Listen to The Ant King

Thu 18 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

The title story of Ben Rosenbaum’s collection The Ant King, is part of this weeks’ StarShipSofa podcast (starting around 35:00):

Stan went to a group to try to accept that Sheila was gone. It was a group for people whose unrequited love had ended in some kind of surrealist moment. There is a group for everything in California.After several months of hard work on himself with the group, Stan was ready to open a shop and sell the thousands of yellow gumballs. He did this because he believed in capitalism, he loved capitalism. He loved the dynamic surge and crash of Amazon’s stock price, he loved the great concrete malls spreading across America like blood staining through a handkerchief, he loved how everything could be tracked and mirrored in numbers. When he closed the store each night he would count the gumballs sold, and he would determine his gross revenue, his operating expenses, his operating margin; he would adjust his balance sheet and learn his debt-to-equity ratio; and after this exercise each night, Stan felt he understood himself and was at peace, and he could go home to his apartment and drink tea and sleep, without shooting himself or thinking about Sheila.


I know you’re a big mouth but what are we?

Wed 17 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Publishers Weekly introduces our new imprint, Big Mouth House, to the world in a nice piece that also mentions Kelly’s new collection, Pretty Monsters:

When Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, founders of Small Beer Press in Easthampton, Mass., first considered publishing children’s books several years ago, they had a problem: the name of their press sounded like a brewery.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Beer? Anyway, it’s true: we are slowly and carefully opening out a new imprint for readers of all ages: Big Mouth House.

The Serial GardenThe first title comes out at the end of October, The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories, by the late Joan Aiken that has 4 previously unpublished stories. There are illustrations by Andi Watson and introductions by Garth Nix and Joan Aiken’s daughter, Lizza Aiken. It’s a Junior Library Guild pick and we got the best and most generous quote for it:

“Joan Aiken’s invention seemed inexhaustible, her high spirits a blessing, her sheer storytelling zest a phenomenon. She was a literary treasure, and her books will continue to delight for many years to come.”
—Philip Pullman

At some point soon the Big Mouth web site will become better and we’ll put up more about forthcoming books, guidelines (queries only, no picture books for the foreseeable future), and so on.

For the moment, The Serial Garden is Big Mouth House: one book that is so lovely and has been such fun to work on that we can’t wait to get it back from the printer (the proofs are due tomorrow!).

Preorder it: here, Powells, Local Bookstores: Yours, Ours, (ebook available soon from us and Fictionwise).


Wall Street Journal on Palin

Tue 16 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

from the depths of pre-election desperation, some honest words from the Wall Street Journal. Yes, that old left wing bastion, the Journal:

Leave the fantasy land of convention rhetoric, and you will find that small-town America, this legendary place of honesty and sincerity and dignity, is not doing very well. If you drive west from Kansas City, Mo., you will find towns where Main Street is largely boarded up. You will see closed schools and hospitals. You will hear about depleted groundwater and massive depopulation.

And eventually you will ask yourself, how did this happen? Did Hollywood do this? Was it those “reporters and commentators” with their fancy college degrees who wrecked Main Street, U.S.A.?

No. For decades now we have been electing people like Sarah Palin who claimed to love and respect the folksy conservatism of small towns, and yet who have unfailingly enacted laws to aid the small town’s mortal enemies.


Massachusetts peoples

Tue 16 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

It’ primary day: Go vote!


The Serial Garden . . . on film

Tue 16 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Some mornings are just that bit crappy so to wake up and watch this was indeed cheering. These kids, they are having the fun:


Gidney, Zombie Plans, Cringing, Nothing

Sat 13 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Go get Craig Gidney’s new collection Sea, Swallow Me, and Other Stories—and help pay the man’s medical fees! (What kind of country accepts 10-15% of its citizens as a permanently uninsured underclass? This one. Vote for Obama and a new national health system.)

This is a collection we were gong to buy anyway and this offer from publisher Steve Berman was so irresistible that a check was dropped in the mail today:

Gidney

Rather than just a royalty, I’d like to offer a pre-pub sale that would give him the entire amount. Yes, I won’t even keep my costs and, since 10% of my profits were to be donated to the >Carl Brandon Society, if you purchase a copy of the book before publication, I’ll still make that pledge. So, $13 goes to Craig and $1.30 goes to Carl Brandon. Books will be sent out via media mail at my cost.

If you’ve already ordered a copy through Amazon, I want to thank you. But that won’t help Craig for months. Plus, I’ll make sure Craig autographs your copy before it is sent out.

I’d prefer payment be sent via check, but you could Paypal it if necessary to lethepress AT aol DOT com. The price is only $13 per book.

Lethe Press
118 Heritage Ave
Maple Shade, NJ 08052

Other good things on the web: Kelly’s story “Some Zombie Contingency Plans” is now online as part of John Joseph Adams’s huge new anthology The Living Dead. Coincedentally there was a nice review of Magic for Beginners over at The Fix. And Strange Horizons recently ran Richard Butner’s weird and lovely(?) story “The Secret Identity.”

Did anyone watch the first episode of “Fringe” without spending a lot of time cringing? So many weird and bad things. Best and most hopeful interpretation is that it was a prequel tacked onto the show and that the actual show will be better. Seems over optimistic.

However, to make up for that, the second volume of M.T. Anderson’s second Octavian Nothing is absolutely fantastic.


Sunday in Brooklyn

Fri 12 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

blurrybuttons.JPGWe’ll be at the Brooklyn Book Fair on Sunday from 10-6. 10 AM seems a little early, but coming somewhat early in the day may be advisable as we will be selling all books for same price: $10! (We’re not going to bring the hardcover editions of The Ant King or The Baum Plan, but we’ll have plenty of the paperbacks.) That includes Geoff Ryman’s The King’s Last Song and pretty much everything we have in print — even The Best of LCRW and the Harcourt paperback of Magic for Beginners. For big spenders we will have (recycled) canvas bags. For really big spenders, Small Beer Press is available!

buttoneering.JPGWhile Kelly’s new book won’t be out, we will have tiny thing to keep people going: buttons (yes, that flock there) featuring four of Shaun Tan‘s interior illustrations for the book as well as “Pretty Monster” temporary tattoos.

Kelly and Holly Black have also produced their first collaboration: a 4-letter tattoo. Pick yours up at the fair!

Anyone dressed as a zombie gets a free button. Anyone dressed gets a free button. Anyone ina  dressing gown gets two. Anyone undressed gets appluaded.


I.D. the thing

Thu 11 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

. . . and we’ll send you an advance copy of Kelly’s new collection, Pretty Monsters:

P1010288.JPG


Music to work late to

Thu 11 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Liars and PrayersShould you find yourself working late some night soon, whether you’re operating a piece of heavy machinery, such as a button-maker, or doing some final work on a book, either way you’ll find that Thalia Zedek‘s new CD Liars and Prayers works very well to help drown out the noise of the band a few down the hall or to incite an appropriately deep trance to work in.

Zedek sounds a bit like Leonard Cohen, a bit wall of sound, a bit pub band: it’s definitely a lively and fascinating mix. And: timely or not, but here is a smart woman talking about politics. There are a couple of tracks on her myspace page: go listen.


Bloomsbury Academic

Wed 10 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Bloomsbury’s recent announcement about their new Creative Commons-licensed line provides a fascinating point of entry into the possible future of niche-interest books:

Bloomsbury Academic will be using a radically new model. All titles will be made available free of charge online, with free downloads, for non-commercial purposes, immediately upon publication, using Creative Commons licences. The works will also be sold as books, using latest short-run technologies or Print on Demand (POD).

Until we all have Instabook printers on our desktops (just as photo printing became dispersed onto desktops instead of centralized), this seems like a great model: insure the work is available to as wide an audience (online, libraries, etc.) as possible and also provide the option of buying the physical text.

For the moment, people do a ton of reading online (hello NY Times, Blogistan, etc.) so our distribution model is still mostly the same as publishing last century: make a pretty book and send it out there to be read and enjoyed. Since 99% (ok 99 point something-or-other) of our sales are physical, paper books, this is what we’re sticking to. (And, it’s great fun working with authors and artists to make books.)

Looking ahead (or at least sideways) quite a few of our books are available as ebooks and some are out there as free CC-licensed texts that can be played with, shared, sent on, etc., and maybe provoke the reader to look up those authors in the future.


The King’s Last Song – Chapter 1

Tue 9 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Free Stuff to Read, Novel Excerpts| Posted by: Gavin


“Oh you who are wise, may you come more and more to consider all meritorious acts as your own.”
Sanskrit inscription on the temple of Pre Rup,
translated by Kamaleswar Bhattacharya

“As wealthy as Cambodia.”
Traditional Chinese saying

Awakening

You could very easily meet William.

Maybe you’ve just got off the boat from Phnom Penh and nobody from your hotel is there to meet you. It’s miles from the dock to Siem Reap.

William strides up and pretends to be the free driver to your hotel. Not only that but he organizes a second motorbike to wobble its way round the ruts with your suitcases.

Read more


Publication day

Tue 9 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Geoff Ryman, The King's Last SongGeoff Ryman’s The King’s Last Song comes out today: send us pictures when you see it in the shops!

Or you can buy the ebook right now at Fictionwise—and there’s a 15% discount this week—or from us.

You could get carried away: Laura’s Book Group from Edinburgh, who just won the 2008 Penguin/Orange Broadband Readers’ Group Prize, dined on deep fried crickets while reading it. (If you do that, definitely send us pictures!) 


The King’s Last Song

Tue 9 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

The King’s Last Song is an immersive novel of epic proportions that interweaves two Cambodian stories: Archeologist Luc Andrade discovers an ancient manuscript inscribed on gold leaves but is kidnapped — and the manuscript stolen — by a faction still loyal to the ideals of the brutal Pol Pot regime.

Andrade’s friends, an ex-Khmer Rouge agent and a young motoboy, embark on a trek across Cambodia to rescue him. Meanwhile, Andrade, bargaining for his life, translates the lost manuscript for his captors.

The result is a glimpse into the tremendous and heart-wrenching story of King Jayavarman VII: his childhood, rise to power, marriage, interest in Buddhism, and the initiation of Cambodia’s golden age. As Andrade and Jayavarman’s stories interweave, the question becomes whether the tale of ancient wisdom can bring hope to a nation still suffering from the violent legacy of the last century.

The King’s Last Song was originally published in the UK by HarperCollins. This new edition has an new extended afterword by the author, “A Reality Check on The King’s Last Song,” in which Geoff Ryman notes how both his sources and experiences added to the writing of the novel.

Read Chapter One.

About the author.

Reviews

“Modern Cambodia, portrayed here, is still a wreck, beset by memories of mass murder. Like William the motoboy, everyone concentrates on escaping poverty and rising above their station. Surprisingly few, though, dwell on vengeance; there is a new generation, Ryman seems to say, capable of the stratospheric feats of the country’s legendary royalty.”
— Washington City Paper

* “An unforgettably vivid portrait of Cambodian culture past and present.”
— Booklist (starred review)

The Khmer Times

Audio:

On the web:

Credits

  • Cover art © Pablo Carral Vega (from Corbis) and Jeremy Horner (Panos).

*** Pretty Monsters

Mon 8 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Pretty Monsters: Stories CoverPretty Monsters has pulled in a couple of starred reviews! Online from Kirkus in the Sept. 15th edition:

Although some of Link’s work appears in other YA and adult short-story anthologies, this is her first collection wholly aimed at a young-adult audience. Weirdly wonderful and a touch macabre, the nine short stories take readers into worlds wit

Then Publishers Weekly:

Readers as yet unfamiliar with Link (Magic for Beginners) will be excited to discover her singular voice in this collection of nine short stories, her first book for young adults.

Which together with the earlier Booklist review gives the book . . . three starred reviews!


Couch Excerpt

Mon 8 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

eleven eleven: 5You can get an advance peek at Benjamin Parzybok’s debut novel Couch in the new issue of eleven eleven (a lit journal from the California College of the Arts) which has an excerpt, “On the Tracks.” The cover photo (which is an awesome wraparound) is by Thomas Dooley and the photo of eleven eleven is by Danielle Baldassini.

We just got a great blurb for Couch from Paul La Farge:

“A lot of people are looking for magic in the world today, but only Benjamin Parzybok thought to check the sofa, which is, I think, the place it’s most likely to be found. Couch is a slacker epic: a gentle, funny book that ambles merrily from Coupland to Tolkien, and gives couch-surfing (among other things) a whole new meaning.”


new covers: Ryman

Thu 4 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Here’s a first look at final or near final covers for our Sept/Oct/November books. (Covers link to larger versions.)

Geoff Ryman, The King's Last Song

The cover of Geoff Ryman’s The King’s Last Song is made up of two photos, one by Pablo Carral Vega (from Corbis) and one by Jeremy Horner (Panos). Our cover is a variation on the UK HarperCollins edition with a new typeface, new text, and so on. The files we got from HarperCollins were complicated, quite beautiful, and fascinating to work with.

This book sold pretty well in the UK so we are sending it out far and wide to try and generate some good reviews and word of mouth. There aren’t many novels set in Cambodia (either modern day or historical) so this one fills a gap. Booklist gave it a starred review and Library Journal gave it a strong recommendation. We, of course, do too! It’s a gobsmackingly-large canvas novel to dive into—very much autumn out on the hammock reading.

Geoff is teaching this semester at UC San Diego (where he just taught at the Clarion Workshop, too), so if you’re in the area look out for possible readings.

SF in SF header image 1One confirmed reading already: Saturday, November 15 (with Ellen Klages) as part of the SF in SF series.

“Ryman’s knack for depicting characters; his ability to tell multiple, interrelated stories; and his knowledge of Cambodian history create a rich narrative that looks at Cambodia’s “killing fields”—both recent and ancient—and Buddhist belief with its desire for transcendence. Recommended for all literary fiction collections.—Library Journal

* “An unforgettably vivid portrait of Cambodian culture past and present.”
—Booklist (starred review)

The King’s Last Song has shipped from the printer so pre-orders will be sent out soon and it will arrive in stores within a week or so.

Preorder | Mail Order | Powells |Our Local Bookstore | Your Local Bookstore


Needs More Coaster

Wed 3 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

The Ant King and Other StoriesStill wondering whether you should buy into the Ant King’s lair? There are reviews coming up in Realms of Fantasy and the Washington Post and of course, you can read a bunch of the stories online or just download the whole thing.

Benjamin Rosenbaum’s stories run the gamut from weird to truly weird. Sometimes the whimsical aspects can occlude the deep rigor and the intellectual underpinnings: make no mistake, no matter what the genre, these are some of the best stories we’ve read in recent years and we’re very happy to share them with readers.

Ben just announced a competition on his blog (with a nice long deadline) for readers to create derivative works from his stories:

  • On March 3, 2009 (that gives you six months), Ben will send signed (and extensively doodled-upon) hardcover copies of The Ant King and Other Stories to the creators of the three derivative works that he likes the best

Go, create!


Oops, poetry

Wed 3 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Uncategorized, | Posted by: Gavin

September/October 2008 coverThere’s a nice shout out for Small Beer in the print version of Poets & Writers which says that we publish poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. While this is and has always been true for LCRW, it isn’t true of Small Beer. Kelly is interested (in a long-term manner) in adding poetry to the mix, but for the moment we just don’t have the knowledge of the field or the $$ to invest in such a low-return field.

Small Beer Press is a for-profit concern (at least theoretically). Despite giving away thousands of books, we are in this to make a living and to pay everyone (except our sainted interns) at least something. If we were a nonprofit and applying and supported by grants, we might publish poetry (and there are 100s of poetry publishers who manage it) but since we have to try and do all this on the money that comes in from sales: for the nonce we’re sticking to fiction (and the occasional nonfiction).


Pretty Monsters news

Wed 3 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Pretty Monsters: Stories CoverWe just sent out a couple more ARCs of Pretty Monsters (such a pretty book!) to people who won our earlier LCRW sweepstakes. We have a couple more to give out this month before the book comes out on October 2nd. We will probably give them away at the Brooklyn Book Fair and on here or in our newsletter.

Kelly will also have a tiny tiny giveaway thingy at our table at the Book Fair.

There are a few reviews in Blogistan (Oops…Wrong Cookie, Monsters & Critics) but keeping track of that seems a little Sisyphean. Penguin and Kelly have started setting up some readings. More on that as they approach. As always, the easiest way to keep up is our calendar.

Booklist just gave Pretty Monsters a starred review and there was a tiny interview in Time Out New York last week (thanks for the heads-up Curt!):

“In nearly every one of these startlingly, sometimes confoundingly original stories, Link defies expectations with such terrific turnarounds that you are left precipitously wondering not only “What’s going to happen now?” but also “Wait, what just happened?

okładkaMeanwhile, out there in the world there is a beautiful Polish edition of Magic for Beginners. We haven’t seen it yet, but the cover looks fantastic.


WFC memberships for sale

Tue 2 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

We have 2 memberships to the 2008 World Fantasy Convention in Calgary for sale: $100 each. Please pass the word along to anyone you know who might be interested, thanks!

Update: Sold both, thanks.


Katrina + 3

Fri 29 Aug 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

3 years since Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Gustav is on a maybe/maybe not course for New Orleans. Which is sort of akin to the US Government’s approach to the disaster. Maybe we’ll help you. Maybe not. Which is one reason they will be voted out in November.

Over at Smith Mag they just posted the Epilogue of A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, an amazing comics narrative that has been picked up by Pantheon and which will be published as a graphic novel at some point. But if you have a moment, try starting from the beginning.


Generation Loss on sale

Wed 27 Aug 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Generation LossWe’re celebrating Elizabeth Hand’s Shirley Jackson award-winning novel Generation Loss and sending it out there into the world for $10.

As with all our prices, that includes US/Canada shipping—please use the international shipping options if you are ordering outwith North America. Go forth and read good books!


John McCain for President

Wed 27 Aug 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Don’t miss the latest internet stunt from McCain aides. It is a legit site, right?


YB coming soon

Wed 27 Aug 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

YB21.jpgThe Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror marches toward publication. We just received an advance copy and Publishers Weekly just gave it a starred review (yay!) picking out some of our fave choices:

The 40 selections in this exemplary anthology from Link and Grant (the fantasy half) and Datlow (the horror half) reflect virtually every hue of the fantasy/horror palette: urban fantasy in Jeffrey Ford’s “The Drowned Life” and Karen Joy Fowler’s “The Last Worders”; traditional supernatural horror in Paul Walther’s “Splitfoot” and Terry Dowling’s “Toother”; modern folk fantasy in Elizabeth Hand’s “Winter’s Wife” and Eileen Gunn’s “Up the Fire Road”; and cosmic terror fiction in Laird Barron’s “The Forest” and Don Tumasonis’s “The Swing.” A handful of stories involve child abuse and abduction, of which Lisa Tuttle’s “Closet Dreams” is the most horrifying. The front matter’s snapshot summaries of the past year’s yield in fantasy, horror, comics, mixed media and music are a small and invaluable book unto themselves. (Oct.)


Some catching up

Tue 26 Aug 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

  • sThe disclosure label from New England GreenStart shows that our home power mix (we don’t get to choose for the Paragon Arts Building) is 75% hydroelectric and the rest from biomass (20.9%), solar (3%), and wind (1.2%).
    Hydro has its own impact problems (somewhat less than nuclear [storage, leaks] or coal [mining, pollution]), but seeing the solar part rise from 1% to 3% in the last couple of years is tres tres exciting.
  • The NEA recently announced that applications are open for their 2010 translation grants. Go forth, translate something weird, and query us on it.
  • Download our distributor’s catalog in PDF here and see what’s coming from us, Coffee House, Paul Dry, Manic D, and many more.
  • Gayle Shanks, president of the Am. Booksellers Association, has a thoughtful letter on Chelsea Green’s decision to restrict sales of their new Obama title to Amazon:

One of my core beliefs as a bookseller is that a free society depends on a diverse marketplace of ideas, and that closed markets, exclusive agreements, and tactics designed to achieve a short-term victory at the expense of core values are both short-sighted and counter productive.

We’re in the process of changing out BookSense.com book links over to IndieBound—we hope you’ll always consider buying our books locally (where they will generally be in stock first). Here are the links for The Ant King: Our Local Bookstore | Your Local Bookstore.

Since everyone always votes with their wallet, try this fact on people when they tell you they like to buy online:

  • Spend $100 at a local and $68 of that stays in your community. Spend the same $100 at a national chain, and your community only sees $43

That math means that your local community loses $25 of every $100 spent at chains. Which means $250 of every $1,000; $250,000 of each million dollars. Which is why local shops find it hard to compete when that much income is leaving the area. That $25 ($250, $250,000) pays people to work locally, pays local suppliers, etc. Don’t discount shop people out of jobs in your town.

Listening to someone else’s local music right now on My Old Kentucky Blog: Ben Weaver The Ax in the Oak from one of our fave labels, Bloodshot.


Episode 9: Strawberry Wheat/Wine

Mon 25 Aug 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Michael

“Furthermore, we wish to emphasize that in future in all cities, markets and in the country, the only ingredients used for the brewing of beer must be Barley, Hops and Water. Whosoever knowingly disregards or transgresses upon this ordinance, shall be punished by the Court authorities’ confiscating such barrels of beer, without fail.”
—the Reinheitsgebot, a beer purity law, the first of its kind, enacted in Germany in 1516.

And now I’m going to talk about brewing with strawberries.

They’ll take away my homebrew when they pry it from my cold dead hands!

Read more


Double dutch

Mon 25 Aug 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

While in Scotland some of our nieces and nephews (and, er, others) had great fun attempting some skipping trips—don’t expect pics of this to surface on the nets. But one participant just sent us this video which made us want to head down to the Apollo Theater for the double dutch skip offs:

Watch CBS Videos Online


Listen to John

Thu 21 Aug 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Kessel, Baum PlanListen or download a John Kessel interview on WMUA’s Writer’s Voice here.

The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories just received a great thoughtful review in the LA Times:

“There is at least one universal truth running through this collection. Rejection, unlike love, is a sure thing. Its contours can be measured, its gravity weighed. In that, Kessel’s losers surely aren’t alone in stumbling off the path to paradise.”

Down in western North Carolina WNC Magazine gave the book a corker of a review in their August issue (on stands now):

“Politically conscious science fiction, macabre humor, and economical, slice-of-life storytelling…. A treasure trove of polished gems for anyone who enjoys a well-told tale.”

Update: a new review popped up on Anthem (who also have a great Feist/John McCain house-counting mashup):

What keeps the reader motivated to power through the slow points is salient feature of the book is the deftness with which Kessel builds his characters. The stories are based around misfits, nerds, and criminals—people who, for one reason or another, lie about who they are.


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