Ursula at home
Tue 21 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ursula| Posted by: Gavin
Ursula, born Feb. 23, 2009, arrived home to
day. Yay!
The King’s Last Song – Reviews
Mon 20 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
The King’s Last Song
Geoff Ryman
“Ryman’s brilliant new novel, “The King’s Last Song,” is permeated by the theme of salvation through destruction. In parallel narratives, Ryman reveals the (imagined) memoir of 12th-century ruler and Cambodia’s greatest king, Jayavarman VII, and presents the history of 20th-century Cambodia, a story of endless and eviscerating civil war. In so doing, he vividly creates a portrait of individuals whose souls are fused with that of their country, both ravaged and beautiful…. Ryman – best known as a fantasy writer but one who proved his power as an author of nuanced, rich historical fiction in the unsung novel “Was” – has not so much created as revealed a world in which the promise of redemption takes seed even in horror.”
—Boston Globe“The novel conveys not merely a story, but the light and darkness, despair and hope, tradition and Westernization that is Cambodia itself…. While peaceful William, war-consumed Map, and Cambodia-loving Luc could easily be flat, typecast characters, Ryman steers clear of such simplifications. Their interwoven histories are at times noble and at times horrifying, laced with profound emotions and punctuated with atrocities…. The King’s Last Song leaves one questioning preconceptions of good and evil, and conflicted between hope for and discouragement with the human race.”
—Rain Taxi* “An unforgettably vivid portrait of Cambodian culture past and present.”
—Booklist (starred review)“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“In the end, it’s the vibrant emotional lives of Luc and his friends that capture the tragic beauty of Cambodia.”
—Publishers Weekly” Inordinately readable . . . extraordinary in its detail, color and brutality.”
—The Independent“Sweeping and beautiful. . . . The complex story tears the veil from a hidden world.”
—The Sunday Times“Richly layered, comparing past and present day Cambodia and is full of details and tidbits about Cambodian life that any reader will enjoy. It’s definitely piqued my interest in the country and I will be trying to find more books about it in the future.”
—S. Krishna’s Books
Geoff Ryman Bio
Mon 20 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Geoff Ryman is a Canadian living in the United Kingdom. His first book based on events in Cambodia was published in 1985, the award-winning The Unconquered Country. The King’s Last Songwas inspired by a visit to an Australian archaeological dig at Angkor Wat in 2000. He has been a regular visitor since, teaching writing workshops in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap twice, and publishing three further novellas set in Cambodia. In Britain he produced documentaries for Resonance FM, London, on Cambodian Arts. He has published nine other books and won fourteen awards. He teaches creative writing at the University of Manchester.
Geoff Ryman’s books:
The Warrior who Carried Life, 1986
The Unconquered Country, 1986 (British Science Fiction & World Fantasy Awards)
The Child Garden, 1989 (Arthur C Clarke Award, John W Campbell Memorial Award)
Was, 1991 (Eastercon; Gaylaxicon Lifetime Achievement; short listed for the Impact award)
Unconquered Countries, 1994
253: a novel for the Internet in seven cars and a crash, Internet 1996, 253: the Print Remix, 1998 (Philip K Dick Memorial Award)
Lust: or No Harm Done, 2001
AZ, 2002
VAO, 2002
Air: or Have Not Have, 2005 (Arthur C Clarke; British Science Fiction Association; Sunburst; James Tiptree Jr Memorial Awards)
Tesseracts 9: New Canadian Speculative Fiction, Edited with Nalo Hopkinson, 2005 (The Prix Aurore)
Readings of Writings for Listenings
Mon 20 Jul 2009 - Filed under: smallbeer| Posted by: Gavin
Subscribe to our audio page by subscribing to the RSS feed on podcast posts here.
John Kessel stories: The Baum Plan for Financial Independence [audio]
Every Angel is Terrifying Read by Gregory Frost
Pride and Prometheus [part 1 | part 2]
Jennifer Stevenson
Trash Sex Magic Chapter 1 · Ch. 2 · Ch. 3 · Ch. 4
Kelly Link stories:
The Hortlak KQED — The Writers’ Block
Catskin WNYC — Spinning
The Girl Detective Read by Alex Wilson.
Most of My Friends are Two-Thirds Water Read by Alex Wilson.
The Specialist’s Hat (40 minute MP3). Read by Jason Lundberg.
Tiny excerpt of Kelly reading “Monster” during a WNYC story
by Richard Hake on the Dirty Laundry Readings Series.
(Nov. 10, 2005)
Perpetual Motion Roadshow CD (7/04)
We made a CD. It’s not
for sale, but thanks to the generosity of all involved you
can make a copy yourself. The cover can be downloaded here.
Print and fold along the lines.
Stoddy Awchaw — Geoffrey H. Goodwin (fiction, LCRW 10, 7:28)
Stoddy Awchaw — Toby Goodwin (song, 2:32)
Paper — Gavin J. Grant (fiction, Broken Pencil 21, 2:06)
Fructify My Orange Suit — Gavin J. Grant (fiction, The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives, 8:13)
Christmas in Yorkville — Liisa Ladouceur (poem. Each word taken
from a sign photographed in Yorkville, Toronto, Dec. 2003.
2:23)
100 Dead Workers— Liisa Ladouceur (poem. Each word taken from a plaque photographed at the 100 Workers monument honouring men and women killed on the job. Toronto, May 2004. 0:46)
Eruption — Liisa Ladouceur (poem. From the Teeth Poem series. 2002. 0:50)
Oh Register! Why Are You Crying? Audobon Park (Song from the CD Angry Bees Outside, These Bees Inside. audubonpark.blogspot.com)
Ash City Stomp — Richard Butner (fiction, Trampoline / Horses Blow Up Dog City, 32:17)
Ray Vukcevich – Interview
Mon 20 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
How long have you been writing?
“I remember what was maybe the first story I ever wrote. I was making the 125-mile trip home from Tucson, Arizona late at night. Since there was not enough room in the cab of the truck for everyone, the dog and I rode in the back. It was very cold. Huddled under a tarp with the dog licking my face, I imagined a story about the fetus in the womb of the woman in the warm cab of the truck (not my mother) sending spooky messages to man driving the truck (not my father) and the smug teenager in the middle who was not my sister. The girl kept saying, “eek!” The fetus could project glowing red eyes into the rear view mirror, and when the man jerked around to look, there was no one there!
I wrote stories in high school. I didn’t realize you were supposed to try and publish them. Since I lived 40 miles from the nearest town, I never bumped into anyone who might have tipped me off about that. I did a novel in pencil back then, too. We didn’t have TV until I was eleven and even then it was a weak black and white signal from far away. I’m so hooked into the Internet these days that it’s hard to imagine what it must have been like. The world must have been both much smaller and much bigger. Every little thing from the outside must have been very important. So much time to daydream. Going off to the big city for college was an eye opener. I’ve been writing ever since with time out for family, tragedy, laziness, false starts, and dumb mistakes. Finding the writing community here in Eugene was very important to me. I think most writers need a community.
There does seem to be a high concentration of writers in Eugene…
Yes, there are so many wonderful writers in this town. There’s Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Past The Size of Dreaming) and Leslie What (The Sweet and Sour Tongue), Bruce Holland Rogers (Flaming Arrows) and Jerry Oltion (Abandon in Place), David Bischoff (Philip K. Dick High) and Alan Clark (Imagination Fully Dilated), and many others. There is probably a workshop going on every night of the week in Eugene. My own group meets on Tuesdays in a bookstore called Tsunami Books. I also attend a monthly workshop with Damon Knight (Humpty Dumpty) and Kate Wilhelm (The Deepest Water). I feel wonderfully nurtured in this place.
What is it about the short story form that attracts you?
Do you remember that old TV show “Name That Tune”? I’m not sure I remember the show itself, just the idea. There is something elegant and elemental about telling a story in the smallest number of words possible. I don’t mean minimalism. I mean no wasted words. It might take several volumes to tell some stories. Some of my favorite short stories are in the international volume of Sudden Fiction. My favorite Borges is in that book and my favorite Yourgrau. I discovered Clarice Lispector there. The first story in the book is the very wonderful “Falling Girl” by Dino Buzzati. More generally, there’s Barthelme, Bisson, and Lafferty. I like Aimee Bender, Paul Di Filippo, Carol Emshwiller, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ken Kalfus, Bruce Holland Rogers, George Saunders, and Leslie What. I’m reading Kelly Link’s new book (Stranger Things Happen) now. She is so amazing.
Your writing skips between seamlessly between genres (such as fiction, surrealism, fantasy, mystery, and others) in the manner of George Saunders or Kurt Vonnegut. Before writing a story do you any idea where it’s going?
For me the writing process is like Tourette’s syndrome. In fact, it may even be Tourette’s syndrome. Hey, I wonder if that’s one of the things Jonathan Lethem is saying in Motherless Brooklyn? I should go back and read it again with that angle in mind. Anyway, there is a linguistic deluge going on in my head all the time — “a mile a minute” as my grandmother used to say. Jabber jabber jabber, and when I write, I reach in and scoop some out and see what it looks like (or sounds like — maybe “scoop” was the wrong piece to grab in this case). I might know in very general terms where I’m going, but even if I’ve outlined (which I generally do when thinking in longer lengths) the outline probably just influences what floats by. I seldom think in terms of genre.
When do you write?
I try to get in a couple of hours in the morning before I go to my day job. Sometimes I don’t succeed. I try to make up lost time on weekends. Sometimes I don’t succeed in that either.
Name three good books.
Here are three strange and wonderful books.
The Mustache by Emmanuel Carrere
The Unconsoledby Kazuo Ishiguro
Humpty Dumpty by Damon Knight
They are very different books, but they’re grouped together in my mind. Someone should do a dissertation, a compare and contrast and come up with conclusions kind of thing. Not me.
Who are your favorite writers?
Today I’m thinking J. G. Ballard (my favorite Ballard is a weird little book called Concrete Island), Jonathan Carroll, Philip K. Dick, Umberto Eco, R. A. Lafferty, Jonathan Lethem, Patrick McGrath, Christopher Priest, Philip Pullman, and Kurt Vonnegut. Ask me tomorrow and you might get a different list.
Your novel, The Man of Maybe Half-A-Dozen Faces, was published by St. Martin’s last year. Are you writing more novels?
I am working on a couple of other projects. I don’t know which will be done first. I can never talk about unfinished work.
Ray Vukcevich was born in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and grew up in the Southwest. He now lives in Eugene and works as a computer programmer in a couple of brain labs at the University of Oregon. His short fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Asimov’s, Twists of the Tale, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Rosebud, and Pulphouse.His first novel, The Man of Maybe Half-A-Dozen Faces, was published in 2000 by St. Martin’s Press.
Interfictions – Reviews
Mon 20 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing
Edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss
“Odd, Deep, Delightful”
— Michael Bishop, Atlanta Journal-Constitution“This idea of playing with genre conventions is interstitiality’s charm and what makes it a movement for the hypertext age. We want words to do more now and for our time not to have been spent with just one idea.”
— Adrienne Martini, Baltimore City Paper“Buy this book.”– Sean Melican, Ideomancer
“Playing outside the rules once again is Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writings (Interstitial Arts Foundation / Small Beer Press ; April 30, 2007 ; $18.00), edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss. In this case, Small Beer Press is the distributor, which means, as I said above, they’re bringing the world this collection, while the publisher is the very interesting Interstitial Arts Foundation. The mission is pretty clear: publish stuff that falls between the cracks, that lies outside of any single and perhaps all genres. They call themselves Artists Without Borders, so expect to find literature, visual arts, music and performance arts. Their list of contributors on the website is pretty amazing; Ellen Kushner, Gregory Frost, Heinz Insu Fenkl and Eve Sweetser; all these just writing essays. There’s a lot to look at and more importantly read, and they seem to have chosen to publish on line the sort of material one can read online.”
— Rick Kleffel, the Agony Column
Sean Stewart – Bio & Reviews
Mon 20 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Sean Stewart is the author of the innovative I Love Bees and Beast search operas, two short stories, and seven previous novels:
His novels have received the Aurora, Arthur Ellis, Sunburst, Canadian Library, and World Fantasy awards. He presently writes lots of things that have Non Disclosure Agreements attached so he cannot talk about them.
A little more:
Stewart is tall, energetic, uses big words easily, coaches his daughter’s soccer team, is a great reader, has taught writing, and lives in Davis, CA, with his wife and two daughters.
More on the web:
A few older interviews:
Novel excerpts:
Author photo by Biko.
Download for print.
Perfect Circle
Sean Stewart
available in hardcover and trade paperback
June 15, 2004
Reviews
“A cracking good read.”
— The Bookseller, May 27, 2005“Stewart delicately balances humor with a strong sense of place and menace.”
— San Francisco Chronicle* “All-around terrific.”
— Booklist (starred review)“Heartbreaking and hilarious, peppered with satisfying pop-culture references (Battlestar Galactica, Tom Waits, Ramen noodles) and informed by Stewart’s twisted sense of humor and proud redneck sensibility, Perfect Circle delivers what the maudlin “Sixth Sense never did – a wicked good time.”
— Cleveland Plain Dealer“Stewart’s compelling account of how DK comes to grips with his ghosts, both actual and metaphorical, is alternately poignant and hilarious, with some genuinely creepy moments and one or two powerful jolts…. Compelling … with strong potential for crossing over into the mainstream.”
— Publishers Weekly“Stewart’s quicksilver wit makes Perfect Circle perfectly hilarious. And, a supremely skilled storyteller, he saves the best for last.”
— Texas Monthly“His novels deserve to be more widely known than they are. He delicately balances humor with a strong sense of place and menace. Perfect Circle finds him in fine form and will leave readers eager for his next offering.”
— San Francisco Chronicle“Sean Stewart delivers an urban fantasy that is the perfect amalgam of cursed past and haunted present, of classic ghost tales and up-to-the-minute cinematic riffs … Stewart’s mastery of Will’s first-person narration is unflinching and unfaltering. The voice conjured here is absolutely authentic and affecting, as is the portrait of Houston, Will’s stomping grounds. Will’s vast extended family of oddballs and losers and honest toilers imparts a John-Crowleyesque heft to the book. And his treatment of the ghosts — “Ghosts don’t do things to you. Ghosts make you do unspeakable things to yourself” — is truly eerie. Readers familiar with the quotidian spookiness of master English horror writer M.R. James will find similar frissons here, but married to the gritty demimonde in the novels of American noir writer James Crumley, resulting in a fusion of black humor and pathos, blood and ectoplasm.”
— Washington Post“By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, Perfect Circle is … an impressive example of an author using genre resources to stake out a territory that, for the moment at least, no one but he occupies.”
— Locus“A read-at-one-go novel…. Everything is both stated and understated, elegant, full of the mundane horror and fear that inform a normal, frustrated life…. And it is well, well worth the reading. A highly recommended work.”
— F&SF“A hell of a book.”
— SF Site“The kind of book that fatasy was invented for.”
— NYRSF“By turns funny and sad…. Compelling.”
— New Trail“When he isn’t peering into other realms, Kennedy meditates on rock music, Texas culture, and the nature of regret. There may be more to be had from a ghost story, but I don’t know what.” A
— Marc Sheehan, On the Town, West Michigan“You can’t put the book down because you just have to know what is going to happen next. You can’t sleep if you don’t find out. Sean Stewart manages this brilliantly…. Oh, and the soundtrack is great too.”
— Emerald City
Advance Quotes:
Perfect Circle is a perfect read, exciting, unique, everything here but the Second Coming, but, Sean Stewart himself is the prize. What a talent. Write on, my man. Write on.
— Joe Lansdale, Sunset and Sawdust
A heartwarmingly sweet novel about what it’s really like to be haunted. Sean Stewart’s best yet.
— Sarah Smith, Chasing ShakespearesNeedy Ghosts, bar fights, concealed weapons, R.E.M., and ramen noodles —Perfect Circle is an irreverent Texas treat. Sean Stewart is one bright, funny writer.
— Stewart O’Nan, The Night CountryWill Kennedy has some troublesome relatives. Especially the dead ones. Perfect Circle is Sean Stewart at his spooky, funny, sad, and haunting best.
— Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book ClubPerfect Circle is a ghost story for grown-ups, frightening, funny, and finally redemptive. It kept me up way past my bedtime.
— Harley Jane Kozak, Dating Dead MenI read it all in one gulp, by turns fearful and joyful for Stewart’s likable loser protagonist.”
— Cory Doctorow, Eastern Standard TribeIf Oprah read science fiction…This quirky, engaging novel tells the story of William “Dead” Kennedy, a thirtysomething former punk rocker and down-on-his-luck divorced dad — who sees ghosts. After a visit to his haunted cousin goes horribly wrong, “DK” finds himself getting lots of attention — mostly the wrong kind – from both the living and the dead. Funny and thought-provoking!
— Carol Schneck Schuler Books and Music, Okemos, MIMy favorites among Sean Stewart’s books are those that hover on the edge of our reality. His characters, like William “Dead” Kennedy are much like my friends and relatives — although if any of my relatives are seeing ghosts, they haven’t mentioned this to me. Will leads a not-quite life in Texas, working in dead end jobs, and yearning to reconnect with his ex-wife, and trying to avoid ghosts. When a cousin calls with a ghost-busting request, his financial offer is more than Will can resist. But accepting the job opens Will up to a whole new level of darkness. Great prose (Stewart has some of the best metaphors going) and a melancholy mood, like music half-remembered.
— Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy Bookshop, San Diego, CA
The Serial Garden and the copyright office
Fri 17 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Joan Aiken| Posted by: Gavin
Just had a fun (seriously) couple of phone calls with the Copyright Office about Joan Aiken’s The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories. The question was about who had compiled the collection, which was, happily, easily answered, as Joan herself had put the book together before she died. Which means, of course, that the in-house editing job was much easier than otherwise—and thanks to Joan’s estate’s agent, Charles Schlessiger, getting the stories was almost easy, too.
The copyright is owned by Joan’s children but the copyright to the whole book isn’t theirs, as there is an introduction by Garth Nix and illustrations by Andi Watson. Who knew that they would tweeze thigns apart so finely?
This seems as good a time as any to mention that Joan’s fans should pick up a copy of the May/June issue of The Horn Book as there is a piece worth reading by Lizza Aiken about her mother, Joan.
LCRW and the spice
Fri 17 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., chocolate, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin
The new issue of LCRW is about to go out and we are last-minute getting the chocolate in (in summer we can’t keep it around here because 1) Gavin will eat it and 2) it will melt). So we’re ordering a bunch of chocolate and this time round we are getting in the even better stuff. Last time we asked if anyone minded a low-price (er, cheap) bar that time so that we could go great this time. The readership said Sure! and we sent out IKEA Food dark chocolate bars! So this time we’re taking the savings from that time (and any subscribers since then are just lucky!) and ordering Chuao Chocolatier‘s Spicy Maya Bar. This is one fantastic chocolate bar which we’ve only tried a couple of times: it’s more of a birthday present than an everyday bar.
So, anyway, if you want to subscribe to LCRW and get a chocolate bar each time, now is maybe the best time ever to do it. We’re going to order something like 100 bars (hope the delivery person isn’t a chocolate fiend) and once they’re sent out (and once we’ve tried a few around here) that’s it with the Over The Top excellentness and it will be back to the regular goodness.
First Hound review
Wed 15 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Vincent McCaffrey| Posted by: Gavin
Publishers Weekly gives Vincent McCaffrey’s debut novel a good review. We’re having fun getting this out to readers and we have a lovely pulpy cover in the offing:
Hound Vincent McCaffrey. Small Beer (Consortium, dist.), $24 (280p) ISBN 978-1-931520-59-1
McCaffrey, the owner of Boston’s legendary Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop, succeeds in conveying his love of books in his intriguing debut. Boston bibliophile Henry Sullivan, who leads a lonely life in pursuit of rare books, attracts police attention after the strangulation murder of Morgan Johnson, the widow of a renowned literary agent—and Sullivan’s former lover. Not long before, Morgan retained Sullivan to appraise her late husband’s book collection that she was planning to donate to Boston University. Johnson’s husband’s relatives, each with a financial motive to have done her in, make up the small circle of logical suspects. Meanwhile, the reappearance of an old girlfriend forces Sullivan to consider another missed opportunity at happiness. Indeed, the crime-solving remains secondary to the author’s sensitive portrayal of his middle-aged protagonist’s search for meaning, suggesting this novel could’ve worked as well as straight fiction without the whodunit plot. (Sept.)
Charles Brown
Wed 15 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., the world| Posted by: Gavin
It has been a long sad couple of days since hearing that Charles Brown had died on the way home from Readercon. Part of that sadness and grief is selfishness: Charles was a character worth knowing and for family reasons we could not go to Readercon this year so we missed our last chance to see him.
Kelly says she fell in love with Charles when she discovered he had put out a Georgette Heyer fanzine. It was probably that that persuaded her to accept Charles’s offer of 2 Hugo Awards for one of her Nebulas. Charles had more Hugos than we’d ever seen in one place but he didn’t have any Nebulas. Suffice to say at some point a box arrived at our house and now we have 2 Locus Hugos and somewhere in the Locus HQ is one of Kelly’s Nebulas.
Charles wasn’t the easiest person to get to know but one of his best qualities was his continued openness what was happening in his sphere of interest. On first meeting, and second and third, he was a odd, gruff, cold, and a bit terrifying. This was a guy who read books by our favorite writers before their editors read them. But he was interested in what we were doing with LCRW and Small Beer and that meant at some point we gained a seat at some of those endless convention tables: eating with Charles and co. was always at the very least fascinating. That continued openness meant that Charles and Locus never stagnated. He wasn’t skipping from new thing to new thing, but he was open to reading and writing about the YA explosion, urban fantasy, and other aspects of his beloved field that achieved new prominence.
A couple of years ago Kelly and I spent the night on the Murphy bed in (beside?) the Locus library. Although before sleeping we spent a long time cranking the shelves back and forward and being awed at the collection, pristine, of course, and the dedications within the books. Going to the Locus house was like going to a tiny museum and being led around it by Charles was always great fun.
In talking to Amelia at Locus she said that his death was a shock but not a surprise which captures it completely for me. He looked terrible over the past couple of years but then, he’d looked terrible over the last couple of years, so we figured he would keep on going for a while yet. Charles tried to be a curmudgeon but his joy in life kept overcoming his curmudgeonliness. It was great fun to eat and drink and talk with Charles whether it was at a fancy restaurant or at a “Locus suite” at a convention.
I love the picture of him that Locus posted and have ganked it for this. He will be missed and we will raise a toast to Charles and what he accomplished whenever we meet friends who miss him too.
Reviews of The Ant King
Tue 14 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
The Ant King and Other Stories
Benjamin Rosenbaum
“Lively, bizarre, and funny as well as dark, sinister, and sensual.”
—Boston Phoenix
“Give him some prizes, like, perhaps, “best first collection” for this book.”
—Booklist (Starred review)
“Featuring outlandish and striking imagery throughout—a woman in love with an elephant, an orange that ruled the world—this collection is a surrealistic wonderland.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Rosenbaum proves he’s capable of sustained fantasy with “Biographical Notes,” a steampunkish alternate history of aerial piracy, and “A Siege of Cranes,” a fantasy about a battle between a human insurgent and the White Witch that carries decidedly modern undercurrents…. Perhaps none of the tales is odder than “Orphans,” in which girl-meets-elephant, girl-loses-elephant.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Benjamin Rosenbaum is a talented short story writer whose fiction always seems modern even while employing the most absurd surrealism. Although he’s been up for awards, he’s remained a peripheral figure in the field. This collection may change that because in The Ant King and Other Stories Rosenbaum shows off an effortless talent. Whether he’s working with whimsical material as in the title story or creating a more serious tone as in “The House Beyond Your Sky,” Rosenbaum’s range is impressive.”
—Realms of Fantasy
Views of Small Beer Press
Tue 14 Jul 2009 - Filed under: smallbeer| Posted by: Gavin
Reviews, press coverage, awards, events
Early history
2015
“The works Small Beer produces are so unique that they could come from nowhere else, a singularity that fosters the same kind of loyalty music buffs feel toward their favorite record labels.”
— Eugenia Williamson, Boston Globe
2012
“All in the Family: Ig Publishing, Two Dollar Radio, and Small Beer Press”
Poets & Writers, Nov./Dec.
2009
— Gavin J Grant & Kelly Link receive a World Fantasy Award for Small Beer Press & Big Mouth House
— Bookseller Pens Mystery About Book Hound, PW, Sept. 1
— Small Beer Press Big into e-Books, PW, Aug. 17
2008
— Small Beer, for Children, PW, Sept. 15
— Small Beer Offers Free Downloads of New Collection, Publishers Weekly (April 18)
“In some ways, the evolution of their publishing endeavors can be described as two people working with greater and greater amounts of paper”
— Is Greater Than, March 24
— LCRW and The Best of LCRW are Locus Award finalists
2007 — “They have a knack for putting out books that are different from just about everything else.”– MassLive, May 19
— Ellen Kushner’s The Privilege of the Sword wins a Locus Award.
— LCRW is nominated for a Hugo.
2006 A. DeNiro’s Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead Longlisted for the Second Annual Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.
— Kate Wilhelm’s Storyteller wins the Hugo and Locus Awards.
–“Make it Weird,” Boston Globe, October 8
2005
— Nominated for the World Fantasy Award
— “The Book People,” The Valley Advocate, July 28
2004
— Nominated for the World Fantasy Award
— Small Beer on the Rise, Publishers Weekly, June
— Interview, Emerald City, June
— “Small Beer Press doesn’t put out as many books each year as the bigger houses, but the average quality is remarkable. This remains one of the genre publishing stories of recent years.”
— Richard Horton, Internet Review of Science Fiction, November
2003
— Nominated for the World Fantasy Award
— An Omnibus Review at Green Man Review, July
— Interview in Broken Pencil issue 21 (not online)
— Feature article: Matrix: the news magazine of the BSFA, Jan./Feb.
— Small interview (on the Wheel of Time mania page), January 10
2002
— Feature article in Poets & Writers, Sept./Oct.
— An interview about Small Beer with Gavin J. Grant on RevolutionSF, July
2001
— A review of Stranger Things Happen and Meet Me in the Moon Room in Canada’s January Magazine, Aug. 21
— Bookweb/Bookselling This Week, “Small Beer Press Makes a Heady Debut“, July 19
Water Logic
Laurie J. Marks
- Tiptree Honor List
- Booklist starred review
Endless Things
John Crowley
- Locus Award finalist
Interfictions
Edited by Delia Sherman & Theodora Goss
published for the Interstitial Arts Foundation
- Tiptree Honor List
Generation Loss
Elizabeth Hand
- Believer Book Award Finalist
- Shirley Jackson Award Finalist
Howard Who?
Howard Waldrop
The Privilege of the Sword
Ellen Kushner
- Locus Award Winner
- Tiptree Honor List
- Nebula & World Fantasy Award finalist
- Romantic Times Epic Fantasy Novel Revewers Choice Award finalist
Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead
A. DeNiro
- Crawford Award finalist
- Longlisted for the Second Annual Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.
- Book Sense Pick
- Lit Blog Coop pick
Magic for Beginners
Kelly Link
- Best of the Year: Time Magazine, Salon, Village Voice, San Francisco Chronicle, Locus, Capital Times, PopMatters
- Book Sense pick
- Locus Award Winner
- World Fantasy, Stoker, International Horror Guild Award finalist
Mothers & Other Monsters
Maureen F. McHugh
- Finalist for The Story Prize
- Book Sense Notable Book
————————-
Storyteller
Kate Wilhelm
- Hugo Award Winner
- Locus Award Winner
Travel Light
Naomi Mitchison
Mockingbird
Sean Stewart
Perfect Circle
Sean Stewart
- Excerpted on Salon.com
- Book Sense Notable Book
- Starred review in Booklist
- World Fantasy & Nebula Award finalist
- “Clearly one of the best fantasy novels of the year.”
— Richard Horton, Internet Review of Science Fiction
Trash Sex Magic
Jennifer Stevenson
- “A strong first novel, a wild book, well-imagined and well-written, with absorbing characters.”
— Richard Horton, Internet Review of Science Fiction
Kalpa Imperial: the greatest empire that never was
Angélica Gorodischer
translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
Trampoline
Kelly Link, ed.
- Greer Gilman’s novella “A Crowd of Bone” won World Fantasy Award.
- Alex Irvine’s short story “Gus Dreams of Biting the Mailman” and the anthology were both nominated.
- Richard Butner’s “Ash City Stomp” received an Honorable Mention from the new Fountain Award.
- Susan Mosser’s “Bumpship” will be reprinted in The Year’s Best SF.
- Christopher Barzak’s Dead Boy Found” will be reprinted in The Best New Horror.
- Karen Joy Fowler’s “King Rat” and Richard Butner’s “Ash City Stomp” are reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror. [paperback] [ hardcover]
- Philip K. Dick Award Winner
- Impac Award Nominee
- Nebula Award Nominee
- Starred review in Publishers Weekly
- Reprinted by Firebird
Report to the Men’s Club and Other Stories
Carol Emshwiller
- “Creature” won the Nebula Award for Short Story
Stranger Things Happen
Kelly Link
- Firecracker Award Nominee
- “Louise’s Ghost” won the Nebula Award for Novelette
- “The Specialist’s Hat” won the World Fantasy Award
- “Travels with the Snow Queen” won the James Tiptree, Jr., Memorial Award
Meet Me in the Moon Room
Ray Vukcevich
Reviews — Publisher’s Weekly, Booklist
Also: Locus, F&SF, Science Fiction Chronicle, Tangent Online, January Magazine
- Philip K. Dick Award Nominee
The Rose in Twelve Petals
Theodora Goss
- The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror XVIII (Datlow, Grant, & Link, eds.) honorable mentions: “Her Mother’s Ghosts” & “The Bear’s Daughter.”
- Fantasy Book Spot
- “Theodora Goss is one of the most exciting new writers to appear in this
century.”
— Richard Horton, Internet Review of Science Fiction
Horses Blow Up Dog City
Richard Butner
- “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 - The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror XVIII (Datlow, Grant, & Link, eds.) honorable mention: “The Rules of Gambling.”
- “Wry, caustic, calculated, impulsive…. Gems of gorgeous weirdness.”
— Asimovs - “Richard Butner has rather quietly published some interesting stories over
the past several years…. Good stuff—the foundation of a fine career,
I hope.”
— Richard Horton, Internet Review of Science Fiction
Bittersweet Creek and Other Stories
Christopher Rowe
- “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
Other Cities
Benjamin Rosenbaum
- “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
Foreigners, and Other Familiar Faces
Mark Rich
- “A fine selection of some truly imaginative fiction.”
— Xerography Debt - “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
Lord Stink and Other Stories
Judith Berman
- Asimov’s
- Locus Online (far down)
- Tangent Online
Rossetti Song: Four Stories
Alex Irvine
- The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror XVI (Datlow & Windling, eds.) nod: “The Sands of Iwo Jima”
- F&SF
- Locus Online
Five Forbidden Things
Dora Knez
- SF Site
- “a fine burgeoning talent.” Asimov’s
- “…one admires Knez’s gift for language. It should come as no surprise that three poems of impeccable craftsmanship follow the five narrative prose works…”
— Star*Line - The (almost) title story, “The One Forbidden Thing” and “Vaster Than Empires” received honorable mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror (vols. XIII & XIV, respectively)
4 Stories
Kelly Link
- SF Site
- “a wide-ranging artist at work.” — Asimov’s
- “Shoe and Marriage” was nominated for the World Fantasy Award
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet
No. 22 —
- —
No. 21 —
- “An accomplished magazine. There’s no shortage of ambition amongst the writing on show, and even those stories criticised here have obvious qualities and are the work of demonstrably capable writers. The standard throughout is high and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet is neither as fey nor as hard to approach as its esoteric name might suggest. This issue contained a number of genuinely memorable stories and some excellent writing. It is a read that is certainly worth your while.”
— The Fix - “Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet is a different kind of magazine.”
— SF Revu
No. 20 —
- “Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet is a different kind of magazine.”
— SF Revu
No. 19 —
- Reviews?
No. 18 —
- “Primarily fiction with some non-fiction and poetry. Literary journal/small press quality; very polished writing. A two-page play I didn’t get, a magic realist piece about souls blowing loose from their bodies on windy days that makes a comment on being on the fringe; a dreamy piece about lost girls and a witch’s garden; something about a train I didn’t get; a darkly funny zombie story about consumer guilt; and poetry I actually understood. That’s just the first half. Well worth the price.”
—Zine World #24 - Tangent
No. 17 —
- John Brown’s “Bright Waters” reprinted in Best of the Rest 4.
- Deborah Roggie’s “The Mushroom Duchess” was on the Fountain Award short list and was reprinted in The Year’s best Fantasy & Horror: 2006, 19th Annual Edition (Gavin Grant, Kelly Link, & Ellen Datlow, eds.)
- “Number 17 is one of the best issues I’ve seen of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.Hightlights include Philip Raines & Harvey Welles’s “All the Things She Wanted”, set in a much changed Washington DC, where everyone seems to have (at least potentially) a personal map of a different city. A woman buys a potion that gives her what she wants, at a certain price (first one’s free!) — only to find that the things she wants keep changing. Deborah Roggie’s “The Mushroom Duchess” is a pleasant depiction of a quite monstrous Duchess, whose experiments with mushrooms extend to using them to control her unwanted daughter-in-law in a nasty way. John Brown’s “Bright Waters” is a fine, long story, only barely fantastical, of a rather ugly trader in pre-Revolution America whose efforts to find a wife among the local Indians meets with little success. But things change when he meets a feisty English immigrant, and also gets some magical help from an Indian medicine woman.”
—Rich Horton, Locus, 2/06 - “A feast of mystery, novelty, and desire.” — Zine World 23
- Tangent
No. 16 —
- “Three Urban Folk Tales” by Eric Schaller reprinted in Best of the Rest 4. and recommended by Rich Horton in Locus (“Impressive…. The three stories intertwine in surprising ways — lovely stuff.”)
- Tangent
No. 15 —
- “Successively bridges the literary and genre worlds with strange, off-beat tales that venture into the fantastic while somehow remaining grounded in the real world. This really is a magazine worth checking out, regardless of whether you favour genre or literary fiction.”
— Kara Kellar Bell on the Laura Hird site - “LCRW never ceases to amaze me. It is always a beatiful zine, but the caliber of the writing in it is stunning.”
— Xerography Debt, 17
No. 14 —
- Douglas Lain’s story “Music Lessons” received an honorable mention from the Fountain Award.
- Deborah Roggie’s story “The Enchanted Trousseau” from has been picked by Jonathan Strahan and Karen Haber for their anthology, Fantasy: The Best of 2004.
- The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror XVIII (Datlow, Grant, & Link, eds.) honorable mentions: James Sallis’s “The Museum of Last Week,” Deborah Roggie’s “The Enchanted Trousseau,” and David Blair’s poem Diamond”
- Tangent
- “Old as Methuselah in small-press years, LCRW shows no signs of hardening of the arteries.”
— Asimovs
No. 13 —
- SF Site
- “If you enjoy short fiction and essays this one comes highly recommended.”
— Xerography Debt - “As usual, the editorial dynamic duo, Grant and Link, has put together an assortment of sly, bizarre, funny, and haunting stories by writers both familiar and unfamiliar. …[Which] amuses, enthralls, mystifies, and moves me. It’s always a wonder to me that Grant and Link can continually bring us such fresh, idiosyncratic talents.”
— Tangent
No. 12 —
- Harvey Welles and Philip Raines’s “The Fishie” received an Honorable Mention from the new Fountain Award.
- Harvey Welles and Philip Raines’s “The Fishie” reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror.
- “Home and Security” by Gavin J. Grant was reprinted in the Zine Yearbook Vol. 8
- “There’s something for everyone within these pages, which include fiction, poetry, non-fiction, a book review, a film review, a few zine reviews, and even a piece that could pass for a visual poem. If anything, you could argue that the zine is a little too eclectic because it doesn’t cohere under any one theme or mood. But these days, who needs coherence?… Many of the stories, like Jan Lars Jensen’s “Happier Days”, at first seem perfect for a lazy, hung-over Sunday afternoon when you may be more receptive to a bit of gold old nostalgia, but then take a weird and welcome twist. Cara Spindler offers some poetic mid-zine relief with her delightful lyricism, and Richard Butner instructs on how to make a proper martini. (There is no such thing as a Choco-Banana Martini.) … This is a good zine to keep in your bag during daily travels.
— Broken Pencil, 23 - “Rich in elegant prose and startling literary perspectives, Richard Parks demonstrates anew his talent for oriental fables…[with] a medieval-Japanese ghost story with a shock in reserve; Ursula Pflug intones a heartfelt love song to mythic Ireland…; Jan Lars Jensen…haunts his characters with much more recent legends, to alarming effect; and Jennifer Rachel Baumer writes with superb lyricism of very subtle phantoms…. But best of all is “Bay” by David Erik Nelson, a recontextualization of ghosts that is authentically surprising, genuinely horrifying — an extraordinary achievement in a hackneyed subgenre.”
–Nick Gevers, Locus - “A highbrow literary zine that presents fiction, nonfiction, and poetry with beautiful layout and spare but attractive graphics.”
— A Reader’s Guide to the Underground Press, no. 20 - “Had LCRW #12 been a sheaf of blank pages around “The Fishie,” I still would have felt compelled to give it a good review. But with its usual assortment of quietly compelling fiction hovering somewhere around the nexus of ghost story, fairy tale, folklore, fantasy, and magical realism, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet continues to define-and redefine-for me why we read, write, and take risks on new writers, new ideas, and new ways. Quality.”
— Tangent
No. 11 —
- Sarah Monette’s story “Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland” won the 2003 Gaylactic Spectrum Award
- Nan Fry’s poem “The Wolf’s Story” was reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror XVI (Datlow & Windling, eds.).
- The following stories & poem received honorable mentions:
- Theodora Goss — The Rapid Advance of Sorrow
- Sarah Monette — Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland
- Kathryn Cramer — The Mourners
- “I particularly enjoyed Sarah Monette’s fey eroticism in “Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland.”
—Asimov’s - “Oil and Greece” by Gavin J. Grant reprinted in the Zine Yearbook Vol.7
- “Smart, accessible… If you’re looking to spend some quality time with a lit zine, this is a must have.”
— A Reader’s Guide to the Underground Press, no. 18 — supplement - Locus, Jan. 2003, “a very strong outing.” Especially recommended: Minsoo Kang’s “Three Stories”
- Locus, Feb. 2003 Recommended Reading: Sarah Monette’s “Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland”
- Tangent
No. 10 —
- The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror XVI (Datlow & Windling, eds.) nods:
Brian Conn, “The Mushroom”
Jeffrey Ford, “What’s Sure to Come”
Amber van Dyk, “Sleeping, Waking, Nightfall” - “hefty” — A Reader’s Guide to the Underground Press, no. 18
- New Pages review
- Xerography Debt
- Go Tangent
- “LCRW impressed me.” — The Fix, no.5
No. 9 —
- “Simple living” by Margaret Muirhead was reprinted in the Zine Yearbook Vol. 6
- “Annabelle’s Alphabet” by Tim Pratt was reprinted in The Best of the Rest 3 and The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror XV
- The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror XV nods:
Amy Beth Forbes, “A is for Apple”
Eliot Fintushel, “Drought”
Theodora Goss, “The Ophelia Cantos” - Nice review in The Fix
- Tangent review
- “Precious imaginations run riot” — A Reader’s Guide to the Underground Press, no. 17 — supplement
No. 8 —
- Tangent review
- Broken Pencil review
- Nice review in The Fix
- “a fine collection… The writing is superb….” — A Reader’s Guide to the Underground Press, no. 17 — supplement
- The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror XV (Datlow & Windling, eds.) nods:
A. DeNiro, “Cuttlefish”
Carol Emshwiller, “As If”
Theodora Goss, “Chrysanthemums” & “Helen in Sparta”
Nancy Jane Moore, “Three O’clock in the Morning”
Ray Vukcevich, “Pretending” (also reprinted in The Best of the Rest 3)
No. 7 —
- SF Site review
- Ellen Klages’ story, “Flying Over Water,” Nebula Award finalist.
- The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror XIV (Datlow & Windling, eds.) nod: Jeffrey Ford’s “High Tea with Jules Verne”
No. 6 —
- SF Site review
- “Intriguingly surreal fiction” — Asimov’s
- The Hotsy-Totsy Club review
- Nice mention in the “Zines with a Literary Bent” section of the shouldn’t-be-missed Xerox Debt
- The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror XIII, (Datlow & Windling, eds.) nod: Kelly Link’s “The Dictator’s Wife”
No.5 (v3,n2) —
- The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror XIII, (Datlow & Windling, eds.) nods:
Dora Knez, “The One Forbidden Thing”
Sten Westgard, “The Marriage Doll” (as well as three of his other stories).
No. 4 —
- A Reader’s Guide to the Underground Press, no. 12
“The fiction by Nalo Hopkinson and a hilarious short story by Kelly Link about beauty queens are impressive. The poetry ranges from good to fair, but the zine has some interesting nonfiction pieces as well. Naoko Takahashi’s observations on Japan’s culture and media are fascinating. A debate about the death penalty by Gavin J. Grant is excellent. Fiction and zine reviews, too. Nicely presented.”
Press releases
August 22, ’01, “A play based on a Kelly Link short story”
Seems like we don’t really do these after all.
“Small Beer is the hottest thing in publishing. It’s amazing. Like learning that Luxembourg has nuclear warheads.”
— Rick Bowes
Kelly Link
Tue 14 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors, Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
October 2, 2008 from Viking Penguin:
Kelly Link
HC: October 2, 2008 · 978-0670010905 · $19.99
Nine stories each with an illustration by Shaun Tan.
“The Wizards of Perfil,” “Monster,” “The Surfer,” The Constable of Abal,” “The Wrong Grave,” “The Faery Handbag,” “The Specialist’s Hat,” “Magic for Beginners,” and “Pretty Monsters.”
Order a signed copy and receive tattoos, stickers, and similar items of interest.
** News:
- “Pretty Monsters” in Pretty Monsters
- The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror 2008: 21st Annual Collection (with Ellen Datlow and Gavin J. Grant)
- “The Constable of Abal” in The Best Sciene Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Vol. 2
- “Light” reprinted in Best American Fantasy 2008.
- “The Surfer” in The Starry Rift.
- More
** Interviews:
- Redivider | Sybil’s Garage | Return of the Reluctant | Strange Horizons | Milk of Medusa | The Well | Salon.com | Beatrice.com |Locus (Order this issue: free shipping or free with subscription.)
- Illustrated by Shelley Jackson.
- Hardcover | paperback | Limited
- Best of the Year: Time Magazine, Salon, Village Voice, San Francisco Chronicle, PopMatters.
- Reviews
- Free Download
- “Eerie and engrossing.”
— Washington Post Book World - * Not only does Link find fresh perspectives from which to explore familiar premises, she also forges ingenious connections between disparate images and narrative approaches to suggest a convincing alternate logic that shapes the worlds of her highly original fantasies.”
— Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
- Debut collection by Kelly Link. A Salon Book of the Year and Village Voice Favorite Book.
- Reviews
- Free Download
- Now in its sixth printing.
- Fifth Printing Note: We are sorry to say some copies of this printing have page 118 reprinted where page 188 should be. There are a couple of remedies. You can download the pdf of page 188here or you can email us.
We are a tiny press and we apologize for our mistake. We hope the replacement page (or the book) will satisfy readers. However, if you’d rather, we will replace your book. Please email us if this is the case.
How to identify if your copy is a 5th printing: On the copyright page it states “First Edition 5 6 7 8 9 0”
Thank you.
Trampoline: an anthology of mostly original fiction edited by Kelly Link.
- Greer Gilman’s novella “A Crowd of Bone” was a World Fantasy Award Winner. Alex Irvine’s story “Gus Dreams of Biting the Mailman” and the anthology were also nominated.
Laurie Marks Bio
Mon 13 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Laurie J. Marks is the author of three Elemental Logic novels, Earth Logic, Fire Logic, and Water Logic, as well five other novels. She teaches at U.Mass Boston and lives in Melrose, Massachusetts, with her partner, Deb Mensinger.
For more see here.
Author photo: Deb Mensinger.
Water Logic Reviews
Mon 13 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Water Logic
Laurie J. Marks
“The war between the Sainnites and the Shaftali has ended with a Sainnite victory and a gesture of peace and reconstruction. As Sainnite General Clement renews her relationship with Shaftali cow doctor Seth, now a Councilor from her village, forces are working to undermine the peace and end the life of Karis, the new Shaftali G’deon, the woman who agreed to peace with her country’s enemies. When an earth-blooded prophet gets lost beneath the ice and is transported to another time, she finds that she holds the key to solving the problems of the “future,” if she can only discover a means of communicating through time. The third installment, after Fire Logic and Earth Logic, in Marks’s “Elemental Logic” series, explores the relationship of water, an element that travels through space and time, to those people who share its qualities or who oppose its power. Finely drawn characters and a lack of bias toward sexual orientation make this a thoughtful, challenging read that belongs in most adult fantasy collections.”
— Library Journal“Frankly, it’s mind-bending stuff, and refreshing…. I haven’t read the previous two Logic books by Marks so this was like a flashback to my childhood. Interestingly, while there was some character history that I missed, from what I’ve seen of Marks’ writing style, I didn’t necessarily miss much explanation anyways. The world is presented as-is, and of course all the people in it know what is going on and why. I found the book quite intriguing, since Marks does have some unusual magic going on, and there’s certainly no overkill in the infodump department.”
—James Schellenberg, The Cultural Gutter* “How gifts from the past, often unknown or unacknowledged, bless future generations; how things that look like disasters or mistakes may be parts of a much bigger pattern that produces greater, farther-reaching good results—such is the theme of Marks’ sweeping fantasy, which reaches its third volume with this successor to Fire Logic (2002) and Earth Logic (2004).”
—Booklist (Starred Review)“This is a genuinely original and subversive work of fantasy literature. It’s the real thing: capable of changing the world, or at least the way you see it. Grittier and ultimately more satisfying than Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover novels, but with some of the same delicious sense of a world with plenty of room for queerness . . . there’s the depth and mythic sweep of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea novels, with a seasoned, mature sense of a world where adults make hard choices and live with them.
“Marks’s characters are real people who breathe and sleep and sweat and love; the food has flavor and the landscape can break your heart. You don’t find this often in any contemporary fiction, much less in fantasy: a world you can plunge yourself into utterly and live in with great delight, while the pages turn, and dream of after.”
—Ellen Kushner“Picking up the threads left loose at the end of Earth Logic (2004), Marks’s third Elemental Logic tale weaves three story lines through her tapestry of a war-torn world whose elemental forces are dangerously out of balance. Clement, reluctant general of the Sainnite army occupying Shaftal, has made peace with Karis, the Shaftali G’deon, and now seeks to suppress insurrection in her ranks and legitimize the leadership role thrust upon her. Meanwhile, Clement’s lover Seth pursues an assassin who nearly murdered Karis. In the story’s most fantastic subplot, fire witch Zanja na’Tarwein [spoiler deleted]. Marks plays the fantasy of her unfolding epic more subtly here than in previous volumes, and the resulting depiction of intransigent cultures in conflict, rich with insight into human nature and motives, will resonate for modern readers.
—Publishers Weekly
Ellen Kushner Bio
Mon 13 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Ellen Kushner is the host of PRI’s Sound and Spirit. She is the author ofSwordspoint, Thomas the Rhymer, and, with Delia Sherman, The Fall of the Kings. Her novels have won the World Fantasy, Spectrum, and Mythopoeic Awards, and been chosen as a School Library Journal Adult Book for Young Adults. She lives in New York City.
Full bio on the Sound and Spririt site.
Download author photo for print.
Author photo credit: TK.
The Privilege of the Sword – Reviews
Mon 13 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
The Privilege of the Sword
Ellen Kushner
Reviews
“This novel introduces a fearless and resourceful heroine with a true heart and a keen-edged blade. Spiced with humor and spot-on period detail, this coming-of-age tale belongs in most fantasy and YA collections.”
— Library Journal (Starred Review)“Plot and style here are in the swashbuckling tradition of Dumas, but the characters are very real beneath their facades.”
— Booklist“Bound to become a feminist classic….”
— Helen Pilinovsky, Endicott Studio“Winning high fantasy … a welcome return to the romantic Riverside world Kushner introduced in Swordspoint.”
—Publishers Weekly“If Swordspoint is a perfect gem, The Privilege of the Sword is the gem in its full setting: elegant, wicked, funny, intelligent, and fluent.”
— Green Man Review“There’s no doubt that the book is great fun. Kushner’s prose is fabulous and her characters vivid, though the book itself is far more charming than any of them. I hate having to say this about a book, because it sounds like an insult, but it really would make great beach reading.”
— Emerald City
Advance Readers say:
“One of the most gorgeous books I’ve ever read: it’s witty and wonderful, with characters that will provoke, charm and delight.”
— Holly Black (Tithe)
“A magical mixture of Dumas and Georgette Heyer. The dialogue dazzles and so does the swordplay.”
— Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners)
Read the new LCRW before it gets printed
Fri 10 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., ebooks, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin
Current Issue: Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet Number 24
Current location: at the printer.
Current availability: paper edition will mail out next week to subscribers and bookstores. However, the DRM-free PDF ebook is available now.
Additionally: we’ve dropped the price of the LCRW ebook to $4 from this issue on and also for the back issues (more of which should be available later this month). The price has been changed at Fictionwise, too, although that may take a little while to percolate through the system.
US/Canada $5  |
International $8 |
Ebook $4 |
And what’s in this death and radishes issue? Familiar and unfamiliar names! A lack of radishes. A comic by Abby Denson.
As ever one of the aspects we are most pleased about is the number of authors we were previously unfamiliar with. We aren’t the fastest readers out there, but we read everything we’re sent and are regularly delighted to be able to bring new authors to the fore:
Fiction
Alexander Lamb, “Eleven Orchid Street”
Liz Williams, “Dusking”
Jasmine Hammer, “Tornado Juice”
J. W. M. Morgan, “Superfather”
Dicky Murphy, “The Magician’s Umbrella”
Alissa Nutting, “Leave the Dead to the Living”
Eve Tushnet, “A Story Like Mine”
Dennis Danvers, “The Broken Dream Factory”
Anya Groner, “The Magician’s Keeper”
Nonfiction
Gwenda Bond, “Dear Aunt Gwenda”
Poetry
Neile Graham, “Machrie Moore”
Marina Rubin, “Bordeaux, And Other Mysteries”
Comics
Abby Denson, “Heady’s Crush”
Cover
Mystery Contest Winners
Wed 8 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Books| Posted by: Gavin
We are pleased to announce after, oh, a brief delay, the winners of the The Manual of Detection Mystery Contest we instigated some time back. Many fine mysteries were submitted, and we’d like to coat each of them in gold and jewels and stage heists around them, but we promised only five winners, each of whom will receive a signed copy of Jedediah Berry’s novel. Here are answers to the mysteries they posed:
Sue asked: Every time I take the subway, I always notice a cluster of pigeons hanging around. However, all of these pigeons are fully grown. Whatever happen to the baby pigeons? Why don’t we or I see them anywhere? Does the pigeon self replicate? Or is the answer to my question so mundane that my brain cannot grasp it?
All pigeons send their children away to act on soap operas. How else to explain the phenomenon described by Marta, below?
Marsha: Are there more teapots or people?
If we knew the answer to that question, we would have retired by now. Why do you taunt us?
Kaethe: Why did my grandfather carefully pull back his suit coat before he shot himself in the heart through his vest and shirt?
Because he was a gentleman, and because he was carrying the gun in the inner pocket of his coat.
Marta: When soap opera children go upstairs and come back down in a month and they are adults….WHAT HAPPENS UP THERE?
All children on soap operas are played by pigeons.
Keith: Why is it that, in the movies, vampire hunters always hunt vampires at night? Why don’t they wait until dawn and do it during the day?
Members of the Vampire Hunters Labor Union must abide by a number of strict rules. Hunting vampires at night, despite rumors to the contrary, is not one of these rules. They hunt at night because that is when they choose to hunt.
So, Marta, Marsha, Kaethe, Sue, and Keith: thank you and congrats! Please claim your prize by sending your mailing address to smallbeerpress@gmail.com.
Read Some Stories by Kelly Link
Wed 8 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors, Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
then go see her: Readings and Signings
|
How wonderful online publication is! Much later, there they still are, awaiting a look from the curious.
|
|
| Title: | Where you’re going: |
| Light | Tin House |
| The Wrong Grave (excerpt) | Candlewick Books |
| Origin Story | A Public Space |
| The Faery Handbag | |
| Fantastic Metropolis | |
| The Specialist’s Hat | Event Horizon |
| The Girl Detective | Event Horizon |
| Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose | Fence |
| Survivor’s Ball, or, The Donner Party | Dark Planet |
| Stranger Things Happen | collection |
| Audio: | |
| The Hortlak | KQED — The Writers’ Block(11/06) |
| The Girl Detective | Read by Alex Wilson. (8/06) |
| The Specialist’s Hat (40 minute MP3). | Read by Jason Lundberg. (1/06) |
| Monster (Real Audio file) | WSUI — Prairie Lights (11/05) |
| Most of My Friends are Two-Thirds Water | Read by Alex Wilson. (7/05) |
| Catskin | WNYC — Spinning (11/02) |
| Interview | Bat Segundo Show (12/06) |
Sorry, Event Horizon is down. Read these stories in Stranger Things Happen.
T-shirts, Mugs, Mice with pads.
Lexiphilia
Tue 7 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., To Read Pile| Posted by: Gavin
Kelly is currently hooked on Sarah Rees Brennan’s The Demon’s Lexicon (Gwenda has promised a post on it later this week) and says, “It’s very Buffy-like. In fact, like Diana Wynne Jones crossed with Buffy. Your mileage with the cover may vary, but everybody ought to love this book.”
more birthdays?
Tue 7 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Writer's Daily Planner| Posted by: Gavin
We are putting the final finishing touches to our daily planner and one of the fun things we’ve been doing is looking up birthdays of writers (and, er, others) who we like and adding them (H. P. Lovecraft, Gary Larson, Edith Nesbit, Molly Gloss, and so on).
Any suggestions?
We need a citation for the date—although we’ll accept Wikipedia (as long as you didn’t just change it!)
A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2010: Your Year in Writing
Small Beer Press
August 2009
9781931520584 · Trade paper/spiralbound · 6 x 9 · 160 pp · $13.95
— Mail Order
— Powells
— Our Local Bookstore
— Your Local Bookstore
Ian McDowell’s unique antho
Mon 6 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Want a handwritten story by Kelly about a “rapidly expanding cat”? There’s just over a day left in Ian McDowell’s auction of to benefit his father which includes that and some other exclusives. Here’s the auction and here’s Ian on the book:
In 1989, Ian McDowel (MORDRED’S CURSE, MERLIN’S GIFT, “Geraldine” in Poppy Z. Brite’s LOVE IN VEIN) wrote CRAZY CREATIVE WRITING: STORY STARTERS AND WORD BANKS, a reproducable workbook for teachers of grades 1-4, which was published in 1995 by Carson-Dellosa, an educational pubilshing company based in Greensboro, NC. The book consisted of 30 “Story Starters” — that is, the first paragraphs of stories, such as “Donna was in her room, playing a game on her computer. Suddenly, a big fat toad hopped out from under the bed and jumped on the monitor. “Give me a kiss, Cute Stuff,” it said. “I’m a prince.” The reader was then instructed to WRITE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT on the ruled lines following the first paragraph, and use as many words as possible from the provided “Word Bank” while doing so. Each Story Starter was accompanied by an illustration and 12-16 blank lines on which to write, as well as the aforementioned Word Bank.
I’m Ian and will stop talking about myself in the third person now. In the later 90s, I started pestering various professional writer friends to complete a page in one of my contributor’s copies of this book. Quite a few complied. NEIL GAIMAN took the story of the Frog Prince described above. POPPY Z. BRITE took the story of Abe, the boy who’d always wanted to join the army, in a VERY perverse direction. Caitlin R. Kiernan wrote a lovely mini-story about Hannah, who woke up one day to find she’d turned into a horrible monster. Kelly Link wrote about Julia and her rapidly expanding cat, turning it into a mini-epic. Other contributors included Mehitobel Wilson, Phillip Nutman, Rain Graves, and Rachel Manija Brown.
The stories are short, but they’re original pieces of fiction which will never be published anywhere (I’m pretty sure they can’t be, as the begining of each story, the part I wrote, was Work-for-Hire and presumably still owned by Carson-Dellosa, who would not be pleased with the decidedly adult direction some of these authors took the material). Neil Gaiman’s, for instance, is 150 words long, and like most of the other contributions, imaginative and laugh-out-loud funny. Each contribution is in the author’s own hand writing. You can’t have a more limited edition, or a more unique collectable (and yes, I know “more unique” is a barbarism) than this.
lcrw
Mon 6 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Books| Posted by: Gavin
We interrupt this silence to note that the invisible chickens on the green green grass roof of the Small Beer Press office building in New York City have begun pecking out the first stories of the new issue of LCRW.
Invisible chickens are one of the ways we are getting around the new economic straits (invisible dhow Jones are another): so much cheaper than typesetters. We do not think that most “readers”* of the zine will notice the difference in layouts.
Who are the writers in this issue? They are (depending on how you prefer these things) world famous writers whose work we are just so happy to publish. Or, they are new writers hungry for your open hearts (and eyeballs). Or, invisible chickens on the green green grass roof. Or, some regulars, some irregulars, some real, some imaginary, some magic, some dead, some dreamy, some dusking.
*we know that most of our “readers” actually subscribe so that they can enjoy the stenographic treats hidden within the covers.
John Gonzalez – Trampoline Interview
Wed 1 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline: an interview
John Gonzalez (Impala)
Were there any particular writers or stories that influenced the writing of the story that will be appearing in Trampoline? If so, how exactly did they influence the writing of your story?
The only outright influence was a scholarly book entitled Postmodernist Fiction, by Brian McHale. His thesis was that modernism was primarily concerned with epistemology (how does the mind work, what can it know?), whereas postmodernism was primarily concerned with ontology (what world is this, or is there more than one?) My ambition for the first draft of Impala was to write a story that equally supported two disparate interpretations, by the first of which the father was insane and had kidnapped his son, and by the second of which the son was an AI construct and the father was on a journey through space. Fortunately, once I had the sound of the child’s voice, all the intellectual pretension was revealed to be exactly that, and it dropped away in subsequent drafts.
What’s your favorite cocktail?
A Strawberry Daiquiri. I’m exceedingly manly, so I can get away with froo-froo drinks.
Which of the seven deadly sins is your favorite these days?
Lust is my perennial favorite. So why do I live in Michigan?
What’s your favorite rule of thumb?
-No one can die if the sun is shining.
So, come out with it, already — you really believe in alien abductions. Don’t you? All sci-fi writers do…right?
It’s mass hysteria, man. No different from the satanic ritual abuse craze. There are lots of people out there who desperately (and unconsciously) need a way to explain why they feel so flawed and weird, and plenty of crackpot gurus to serve them the explanation de jour. Were I a betting man, I’d put my money on “no abductions.”
Who’s been eating my porridge?
Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Alexander the Great, wearing Isotoner gloves, or Luis Bu�uel, slicing at his iris with a straight razor.
What has it got in its pocketses?
The one pirogue that rules them all.
What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
Lou LeFeber, State Farm Insurance Salesman.
What has it got in its ‘pocalypse?
A twenty megaton pirogue.
How far is it to Babylon?
Down the street, left at the light, past the Parthenon, past the pyramid, hang a left, there you are. If you hit the Great Wall you’ve gone too far. Turn around.
Can I get there by candlelight?
You’ll need a mood ring.
Can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt?
No.
Can you call spirits from the vasty deep? Will they come when you do call for them?
Yes.
What have you done with Dr. Millmoss?
I did nothing with the man. He left town suddenly. He gave no word as to his destination. He is certainly not in the basement, so there is no need to look there.
Biographical sketch of someone you know:
Born in 1962, hydrocephalic. Recruited by CIA to provide bio-power for massive glandular spike computer. Pinpointed locations of socialist atomic scientists 1971-1989, laying groundwork for extraction/assassination activities. Transferred to Cerberus attack Satellite A-51 in 1991. Used mind control amplification rig to force Kurt Cobain to write songs on the Nevermind album, deliberately triggering the grunge cultural moment for massive corporate exploitation. Current whereabouts unknown.
What office supply best captures your personality, and why?
A smart, well-oiled, comfortable office chair.
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something? I think I mean a radical shift of personal values — regarding art (“Suddenly, I’m not crazy about Billie Holiday, in fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right”), regarding anything (“Actually, you can go home again”).
I used to think that achievement was more important than happiness. It’s not.
What book or books do you press upon friends?
Neuromancer and The Forever War.
What can we, as a group, do to increase the popularity of multi-stage bicycle racing as a spectator sport in America?
Join forces with radical right-wing militia groups.
I once had a creative writing teacher tell me that he didn’t understand why authors used science fiction or magical realism to tell a story or impart a theme. Why do you think we do, when good old realism might do the trick?
Of course it’s just a matter of taste, but realism seems awfully limiting. Fiction should celebrate the act of imagining. It seems unhealthy to restrain one’s imagination to what one can see looking out the window. If an author wants to be the eight-six thousandth person to vividly imagine and evoke in words the tragedy of a failing marriage, that’s fine by me. But I want equal respect accorded to the author who sets the failing marriage on a space station that’s getting sucked into a wormhole that is actually a pock mark on the face of a barbarian who’s swinging a broadsword at an angst-ridden vampire aristocrat who leads an elite platoon of space marines whose last battle… well. Let’s just forget I said that.
What is the meaning of life?
Don’t touch the green stuff! It’s toxic.
O
Next — Alex Irvine
Richard Butner – Trampoline Interview
Wed 1 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline: an interview
Richard Butner (Ash City Stomp)
Were there any particular writers or stories that influenced the writing of the story that will be appearing in Trampoline? If so, how exactly did they influence the writing of your story?
Yes. The other writers of the Sycamore Hill Writers’ Conference. The final version of the story is much improved from the original draft, thanks to those folks pointing out the flaws (and the non-flaws). That’s actually a disingenuous description of the workshop process, and of why I run and attend that thing, but it’ll have to do.
Is your Trampoline story generally representative of the sort of story you usually write? To elaborate: is this story a departure in style or subject matter (or any other sort of departure, for that matter) for you? If so, what was different or new for you in the writing of this story? Do you think it is a new direction for your writing, or simply an experiment?
It’s representative in that it’s serious at the core but overlaid with goofist trappings.
So, come out with it, already — you really believe in alien abductions. Don’t you? All sci-fi writers do…right?
Nope.
What is the writer’s role in inhabiting the commercial spaces of publishing?
Infiltrate then immolate.
Who’s been eating my porridge?
Danny Goldberg, of course.
What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Thank nobody for small blessings. Pink Moon gonna get us all, therefore no immortal hands, no immortal eyes. This is a good thing.
Can I get there by candlelight?
If you walk very very slowly.
Who cleft the Devil’s foot?
Me and the Devil were walking side by side. So I say to the Devil, I say, “Satan, I see England, I see France, I totally see your lacy pink underpants.” The Devil says, “We don’t call it France anymore. We call it … Freedom. Everyone knows that Freedom is where they make the best lingerie.” He hitches up his pants as he says this. His French, his Freedom-ish, is perfect. “Do you remember when we were in Paris?” he asks. “I was never in Paris with the Devil,” I say. “Certainly not with a Devil who wears ladies undergarments.” The Devil stops and laughs, then he cups his hand to his ear. “What’s that?” he says, squinting. “Can you hear it? Sounds like … mermaids … singing.”
I stamp on the Devil’s feet, cleaving his hooves. He falls to the ground and clutches them with his idle plaything hands. I leave him there on the sidewalk to ponder Leviticus 11 while I trudge off in the general direction of Freedom.
Where do you hope to haunt when you’re gone (or, I guess, when you come back)?
A nice modern house. Maybe Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, the one with all-glass walls for the exterior.
If I had really good haunt-y powers as a result of being non-alive, then I’d haunt the homes of my enemies.
If I could just hang out and chat, then I’d haunt the homes of my friends.
What office supply best captures your personality, and why?
Man, all of these questions are me, me, me, me. What office supply best captures Alain Robbe-Grillet‘s personality? Huh?
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something? I think I mean a radical shift of personal values — regarding art (“Suddenly, I’m not crazy about Billie Holiday, in fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right”), regarding anything (“Actually, you can go home again”).
I’m proud of the fact that my personal values haven’t shifted radically due to the tremendously positive or tremendously negative events in my immediate external world. Like the fat man said, to thine own self be true. If I had to offer an example of a shift, though … one is that certain tedious phonies — say, Andy Warhol or William Burroughs or Timothy Leary — don’t bug me as much as they used to. Possibly because they’re all dead.
What book or books do you press upon friends?
Emma Who Saved My Life, Wilton Barnhardt
Glimpses, Lewis Shiner
A Few Last Words, James Sallis
Where did you grow up?
Camel City, of course.
Did you ever go to a really low rent amusement park that had trampolines stretched over shallow pits and bounce and bounce and bounce and get really confident and start bouncing from one trampoline to the next but then kind of lose it and bounce in to your cousin Jeff and cause him to fall into a split timber fence and knock out one of his teeth? Did you ever do that?
Nope.
What can we, as a group, do to increase the popularity of multi-stage bicycle racing as a spectator sport in America?
Absolutely nothing, Christopher.
I once had a creative writing teacher tell me that he didn’t understand why authors used science fiction or magical realism to tell a story or impart a theme. Why do you think we do, when good old realism might do the trick?
“I sit with a philosopher in a garden; he says again and again ‘I know that that is a tree,’ pointing to a tree that is near us. A second man comes by and hears this, and I tell him: ‘This fellow isn’t insane: we’re only doing philosophy.'”
–Wittgenstein, On Certainty
My story has a semi-wild chimpanzee in it; does yours?
Depends on how you define “semi-wild chimpanzee.”
Have you found that during the Reagan-Bush-Bush-Quayle-Bush-Cheney era the quality of your writing has gotten a little dodgier?
Yeah, not like the stack of genius tomes I produced during the Clinton-Gore era.
If you couldn’t write what would you do?
Dictate.
Gertrude Stein said: “I have destroyed sentences and rhythms and literary overtones and all the rest of that nonsense, to get to the very core of this problem of communication of intuition.” The relationship of form to content. Form as it facilitates communication, particularly communication of the remote, of the mysterious. Form as it permits the dramatization of states of mind. As it serves to make comprehensible the incomprehensible. What are your views on this subject?
My view is, Gertrude Stein sure could be a pompous boobie sometimes.
O
Next — Alan DeNiro
Rosalind Palmero Stevenson – Trampoline Interview
Wed 1 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline: an interview
Rosalind Palermo Stevenson (Insect Dreams)
Writers/Stories that influenced “Insect Dreams”
Carole Maso, Anne Carson (especially Autobiography of Red and The Anthropology of Water), Marguerite Duras (The Lover), Clarice Lispector (The Stream of Life). They are all writers who break from traditional forms, and whose work exists on that blurred line, or intersection, between prose and poetry. I had been working on “Insect Dreams” for a very long time and had most of the text written, but was having difficulty making it cohere. I knew the solution would be in finding the right form. I started re-reading these writers and that gave me the push I needed to embrace rather than resist the fragmented nature of my material. I knew absolutely that that was the way the piece had to be expressed, was, in fact, expressing itself. Carol K. Anthony, in her translation of the “I Ching” says of the hexagram The Well, ‘Don’t remain locked in a conventional view of the way things work.’ My natural tendency as a writer is to work in somewhat experimental forms, and pretty much always on the line between prose and poetry. But I find that it fuels and inspires my work to read others whose works are also driven by language, rhythm – who write prose that is lyric, poetic. It is, perhaps, more a matter of inspiration than of influence.
Is my Trampoline story representative?
I would have to say that “Insect Dreams” is stylistically representative of my work. The stories I write usually contain the same basic elements of style as “Insect Dreams,” that is, a prose narrative style driven by language, rhythm, image, pacing. And in “Insect Dreams” as in most of my stories, there is generally more white space than is typical of traditional prose. The white space accommodates the compression — allows for the breath and silence. I’ve also worked with historical material before. In “The Temple Birds Love Incense” I worked with the 1993 events leading to the death by fire of cult leader, David Koresh, and his followers in Waco, Texas. “The Guest” is a fictional account of Mussolini at the time of his rise to power. “Kafka At Rudolf Steiner’s” is an imagined narrative based on two incidents in Kafka’s life: his visit to the mystic philosopher, Rudolf Steiner, and his love affair with a young Italian girl during a ten-day stay at a Sanatorium in Riva. I would say that “Insect Dreams” is longer than usual. I didn’t intend that originally, but there was so much ground to cover. I think it’s true anyway that every piece has its own length. What was ‘new’ for me in writing “Insect Dreams” was the degree of research required and the exotic nature of the subject matter. It required a level of research beyond anything I had ever done before. I had to ‘imagine’ my own story within the context of this massive amount of historical and related material: Surinam, 17th century Amsterdam, ship travel in the 17th century, entomology, jungles, clothing, customs, food, conditions of the slaves under Dutch rule, etc. I don’t know that I would characterize the approach as a ‘new direction’ for my writing going forward, but I expect to push it further — in my planned novel, for instance, (which is in the early research stages right now).
Favorite cocktail?
Manhattans are a family tradition.
Favorite deadly sin?
Sloth. Though it’s not a bed of roses.
Favorite rule of thumb?
Follow your first impulse.
Writer’s role in inhabiting commercial spaces of publishing?
I don’t know that there can be an intentional role. I think of Samuel Beckett who actually tried to make his writing (in the early days) more commercially viable. And could not. So he wrote the only way he could write. And was basically obscure until “Waiting For Godot” generated so much interest. I respect the independent publishers the most, and the writers they publish. My personal interest, or aspiration, is for my work to be respected by those I respect. For someone to pull me off the shelf when they are looking for inspiration.
O
Next — Christopher Barzak
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