LCRW + a Chapbook

Fri 29 Aug 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., chapbooks | Leave a Comment | Posted by: Gavin

Thank you Jenny Z. for asking if we offered LCRW subscriptions with a chapbook but without chocolate. My answer: Um, no.

For some reason when I made that little list of serious-to-silly offerings some time ago (and even during the many remakings) it never struck me to offer a chapbook with the first issue of the zine.

Ok, so now here it is.

Or: a 4-issue sub with 1, 2, 3, or 4 chapbooks(!).

We have:

• two Greer Gilman Ben Jonson chapbooks,
• one by Hal Duncan (illustrated by Eric Schaller),
• one by Benjamin Rosenbaum (with illustrations from Peter Reiss),
• and one by Margo Lanagan (illustrated by Kathleen Jennings),

so please don’t forget to say which one(s) you’d like. I’ve just done (most of) the Jan-Jun 2025 royalties and most of these authors get a little payment each time.

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Kindling is a World Fantasy Award finalist

Tue 22 Jul 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Awards, Kathleen Jennings | Comments Off on Kindling is a World Fantasy Award finalist | Posted by: Gavin

Congratulations to all the finalists for the World Fantasy Awards, especially Kathleen Jennings, whose debut collection, Kindling, is one of five finalists for Best Collection.

Kelly, the sole woman, and I — one of six men — are finalists for “Special Award – Non-Professional” for LCRW, and yay for that. However, if you’re voting this year I hope you will choose DeVaun Saunders, for Fiyah, or Steve J. Shaw, for Black Shuck Books, who are both nominated for the first time, and help keep this annual award invigorated and fresh.

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Out Went LCRW 50

Mon 21 Jul 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Out Went LCRW 50 | Posted by: Gavin

With world temperatures rising, and soon the seas, we talked about dropping the LCRW+chocolate option but maybe instead I can get it together and publish the two issues in November and February so that no one gets a fabulous and delicious but melted chocolate bar.

In the meantime, earlier this month we mailed out 99% of subscriber copies (I will make things complicated for me & the BKMN crew) and I got to see it pop up a few times on Bluesky and so on. Glad stories are being enjoyed, we enjoyed them, too. This being the 50th issue I might at some past point have imagined we’d throw a party. Next time, next time.

 

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Cast Spells Punch Nazis

Thu 5 Jun 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Book Moon, punch nazis, T-shirts | Comments Off on Cast Spells Punch Nazis | Posted by: Gavin

Kelly and I have been talking about this one for a while and today, since the new LCRW is at the printer and I am busted because I ran an errand (woo) this morning, I put it up on Bonfire. All monies got to BINC, who do quiet and absolutely necessary work supporting book and comic shop people in times of trouble. Do I personally know people who have applied to BINC? I have no idea. The point is it’s private. I’ve definitely recommended it to people.

 

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Edit, Make, Mail

Thu 5 Jun 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Edit, Make, Mail | Posted by: Gavin

LCRW 50 is at the printer. How will it be mailed out? Slowly!

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Stepping up the Joy

Mon 19 May 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Jennifer Hudak, year's bests | Comments Off on Stepping up the Joy | Posted by: Gavin

Sharing more joy for Jennifer Hudak as her story “The Witch Trap” from LCRW 48 will be reprinted in this year’s Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Nnedi Okorafor & John Joseph Adams along with 19 stories which originally appeared in Amazon Original Stories, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld (x3), FIYAH (x2), Lightspeed (x3), Nightmare, Reactor (x2), Sunday Morning Transport, Uncanny, along with a number of stories from collections and anthologies. BASF&F will be published in October.

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Running Up That Zine

Wed 7 May 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., fifties, LCRW | Comments Off on Running Up That Zine | Posted by: Gavin

LCRW 50, (probably — everything I do is still slower than I expect) coming out next month, is our latest celebration of writers, edited by Kelly and me, to be printed in the near-ish future by our local copy shop (who have a lovely garden and great holiday lights). Every copy comes with a free car*, a pianoforte,* an Oxford comma,** and its own 2 unique typos***.

Since the FDA will soon no longer exist we’re making the cover from a plant-based cheese which is set to melt enticingly during the time it spends in a hot van on its way to you. Open your envelope and devour the contents. Copies bought directly from Book Moon or any other direct sale outlet will be accompanied by a 2 oz (56 g) portion of Miyoko’s “cheese*” for you to replicate this experience. All fictions contained within the zine are better than any here.

* Lie.
** Probably, likely, and so on.
*** At least*^v.
*^v I am enjoying adding these before and after the period.

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Tell Me Something Good You Have Done

Wed 23 Apr 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Tell Me Something Good You Have Done | Posted by: Gavin

I am talking to the President, to the (nominal) political party he belongs to, as well as his cabinet.

Tell me one good thing. Not taking vaccines away, or making food and air and water and work more dangerous; not destroying a legacy of international relations (bloody as they have been); not attempting to destroy one of the world’s largest economy; not taking the rights of those most needing them; not bringing back child labor; not pardoning rapists and those who invaded the US Capitol; not firing thousands of people; not scaring the hell out of everyone on social security, medicare, and medicaid; not abducting, kidnapping, and imprisoning or renditioning immigrants; not refusing due process; not firing immigration judges; not undermining the separation of church and state; not ignoring the parts of the constitution you don’t like; not trying to cut solar and bring back fossil fuels; not put cronyism before the common weal; not hurt public schools by siphoning money to charter schools which do not provide a free appropriate public education; &c., &c. This is only what I came up with here on my couch without research.

Go on: tell me something — anything — good you’ve done for anyone but yourself.

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Elwin Cotman Wins a Whiting Award

Thu 17 Apr 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Awards, Elwin Cotman | Comments Off on Elwin Cotman Wins a Whiting Award | Posted by: Gavin

Excellent news: Elwin Cotman is one of ten 2025 Whiting Award Winners. There’s a good story on it in Elwin’s hometown paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Elwin has a novel coming from Scribner, The Age of Ignorance, as well as four collections of stories, including Dance on Saturday.

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Kathleen Jennings and Kij Johnson Redux

Wed 16 Apr 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Awards, Kathleen Jennings, Kij Johnson | Comments Off on Kathleen Jennings and Kij Johnson Redux | Posted by: Gavin

Kathleen Jennings’s Kindling: Stories has been shortlisted for the Aurealis Award — “Australia’s premier speculative fiction award” — for Best Collection.

The cover for Kathleen’s next novel, Honeyeater, dropped and it is worth clicking on the link.

Also of note, Kathleen did the cover art and half-page pen-and-ink illustrations for Kij Johnson’s forthcoming RiverBank roleplaying game which is being crowdfunded right now on Backerkit and has more than doubled the original goal.

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LCRW Costs, They Go Up

Sun 30 Mar 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW, subscriptions | Comments Off on LCRW Costs, They Go Up | Posted by: Gavin

Damn my eyes. I have seen — and ignored for a year or two too many — spreadsheets such as no zinemaker should see. I have calculated numbers no right-thinking person should know. I have stared at the Sum of all Costs and my very soul trembles before them. In the long dark tea time of the zining afternoon when considering the Fiscal Cliff I run out of Excuses and Pure and Simple Reasons and decide This Must Not Go On. The zine? Yes. Shall I go hiking? No. Shall I hike the zine price? Frustratingly enough, yes.

The USPS costs have Increas’d ($2.31 to mail just 1 zine) and even the Very Paper the zine is printed upon is More Costly in 2025 than in 2024. Or 2023. Or in 2022. Or in 2022. Wait, I am stuck. Please imagine I typed “Or in Year-1” until I hit 1996 when paper was free due to the availability of the photocopier at my temp job. We pay writers but thruppence a word, unincreas’d for Some Years. If that is to increase, and if we are to continue to send out a zine once, maybe even twice in a year, then the Price must rise.

Before The Increase, here are links for those who have the energy to order or — for those with faith the USPS will still be here in a couple of years — subscribe.

 

Chocolate $400
Writers $1,200
Printing $950
Candles $3600
Cover art $100
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my zine is dying

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Making Karen Russell Blush

Thu 27 Mar 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Alaya Dawn Johnson, Karen Russell | Comments Off on Making Karen Russell Blush | Posted by: Gavin

Karen Russell is out on tour with her new novel The Antidote wrote a great list of book recommendations for Elle. They format it so that each book is finishing the sentence “The book that . . .” and for this one the first answer was Kristen Arnett’s forthcoming novel Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One and the second part was Alaya’s story — linked below:

. . . has a sex scene that will make you blush:

Also, Alaya Dawn Johnson’s “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawa’ii” from her stunning collection, Reconstruction, is one of my favorite short stories. It’s about a prison camp where humans are harvested by vampires. (I can imagine some readers might have a lively debate with me here about what qualifies as a sex scene.) “Blush” is too mild a verb for what happens when I reread it. I don’t know what verb to use for a horror-blush. It’s definitely more of a “run for your eternal life” flush than a dewy glow. More meaty red than Maybelline.<

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Nebula Award finalist: Jennifer Hudak’s, The Witch Trap

Wed 26 Mar 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Awards, Jennifer Hudak, LCRW | Comments Off on Nebula Award finalist: Jennifer Hudak’s, The Witch Trap | Posted by: Gavin

Sending our congratulations and sharing the joy that Jennifer Hudak’s story “The Witch Trap” from LCRW 48 is one of six fine finalists for the short story Nebula Award.

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Reverting Rights

Tue 25 Mar 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Angelica Gorodischer, Sue Burke, Ursula K. Le Guin | Comments Off on Reverting Rights | Posted by: Gavin

This is to note that we’re reverting — by Angélica Gorodischer’s estate’s request — rights on two of the three of her books that we have in print: Kalpa Imperial (translated by Ursula K. Le Guin) and Prodigies (translated by Sue Burke). The contract for Trafalgar (translated by Amalia Gladhart), which I had already extended once, runs until March 2026. At that point I expect the estate will ask for those rights to be reverted, too.

This means our ebook edition will stop being available soon. The print editions will still be available at a few excellent stores — such as Alienated Majesty in Austin, TX, and Moon Palace in Minneapolis, MN — but bookshops will no longer be able to order them. We’ll have copies for the foreseeable future — I don’t like to run out so I have a good amount of stock on hand . . . ) which will be available here and in Book Moon.

We’ve loved publishing these books and helping to bring Angélica’s books to Anglophone readers and I am only sorry now not to be able to bring any more into print. But as a reader I’m very happy the estate is focused on getting more of Angélica’s books published here.

I expect I will have more posts along these lines this year as my condition hasn’t changed much since last year.

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Late March Shipping Update

Mon 24 Mar 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, limited editions | Comments Off on Late March Shipping Update | Posted by: Gavin

We’ve been working (as slowly as I ever do these days) with Maple Press on getting shipping re-started on our limited edition of Kelly’s novel The Book of Love and the good news is that it should begin again next week.

We have two Character Editions available — Maryanne and Caitlyn Hightower — along with the Lettered. The final count of the Numbered edition will end up being less than 500 copies.

Otherwise we’re continuing to ship LCRW from Book Moon and most Small Beer books from our distro, Consortium/Ingram in Jackson, TN. We’re all caught up with everything there — bar one new subscription which came in this morning, ha!

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Ayize @ Harvard

Mon 3 Mar 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ayize Jama-Everett, conferences | Comments Off on Ayize @ Harvard | Posted by: Gavin

Ayize Jama-Everett will be at this Harvard conference on Wednesday and Thursday Psychedelics in Monotheistic Traditions: Sacramental Practice and Legal Recognition.

His film A Table of Our Own  is showing at Harvard Law School Room WCC 2004 on Wed. 3/5 @ 8pm & is free & open to the public.

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Free Sticker Templates

Mon 24 Feb 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Creative Commons, free, stickers | Comments Off on Free Sticker Templates | Posted by: Gavin

This Wednesday our newest batch of Read Books Punch Nazis square and bumpers stickers will arrive at Book Moon from Rockin’ Stickers. Also dropped the price of the square stickers from $2 to a single dollar. (Previously I’d ordered from Sticker Mule but I won’t be doing that again.)

We sell quite a lot of these stickers at Book Moon but should you be outside the US or need your own now you can download them.

I’m also adding some pdfs of NO NAZIS labels and stickers which are again free.

Our stickers are licensed under Creative Commons by 4.0 for personal and/or commercial use.

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Sheet of b&w “NO NAZIS” Avery 8164 labels, 6 per sheet:
(Also compatible with these labels: 15264, 32134, 48464, 48864, 5164, 5264, 55164, 5524, 55464, 58164, 6436, 8254, 8464, 8564, 95905, 95940.)

No Nazis Avery 8164 labels/stickers (1542 downloads )

Sheet of b&w “NO NAZIS” Avery 8160 labels, 30 per sheet:
(Also compatible with these labels: 15509, 15660, 15700, 15960, 16460, 16790, 18160, 18260, 18660, 22837, 28660, 38260, 45160, 48160, 48260, 48460, 48860, 48960, 5136, 5160, 5260, 55160, 5520, 55360, 5620, 5630, 5660, 58160, 58660, 5960, 6240, 6521, 6525, 6526, 6585, 80509, 8215, 8250, 8460, 85560, 8620, 8660, 88560, 8860, 8920, 95520, 95915, Presta 94200, Presta 97180.)

No Nazis Avery 8160 labels/stickers (1629 downloads )

Read Books Punch Nazis b&w 3″ square sticker:

Square Read Books Punch Nazis (1649 downloads )

Read Books Punch Nazis b&w bumper sticker:

Read Books Punch Nazis bumper sticker (1693 downloads )

No Nazis b&w square sticker

No Nazis square sticker (1659 downloads )

 

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Meal of Thorns Podcast on Fire Logic

Mon 17 Feb 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Benjamin Rosenbaum, Laurie J. Marks, podcast | Comments Off on Meal of Thorns Podcast on Fire Logic | Posted by: Gavin

I enjoyed listening to Benjamin Rosenbaum guest on the Ancillary Review of Books podcast with Jake Casella Brookins as they took a deep look at Fire Logic, the first book of Laurie J. Marks’s Elemental Logic series.

A Meal of Thorns 17 – FIRE LOGIC with Benjamin Rosenbaum

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NALM 7

Wed 12 Feb 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Nathan Ballingrud, reprinting! | Comments Off on NALM 7 | Posted by: Gavin

Just got a notification from the printer that the seventh paperback printing of Nathan Ballingrud’s collection North American Lake Monsters is ready to ship and will be heading over to our distributor and from there out to bookstores all over.

I need to update the international edition list, too, as — happily — we have a couple more to add to this lisst:

Agave, Hungary. Edizioni Hypnos, Italy. MAG, Poland. Russia. Spain. Ithaki, Turkey.

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The Positive Side of Mail Theft

Mon 10 Feb 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW, Reviews | Comments Off on The Positive Side of Mail Theft | Posted by: Gavin

Over on Locus, Paula Guran’s column from the January issue of the magazine covers LCRW along with:

Nightmare 10/24
Uncanny 11/12-24
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 9/24
Reactor (10/2/24 – 11/20/24)

and she writes that “Four tales in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #48 piqued [her] readerly interest.”

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“A wild mixture of Italo Calvino . . . Grace Paley . . . Fay Weldon . . . and Jorge Luis Borges . . . but no. . . . She isn’t like anybody.”

Wed 29 Jan 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Carol Emshwiller, Strange Horizons, Ursula K. Le Guin | Comments Off on “A wild mixture of Italo Calvino . . . Grace Paley . . . Fay Weldon . . . and Jorge Luis Borges . . . but no. . . . She isn’t like anybody.” | Posted by: Gavin

I was going through Ursula K. Le Guin’s Words Are My Matter the other day and was caught (again) by this lovely dartboard-throwing description of Carol Emshwiller’s writing in Le Guin’s review of Ledoyt:

Most reviewers prefer pigeons that fit in holes and rabbits that redux. Emshwiller’s like a wild mixture of Italo Calvino (intellectual games) and Grace Paley (perfect honesty) and Fay Weldon (outrageous wit) and Jorge Luis Borges (pure luminosity), but no—her voice is perfectly her own. She isn’t like anybody. She’s different.
Before I get to Ledoyt (which is different) I want to talk a little about the other Emshwiller books (which are all different).

I had a half memory that it was online and ta da here it is on Strange Horizons along with a couple of extra footnotes.

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Read Books Punch Nazis

Tue 21 Jan 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Book Moon, T-shirts | Comments Off on Read Books Punch Nazis | Posted by: Gavin

I made a new thing today somewhat along the lines of things I’ve done before but, unlike this sentence, much clearer in what is being done!

For the last few years various bookshops (and many other groups) have run fundraisers and plain just sold t-shirts on Bonfire.com.

The advantages are the shirts are print on demand and include many sizes, colors, and styles. When we order Small Beer or Book Moon shirts, we have to guesstimate how many of each size and color. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes you know how this goes. More advantages: they ship worldwide and have a set up where the proceeds go directly to nonprofits.

The disadvantages are that the prices are high and 2/3+ of the price is just covering cost which leaves $6-10 for the seller and that we don’t get to work with our fab local printer.*

Yesterday while I was not watching TV and staying offline I decided I should try raising money for favorite nonprofits that support all the people who the meh government are going to try and step on.

So today I started a new Read Books Punch Nazis campaign on Bonfire and I’m trying to spread the word. There are new colors, new options (tank, hoodie, sweatshirt) as well as a couple of styles of T-shirts. Many of the options are 100% cotton as we reduce our plastic (including rayon/polyester blends) use. These first 100 shirts support CCATE, a lively and bighearted Philadelphia organization that we’ve supported for years. I’m open to suggestions (in the comments or by email) for more nonprofits to support in the future.

Delighted to be able to add something positive to the world in these cold dark times.

 

* Good news there, Ruth at the store tells me we need to reprint our own RBPNazis shirts, too.

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Shipping News

Thu 16 Jan 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Shipping News | Posted by: Gavin

Books are shipping from our distro, Consortium (albeit they are slowed down by winter storms). Zines and so on are going out slowly (due to me!) from Book Moon.

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Who Reads Lit Mags?

Fri 3 Jan 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Who Reads Lit Mags? | Posted by: Gavin

tl;dr Jessica Dylan Miele.

Admittedly this is on Substack, which I generally skip due to their Nazi Bar problem, but everyone should see the cover of the Bennington Review. There may indeed be “lit mags that refuse to publish anything but conventional and uninspiring work” which might be an access problem as I’ve found there are lit mags for a wide range of tastes. Ok: Ninth Letter, Greensboro Review, A Public Space, American Short Fiction, Gooseberry Pie, One Story. Without having to think too hard there are half-a-dozen broad-ranging mags. If you want a much wider range, just click this Quimby’s link.

Anyway, love to see LCRW out there being read. Most of the stories in LCRW come in over the transom* and finding Dora Holland’s story and getting to publish it was a treat. Sending it out with chocolate bars is a hassle but, since I’m the chocolate sampler as well as the publisher, I can only blame myself.

* Piled into the overflow mail box at the office that Kelly or I clear out every now and then.

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Got Poems? Try Snakeskin

Thu 19 Dec 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Jessy Randall, poetry | Comments Off on Got Poems? Try Snakeskin | Posted by: Gavin

Just received a note from frequent LCRW poetry (and sometimes fiction, too) contributor Jessy Randall who asked me to share this with You.

Jessy Randall will guest-edit the February 2025 issue of the long-lived online poetry magazine Snakeskin. The theme is SCIENCE FICTION. Send up to five unpublished poems about robots, other planets, Star Trek, imaginary technologies, utopian and dystopian futures, Octavia Butler, clones, Barbarella, Blade Runner, Ursula K. Le Guin, Doctor Who, the singularity, Princess Leia, black holes, the uncanny valley, alien invasions, time travel, soylent green, Zaphod Beeblebrox, sentient microbes, and so on, to jessyrandall at yahoo.com. Put your poems in the body of the email, please – no attachments (unless it’s a visual poem or something that needs special formatting). Simultaneous submissions are fine. Deadline is January 1, 2025 and you can expect a response by mid-January.

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NY Mag: What’s Your Go-to Book to Gift Big Kids?

Wed 18 Dec 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Joan Aiken | Comments Off on NY Mag: What’s Your Go-to Book to Gift Big Kids? | Posted by: Gavin

Joan Aiken’s The Serial Garden received a lovely lift this week as writer and book editor Lauren LeBlanc chose it for New York Magazine’s feature What’s Your Go-to Book to Gift Big Kids?

“Told in stories, this is an ideal book to read aloud at bedtime for kids who are perhaps reluctant to commit to bigger novels.”

I recommend clicking through as it’s a very handy list of books. There are 2 from the d’Aulaires, a James Herriott(!), and I’d definitely recommend some of the graphic novels such as Cece Bell’s El Deafo among others. I’m very happy to see The Serial Garden still finding new readers.

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2024 Bestsellers So Far

Thu 12 Dec 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Bestsellers | Comments Off on 2024 Bestsellers So Far | Posted by: Gavin

Here are two versions of our 2024 bestsellers so far: the first is from NPD/Bookscan which captures between 50-70% of sales for our books. The second is Combined Net Sold Print Units from our distributor, Consortium — which means books shipped out minus books returned. The two lists are quite different! (Here’s 2023’s list.)

Thanks to all our authors and to every reader, librarian, bookseller, und so weiter who took a chance on some Small Beer fiction, slightly weird this year. We only published two books, Kathleen Jennings’s Kindling and we’re still slowly organizing the limited edition of The Book of Love. We’re also trying to ship out the new issue of LCRW which is directly related to how much time I spend on the couch.

If you’d like to order some books, we’d love to ship them out to you (with a bonus book for luck). Order here.

 

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Late Holiday Shipping Note

Thu 12 Dec 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., holidays, shipping | Comments Off on Late Holiday Shipping Note | Posted by: Gavin

I forgot to post about holiday mailing dates. Our office is closed and orders are going out from either the Consortium warehouse or the fab people of Book Moon.

Media mail shipping is free. However, if you’d like pre-holiday arrival, please choose Priority Mail.

USPS Ground Advantage™ Service	Dec. 18
First-Class Mail	Dec. 18
Priority Mail	Dec. 19
Priority Mail Express	Dec. 21

And no matter where you are, Weightless Books is always open and has all our DRM-free ebooks.

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