid trip to the award ceremony, Chicago, June 2012
Eligibility: A book translated from German into English published in the United States during the previous year.
Manuscript: Publishers may submit six copies of a poetry collection, a short story collection, a novel, a novella, or an essay collection.
No fee.
Goethe-Institut Chicago
Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize
Attn: Christiane Tacke
150 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 200
Chicago, IL 60601
www.goethe.de/ins/us/lp/prj/wol/enindex.htm

January 31: Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets, June 2012
Prize: 10 places at seminar including tuition, housing, and meals. Needs-based travel scholarships available.
Eligibility: “You must complete your sophomore, junior, or senior year in the year of the Seminar for which you are applying.”
Apply online.
Send to: Stadler Center for Poetry
Bucknell Hall
Bucknell University
Lewisburg, PA 17837
www.bucknell.edu/stadlercenter

February 1: Fishtrap Fellowship
Up to five fellowships ($1,000 value: includes workshop fee, food, lodging, $150 travel stipend) to attend a July workshop and conference at Wallowa Lake, eastern Oregon, to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers.
Eligibility: No subject restrictions. Submissions should follow Fishtrap’s mission: to promote “good writing in and about the West.” Applicants should be from the West or writing about the West. Emerging writers strongly encouraged to apply.
Manuscript: Up to 8 pages of poetry or 2,500 words of prose, resume with complete award and publication history, and a statement of interest (max. 200 words) and a half-page bio.
No Fee.
Fishtrap
P.O. Box 38
Enterprise, OR 97828
www.fishtrap.org

February 15: HUB-BUB residency program
An 11-month (June 15–May 15, 2013) opportunity for motivated pre-professional and emerging artists to live rent-free in downtown Spartanburg, South Carolina in order to focus on their work. $600/month stipend (less taxes and withholdings).
Eligibility: Artists 20–35 who are excited about the community involvement aspect of the program.
Manuscript: See the website for full application guidelines.
Fee: $30.
HUB-BUB Artist in Residence Program
149 S. Daniel Morgan Avenue, Suite 2
Spartanburg, SC 29306
www.hub-bub.com/air

February 29~March 3: Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference
This conference celebrates the best authors, teachers, writing programs, literary centers, and small press publishers in a different city in North America each year. Features 300 presentations, readings, lectures, panel discussions, and forums plus hundreds of book signings, receptions, dances, and informal gatherings in the city. The conference has about 5,000 attendees and more than 400 publishers. It is one of the biggest and liveliest literary gatherings in North America.
Hilton Chicago & Palmer House Hilton
Chicago, IL
www..awpwriter.org/conference/2012awpconf.php

Phew!

]]> http://smallbeerpress.com/not-a-journal/2012/01/27/unboxing/feed/ 2 http://smallbeerpress.com/not-a-journal/2012/01/26/what-to-read-this-year/ http://smallbeerpress.com/not-a-journal/2012/01/26/what-to-read-this-year/#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:00:03 +0000 Gavin http://smallbeerpress.com/?p=9999 Being that I’ve just started a Patricia Wrightson book—and since we are going there next month!—I am tempted by Australian Women Writers 2012 Reading and Reviewing Challenge.

Anyone else?

Established in 1968, the Clarion Writers’ Workshop is the oldest workshop of its kind and is widely recognized as a premier proving and training ground for aspiring writers of fantasy and science fiction.

Our 2012 writers in residence are Jeffrey Ford, Marjorie Liu, Ted Chiang, Walter Jon Williams, Holly Black and Cassandra Clare.

Clarion West

Workshops for People Who Are Serious About Writing

Clarion West offers workshops for writers preparing for professional careers in science fiction and fantasy.

The Clarion West Writers Workshop is an intensive six-week workshop for writers preparing for professional careers in science fiction and fantasy, held annually in Seattle, Washington, USA.

We are very happy to announce that our instructors for the 2012 Clarion West Writers Workshop are Mary Rosenblum, Hiromi Goto, George R.R. Martin, Connie Willis, Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, and Chuck Palahniuk, the 2012 Susan C. Petrey Fellow.

Maybe you saw our big black splash page on your way here?

SOPA is the Stop Online Piracy Act, PIPA is the Protect IP Act. What I and a lot of other people fear the passage of either of these bills by the US Congress will actually do is allow broad and arbitrary censorship of the internet.

I like an open internet very much, and I think Small Beer readers probably do too, so for the 24 hours of January 18th, 2012, Small Beer Press is going to pitch in and show that black splash page you probably already saw in hopes that some of you will click the links (or the ones above), learn what’s at stake and do something about it. And if not, I hope you won’t be too bothered by it.

Thanks very much for your time!
—Gavin & Kelly

You can get all that—as well as a ton of other good stuff—here at the Alpha Workshop Fundraiser!

Go on, get some good stuff and help fund the future of writing.

FANTASTIC FICTION at KGB reading series, hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present:

	James Patrick Kelly is best known for his short fiction, Including “Think Like A Dinosaur,”  “Ten to the Sixteenth to One” and “Burn.”   His work has been translated into nineteen languages and has won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards.  His most recent publishing venture is the ezine James Patrick Kelly’s Strangeways on Kindle and Nook.
&
	Kelly Link is the author of three collections of stories and her fiction has won three Nebula Awards, a Hugo, and a World Fantasy Award. She recently co-edited Steampunk!: An anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories with her husband Gavin J. Grant

Wednesday January 18th, 7pm at

KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.)

http://www.kgbfantasticfiction.org/

Subscribe to our mailing list:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kgbfantasticfiction/

Readings are always free.

Please forward to friends at your own discretion.

Read the first three chapters here here, but be warned: you may get hooked!

Ayize self-published the book and Nalo Hopkinson did us a huge favor and suggested he send the book to us. It’s a fast-paced science fiction thriller that grabbed me from the get go and I read it right through.

Early readers love it but we somehow managed to score a 0/4 trade reviews—eek! It’s been a while since we did that and now we need to get the word out asap! The book is in indie stores (and yes, online monoliths) just waiting for Guillermo Del Toro to discover it.

Anyway: read it and come back and tell me what you think. Ayize is working on another novel set in the same world and I am trying to get him to send it to me now! and after you’ve read it I think you’ll be saying the same thing.