November deadlines

Mon 8 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., poetry, Working Writer's Daily Planner| Posted by: Gavin

Hey, it’s NaNoWriMo—good luck to you if you’re at it!

For the poets our there, here are a few November deadlines from A Working Writer’s Daily Calendar 2010—soon to be superseded by the 2011 edition. We’ll post a few more deadlines in December and we will also be posting other useful parts of the Planner as the year comes to an end.

November 15: The Yale Series of Younger Poets
The Yale Series of Younger Poets champions the most promising new American poets. Awarded since 1919, the Yale Younger Poets prize is the oldest annual literary award in the United States. Past winners include Muriel Rukeyser, Adrienne Rich, William Meredith, W.S. Merwin, John Ashbery, John Hollander, James Tate, and Carolyn Forché. Louise Glück is the current judge of the Series.
Prize: publication.
Eligibility: An American citizen under forty years of age who has not published a book of poetry.
Manuscript: Between 48–64 numbered pages. See website for full guidelines.
Fee: $15 made out to Yale University Press.
Yale Series of Younger Poets, P.O. Box 209040, New Haven, CT 06520-9040

November 15: Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award
Prize: $1,000 + publication in Measure: An Annual Review of Formal Poetry
Eligibility: Sonnets must be original and unpublished.
Manuscript: Author’s name, address, phone number, and email (if available) should be typed on the back of each entry.
Check website for any updated information.
Fee: $3 per sonnet made payable to The Formalist.
Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, The Formalist, 320 Hunter Drive, Evansville, IN 47711

November 30: Academy of American Poets
The Academy offers several awards including the James Laughlin Award of $5,000 for an author’s second book of poetry and the Walt Whitman Award of $5,000 and a one-month residency for first book of poetry.
The Academy of American Poets, 588 Broadway, Suite 123, New York, NY 10012. 212-274-0343

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George Takei says

Thu 4 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

My teenage years were a great thing to have lived through, but not a great thing to live.

George Takei: thanks for this.

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Amazon

Thu 4 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Karen Lord| Posted by: Gavin

gets a jump on everyone else and says Redemption in Indigo is one of the:

Best Books of 2010

Top 10 Books: Science Fiction & Fantasy

Yay!

Nice to see Brian Conn’s The Fixed Stars on there, too. And it’s fun to compare the 2010 bestseller list (wonder if that will change over the next 2 months?) with the editors’ picks. No crossover but I love that Machine of Death made it on there. This is the one time of year we put up Amazon links and any purchases you make through these links will benefit the Endicott Studio.

Of course we have our own Holiday Best Books List. Cough.

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Reading, listen to Kathe, go see Karen

Wed 3 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., bookshops, chocolate, John Kessel, Karen Joy Fowler, Kathe Koja, Ray Vukcevich, Ted Chiang| Posted by: Gavin

What up? Many things. Visitors, busyness, to and froings in the oncoming weeks. The permanence of change. Catch up, link dump, tab closer, recent reads and more:

A few books are appearing which you may enjoy: Ray Vukcevich‘s new collection Boarding Instructions is just out. Go get from Powells.

Also to get: Sarah Smith‘s first YA novel which is out this week: The Other Side of Dark. It’s about ghosts, treasure, and two teenagers and life, art, madness, love, and more and it’s set it this here fair city of Boston.

One of our great local-ish bookshops, Food for Thought in Amherst—one of those places that just makes you happy to walk into—is in a moneycrunch. If you did you next book buy here, it would be much appreciated. Biased suggestions for starting places: Under the Poppy, Stories of Your Life, What I Didn’t See, The Poison Eaters, Meeks. And, as of this writing, these books are all in stock: what an awesome place!

Another non-local fave bookshop is Subterranean in St. Louis and there’s a lovely little piece in the local student paper about it. They have signed copies in stock of a certain 1,000 page McSweeney’s brick as well as excellent Africa-supporting lit-shirts. It’s a lovely shop from which we walked away with a nice bagful of books. (via)

Really enjoyed the current issue of the Harvard Review. Got it because Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud has a story in it but there were a couple of excellent stories and essays as well as a good range of poetry in it.

Jay Baron Nicorvo has an excellent essay about re-roofing the family house with his two teenage brothers on Guernica.

Apex just published a special Arab/Muslim themed edition.

Chocolate: want. (Difficult to acquire as $$$ and in the UK.) Next time we do have $$$ to burn, maybe we will play fill-a-box-o-chocs here.

How does a book signed by Betty Ann Hull, Fred Pohl, and Gene Wolfe sound? Sounds good!

Thanks to Susan for this. Go read, but not while eating cake.

And Congratulations to Susan and to Niall: we love Strange Horizons and are both selfishly sad and very happy to hear about the transition.

Awards: John Kessel‘s story “The Invisible Empire” received an Ignotus Award, “Spain’s equivalent to the Hugo.” (via)

More on the World Fantasy Awards at some point soon. Mostly: yay!

Reviews. What?

Belletrista looks at What I Didn’t See and likes what they see, “Fowler’s stories are gripping and surprising, with multiple pleasures awaiting the reader.” The San Francisco Chronicle also published a good review: “Fowler understands how disappearances heighten suspense. And she’s equally skilled at weaving mystery from the unknown.”

Karen’s final reading of her mini-California tour is this Friday at 7 PM at Vroman’s in Pasadena.

Under?

One of our fave bloggers, The Rejectionist, read Under the Poppy and calls it a winner at Tor.com.

You can see Kathe read in Ann Arbor next Wednesday night at the Blackbird Theatre where there will be delightful and scary sexy puppets. Thanks to Scott Edelman (having more than either of us right now) you can also see her reading on the youtubes. More on those readings TK.

Great review also in the Ann Arbor Chronicle—and Kathe’s on WCBN Ann Arbor radio today at 4:30 PM—listen here.

Life?

A couple of readers discover Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others for the first time. The sound of their heads exploding echoes through the intertubes. 1) Ed Park @ the LA Times [“patient but ruthless fascination with the limits of knowledge.”] 2) Dreams & Speculations 3) Stefan @ Fantasy Literature.

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A Life in Pictures

Wed 27 Oct 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Alasdair Gray| Posted by: Gavin

It’s been a huge week for Alasdair Gray—in more ways than one.

A new book of his art, A Life in Pictures, has come out (can’t wait to get a copy), there’s an exhibition of sketches from the book in Edinburgh, and it was announced that Gray will be creating a mural in one of Glasgow’s subway stations “based the on the panaromic view of Hillhead used in an illustration for his novel, Old Men in Love.” You can see a clip of him on the Scottish news here.

If you’re in Glasgow (hello Ross!) don’t miss Irregular, a night at Oran Mor with:

Alasdair Gray, Liz Lochhead, Louise Welsh and David Shrigley. Music from Roddy Woomble, Lord Cut-Glass and My Latest Novel.

Would that we could go!

The Graniaud has a lovely slideshow of a few pieces of Gray’s art as well as Gray writing on three different pieces of art and how they came about.

Old Men in Love is a huge patchwork novel with three narrative strands and an absolutely fascinating interstitial story. It was without a doubt one of the most complicated books we’ve ever published. It’s in two colors (colours, really), throughout, and includes three double page plates like the one of Hillhead mentioned above. You can preview the book on Scribd and get your copy here.

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Holiday book list

Wed 27 Oct 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., gift books| Posted by: Gavin

Just in case you were wanting a handy all-in-one flier to take with you to your local indie bookshop, we happen to have one right here!

Since we love all of these books, the suggestions for who should get which book are obviously tongue-in-cheek and should not be taken too seriously. However, the Small Beer-books-as-gifts suggestion should be taken as seriously as your checkbook can stand!

Best Books for the Holidays

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New LCRW is coming—do we know where you live?

Mon 25 Oct 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

Go on, if you’ve moved, send us a COA. A cola? Meh! A change of address, por favor. Also, resubscribe! Or, get a singleton. LCRW PDF ebook subs might be available by the end of the year. We’ll see. We did a whole lot of LCRW ebook converting to various formats and the PDF is still the most popular.

Anyway. The new issue of LCRW is about to go out. Now! No, not really. More like next week. So you still have time to run out and ask your postie where you live and then send us a postcard (or an email) if it has changed since May since last we sent excellent fiction &c your way. (Did you see Tor.com’s lovely review of that previous ish?)

What’s TK in the new issue? Fantastic cover art by Sarah Goldstein and then . . . there are huge stories and tiny stories from the usual exciting mix of writers we’ve heard of and writers new to us. Just love that we get such a mix of writers in the zine. But we’re very sorry that we’re reading so slowly. Some of these stories we’ve had for years. We thought we might get 3 issues of LCRW out this year and catch up. Ha, I say to that. Ha, and again and again but that’s enough as it’s no longer funny. We are determined to catch up, as we usually do, by new year. Not so far away!

Stories! Patty Houston, Carlea Holl-Jensen, Rahul Kanakia, Veronica Schanoes, Sean Melican, Jenny Terpsichore Abeles, J. M. McDermott.

There is another lovely nonfiction piece from Ted Chiang, “Reasoning about the Body”—we’re trying to persuade him to be our science columnist. Our actual columnist, Gwenda Bond, returns with the “Dangers of Hibernation Edition” of Dear Aunt Gwenda. You will be glad you asked.

And we have a little poetry! Five poems from Lindsay Vella and two from none other than Darrell Schweitzer.

That’s it. There are chocolate bars to buy (any suggestions?), letters to send, babies to play with, letters to kern, and chocolate to eat. But not babies to send and chocolate to kern. And next week it all goes out to you and you and you and reviewers and shops and so on and we get to sit back, put the kettle on, and see what’s come in the mail.

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Things to do. Things that happened.

Tue 19 Oct 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, Julia Holmes, Karen Joy Fowler, Kathe Koja, Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin

The Boston Book Fair was a ton of fun—thanks to everyone who stopped by. Most of whom, of course, didn’t know us. At some point we really must publish a small book on beer. The hit of the day was definitely the Working Writer’s Daily Planner which made me think maybe I should just set up at stalls at writerly conferences and fairs all over the country and forget about these book things. But happily there were enough readers that we sold some books, too. And that’s despite the high winds. At one point I was attacked by a mini-twister that blew everything on The Common‘s side of the booth all over the place. The Common is a new journal for everyone to subscribe to. Go on, might as well! They’re into the fictions, the poetries, and the images—aha, something different!—and their editorial angle is “a sense of place.” I didn’t get to Kelly’s panel (and neither did some others as it was full!) but reports are that it went well. With luck we’ll be back next year.

Ok, so: if you’re in the Santa Cruz area tonight, there’s only one thing to do: go see Karen Joy Fowler. She will also be in Danville on Thursday (1o/21). Those in LA have to wait until 11/5 when she will be at Vroman’s.

You can (and should, it’s great) listen to Rick Kleffel and Karen’s lovely conversation on the Agony Column. (links to MP3). Rick also reviews the book:

That rare writer who can match the power of her novels with the power of her short stories. She works in the world of myth with great ease. We feel, reading her stories, that we are in our world, but some portion of it that connects vitally with everything else. What happens here is gripping, important, compelling, and often terrifying. Her new collection of stories, ‘What I Didn’t See’ offers readers perfect renderings of a New American Mythos.

Yesterday Cory Doctorow BoingBoinged the heck out of Under the Poppy:

This book made me drunk. Koja’s language is at its poetic best, and the epic drama had me digging my nails into my palms. It’s like a Tom Waits hurdy-gurdy loser’s lament come to life, as sinister as a dark circus.

The multi-format ebook version is available now. The book has arrived from the printer and it is so heavy! We compared it to another recent hardcover and it was about twice as heavy. Maybe we should use lighter paper?

Talking of ebooks, Weightless continues apace: we added a single-title publisher: Sator Press! Plus, Featherproof titles are onsale. And so on.

If you’re in the Boston area, tonight Kelly will be at the Literary Death Match! (Me, I’ll be babysitting.)

The World SF Blog introduces you to Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud.

And, we have copies of Meeks in stock in the office. Everywhere else will be getting new stock in soon. Turns out if you publish a lovely book with French flaps, then it will take a little more time for the reprint to get done.

That’s most of what’s going on. Time, methinks, to go back to sleep!

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Stories of Your Life and Others

Tue 19 Oct 2010 - Filed under: Books, Ted Chiang| Posted by: Gavin

October 2010 · 9781931520720 · trade paperback/ebook

June 2016: Now available in a New York Times bestselling edition from Vintage.

The title story was made into the Oscar-winning Major Motion Picture Arrival starring Amy Adams, directed by Denis Villeneuve, from a script by Eric Heisserer.

A new edition of Ted Chiang’s masterful first collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, which includes his first eight published stories plus the author’s story notes and a cover the author commissioned himself. Combining the precision and scientific curiosity of Kim Stanley Robinson with Lorrie Moore’s cool, clear love of language and narrative intricacy, this award-winning collection offers readers the dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar.

Stories of Your Life and Others presents characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—while striving to maintain some sense of normalcy.

In the amazing and much-lauded title story, “Story of Your Life,” a grieving mother copes with divorce and the death of her daughter by drawing on her knowledge of alien languages and non-linear memory recollection.

“Liking What You See: A Documentary,” which was new for this collection, is a clever pastiche of news reports and interviews which chronicles a college’s initiative to “turn off” the human ability to recognize beauty.

With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty and constant change, and also by beauty and wonder. Stories in this collection received the following awards: the Nebula (3), Hayakawa (3), Seiun (2), Sturgeon, Hugo, Locus, and  Sidewise Award.

Read: Ted Chiang is profiled in The New Yorker.

Ted Chiang is profiled in the California Sunday Magazine: “The Perfectionist”

Praise for Stories of Your Life and Others:

“Shining, haunting, mind-blowing tales . . . this collection is a pure marvel. Chiang is so exhilarating so original so stylish he just leaves you speechless. I always suggest a person read at least 52 books a year for proper mental functioning but if you only have time for one, be at peace: you found it.”
—Junot Díaz (author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao)

“Meticulously pieced together, utterly thought through, Chiang’s stories emerge slowly . . . but with the perfection of slow-growing crystal.”
—Lev Grossman, Best of the Decade: Science Fiction and Fantasy, Techland.com

“Science fiction is a genre that often works well off the page. Spaceships and robots are just as thrilling on screen as in books. But Mr Chiang’s approach is irreplaceable. His stories mirror the process of scientific discovery: complex ideas emerge from the measured, methodical accumulation of information until epiphany strikes. . . . The best science fiction inspires awe for the natural properties of the universe; it renders the fundamentals of science poignant and affecting. Mr Chiang’s writing manages all of this. He deserves to be more widely read.”
—The Economist, Prospero blog

“Throughout all his work, though no more so than in “Story of Your Life,” you can feel his months of removing sentences from his stories. Perhaps that he writes so little does something good for him, or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t write enough.”
—Choire Sicha, The Millions

“In Chiang’s hands, SF really is the ‘literature of ideas’ it is often held to be, and the genre’s traditional “sense of wonder” is paramount. But though one reads Stories of Your Life with a kind of thematic nostalgia for classic philosophical SF such as that of Asimov and Theodore Sturgeon, the collection never feels dated. Partly this is because the “wonder” of these stories is a modern, melancholy transcendence, not the naive ‘50s dreams of the genre’s golden age. More important, the collection is united by a humane intelligence that speaks very directly to the reader, and makes us experience each story with immediacy and Chiang’s calm passion.”
—China Mieville, The Guardian

“Ted is a national treasure . . . each of those stories is a goddamned jewel.”
—Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

“Newly reissued by Small Beer Press, the stories range widely in time, subject and style but are united by a patient but ruthless fascination with the limits of knowledge.”
—Ed Park, Los Angeles Times

“Chiang is the real deal. His debut collection, Stories of Your Life and Others is one of the finest collections of short fiction I have read in the last decade. These tales possess the imaginative frisson that is a trademark of the best conceptual fiction, but, also bespeak a confident prose style and a willingness to take chances in tone and narrative structure.”
—Ted Gioia, Conceptual Fiction

“This collection of short stories deserves constant re-introduction. Ted Chiang narrows the broad line between fiction and science fiction by taking a scalpel to “normal,” transforming it in ways that will blow your mind and challenge your beliefs. It’s a breathless ride.”
—Capitola Book Cafe

Dreams & Speculations · Fantasy Literature.

“Chiang’s work confirms that blending science and fine art at this length can produce touching works, tales as intimate as our own blood cells, with the structural strength of just-discovered industrial alloys.”
—The Seattle Times

“Summarizing these stories does not do justice to Chiang’s talent. Seemingly ordinary ideas are pursued ruthlessly, their tendons flayed, their bones exposed. Chiang derides lazy thinking, weasels it out of its hiding place, and leaves it cowering.”
—The Washington Post

“Essential. You won’t know SF if you don’t read Ted Chiang.”
—Greg Bear

“Chiang writes seldom, but his almost unfathomably wonderful stories tick away with the precision of a Swiss watch—and explode in your awareness with shocking, devastating force.”
—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

“The first must-read SF book of the year.”
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“He puts the science back in science fiction—brilliantly.”
—Booklist (Starred Review)

These stories were originally published as follows:
“Tower of Babylon,” Omni, 1990
“Understand,” Asimov’s, 1991
“Division by Zero,” Full Spectrum 3, 1991
“Story of Your Life,” Starlight 2, 1998
“Seventy-Two Letters,” Vanishing Acts, 2000
“The Evolution of Human Science,” Nature, 2000
“Hell is the Absence of God,” Starlight 3, 2001
“Liking What You See: A Documentary,” Stories of Your Life and Others, 2002

Cover art © Shelley Eshkar.

Stories of Your Life was originally published in 2002 by Tor.

This edition:
1st printing, October 2010
2nd printing, February 2011
3rd printing, July 2012
4th printing, November 2013
5th printing, January 2015

About the Author

Ted Chiang was born in Port Jefferson, New York and holds a degree in computer science from Brown University. In 1989 he attended the Clarion Writers Workshop. His fiction has won three Hugos, four Nebulas, three Locus awards, the John W. Campbell, and Sturgeon awards. He lives near Seattle, Washington.

Ted Chiang does not have a website. Contact queries can be sent to his agent:

Kirby Kim
Janklow & Nesbit
445 Park Avenue, 13th Floor
New York, NY 10022
kkim@janklow.com

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Boston Book Fest is this Saturday

Thu 14 Oct 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., book festivals, Kelly Link, Under the Poppy, Working Writer's Daily Planner| Posted by: Gavin

and we’d love to see you there! We have new books and will be there 10 – 6.

And: Kelly is on Kate Bernheimer’s fairy tale panel at 3 PM with Maria Tatar and Kathryn Davis in celebration of the huge new anthology, My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me. Kelly just got her copy yesterday and it’s a fabulous looking book. There are 40 stories, including many originals, from peeps such as Shelley Jackson, Kevin Brockmeier, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, Joy Williams, Aimee Bender, and, you know, 35 others! The cover art and design is by house fave Julie Morstad.

At the book fest, we will be sharing a booth with the completely new journal (which will be launched next year), The Common, from Amherst College. They’re open for submissions and seeking “stories, poems, essays, and dispatches that embody a strong sense of place.” You can download Issue Zero here.

You can find us and The Common at booth 26. Other exhibitors include the fine folk at One Story, Godine, and Zephyr Press, a couple of our favorite bookshops, Brookline Booksmith and the Raven, as well as Oxfam, WBUR and WGBH, Redivider, 826 Boston, and some food trucks—yum! Wish Yoma were providing the food. Maybe next year! Maybe we will bring banh mi (shades of the Brooklyn Book Fest).

If all goes well, Kelly and I will be bringing Ursula along. We can’t get a nurse for the day (eek!) so Kelly and I will be juggling looking after her (she is 18 months old and wants to do stuff!). I’m not quite sure how that will work with Kelly’s panel. Anyone want to step in from 3-4PM and help shill will be appreciated.

Lastly: two new titles, Under the Poppy and A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2011, just arrived at the office so they will be debuting at the book fest.

Apparently it will be sunny and breezy. If that’s true, that will be a mild improvement on the rain rain rain at last month’s Brooklyn Book Fest. See you in Copley Square!

ETA: We have a nurse for Ursula for Saturday so she will only be making an appearance early in the morning during set up!

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Kelly + the Literary Death Match

Fri 8 Oct 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., events, Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin

(Ganked wholesale from the Literary Death Match site.)

LDM100: October 19, 2010

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Let Dear Aunt Gwenda settle your mind

Fri 8 Oct 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Dear Aunt Gwenda, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

Don’t agonize over whether to do this or that, over whether non-US corporations should be able to donate to the US Chamber of Commerce to fund their political ads, or whether you should walk up the stairs or take the elevator, ask Dear Aunt Gwenda!

Now is the time and here (or by email) is the place to send us your questions, your wonders, your inquiries for inquiring minds, your inexplicabilities, for Dear Aunt Gwenda to explicate in the next LCRW.

Coming soon!

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So why do we care so much where people buy books?

Thu 7 Oct 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., blind consumerism, Books, bookshops| Posted by: Gavin

Well, here’s one reason we mull over now and then:

After various discounts and our excellent distro‘s cut, Small Beer Press usually receives 33.375% of the cover price when you buy a book from RudeGorilla.com.

So: should we cut the author’s royalty in half the way our contract says we can? (The way other publishers do for books we’ve sold them.)

On a paperback the author royalty would be 4-5%. ($0.64 – $0.80 on a $16 paperback.)

On a hardcover the author’s royalty would be 5-7.5%. ($1.20 – $1.80 on a $24 book.)

Sucks, doesn’t it?I don’t think we should do it but 33.375% doesn’t give us a hell of a lot of money to pay everyone else with. Ho hum, on with the show.

And, in the meantime: not so random Powell’s link!

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A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2011

Tue 5 Oct 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

October 2010 · 9781931520676 · Spiral bound/ebook · 6 x 9 · 160 pp · Excerpt on Scribd

The perfect supplement to any writer’s life, this new edition of A Working Writer’s Daily Planner is even better than before, packed with more of the information writers need to organize their work schedules, track upcoming deadlines, and learn about grant opportunities, contests, and workshop programs. For 2011 we turned to those who know best what writers want—writers themselves—and asked them what resources they’d find most useful. The result is a unique and indispensable tool that makes it easy for writers to keep track of the practical, business end of writing, leaving more time for them to actually spend writing.

If you’re a writer, you’ll immediately see the advantage of gathering so much information into one spiral-bound compendium: application deadlines are built right into the calendar, along with spotlights on writing markets and helpful online resources. You’ll also find information on How to Find a Writing Group – Or Start Your Own, writing conferences, advice on formatting manuscripts, suggested readings, and the dos and don’ts of submitting your work to journals, magazines, and literary agents. If there’s a writer in your life, this calendar will make the perfect gift.

And because every professional writer needs distractions, we’ll sneak in peculiar tales of the writing life, plenty of inspiring art and photos, writing prompts, and, as always, a few surprises too.

Table of Contents

How to Format a Manuscript
Book Festivals
The Editorial Assistant — Rebecca Isherwood
How to Find a Writing Group — Ben Francisco
Debut Author Interview: N.K. Jemisin — Kelly Link
Younger Writers
Residencies
State Arts Grants
Story Idea Generation — Kelly Link
What I Know About Writing — Geoffrey Goodwin
Future Planning
Science Fiction & Fantasy Corner
A Few Random Magazines
Further Resources
CLMP Contest Code of Ethics
Contest and Award Fees
How to End a Story — Nick Mamatas
Submission Tracker

Reading Lists
11 Poets You Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Read — Kristin Evans
A Summer Reading List — Samantha Guilbert
Tales of Love and Darkness — Kristin Evans
Reading as a Writer — Kelly Link

Writing Prompts and Exercises
A Place to be Inspired
A Play on Words
Five Memoir Writing Prompts — Geoffrey Goodwin
Genre Musical Chairs
Fifty First Sentences

Photo and Illustration Credits

Lawrence Schimel, H.N. James,  Amal El-Mohtar, Mari Cheng, Rebecca Isherwood, Greg McElhatton, Kelly Link, Graeme Williams, E. Catherine Tobler, Fred Coppersmith, National Library of Scotland, Richard Butner, Alex Dally McFarlane, Claire Massey, Davida Gypsy Breier, Austin Cheng, Kristine Paulus, Samantha Guilbert, Lorna E. Carlson.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to everyone who worked, helped, or contributed, including: Kelly Link, Jedediah Berry, Michael J. DeLuca, Kristen Evans, Christi Jacques, Su-Yee Lin, Diana Cao, Samantha Guilbert, Rebecca Isherwood, Ben Francisco, Abram Thau, Geoffrey Goodwin, Nick Mamatas, and some few others.

Reader reaction to A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2010:

“I know some writers who have spent many, many hours trying to figure out the ins and outs of residency programs, grant applications and even MFA programs in creative writing. A lot of that work is done for you here, with those deadlines detailed and looming some time before their due dates.
“With the extra time, there are writing prompts, if you should feel so inclined. And as the weeks tick by—it’s done in a weekly format, with space every day to write in appointments, or word counts or whatnot—you’ll see more and more writers’ birthdays, prompting you to, you know, get back to writing.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Each week is given a full page with enough space to jot down interview times, for example, or to make note of those awful looming deadlines…. But there’s much more in here than the birth dates of writers who are far more famous than most of us will ever be. The facing pages are packed with information about writers’ residencies, writing prizes and awards in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, writing fellowships, writing prompts and exercises, practical tips on formatting manuscripts and links to writing blogs and other online resources—and words of inspiration.”
—The Daily Hampshire Gazette

“Oh, how I wish I’d had this from the beginning of the year.”
—C.R., May 2010
A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2011 Excerpt

Typos discovered so far: Hallowe’en is listed as Sunday Oct. 30, when it should by Monday, Oct 31.
Typo spotting help (with any of our books) is always appreciated.

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Karen in California

Wed 29 Sep 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Karen Joy Fowler, readings| Posted by: Gavin

You should probably book your flight now because everyone who’s anyone is going to California next month to catch Karen Joy Fowler on her mini tour (not, sadly, by one-person submarine) celebrating her new book, her first collection of stories in ages, What I Didn’t See and Other Stories.

Karen will be reading at some of the best indie bookshops in the Great Bear state (that’s what the flag says to me, that’s what I’m going with). Why do we love these stores? Because they’re all individual, all different from one another. For instance, if you ship at Vroman’s you can sign up for their Vroman’s Gives Back program and choose which organization a % of your sale will go to. Magnifique!

If you’re not a Californian and would like a signed copy of What I Didn’t See, you can order it from any of these stores and they will hold it for you, get it signed, and ship it to you.

If you want a regular unsigned edition, order it here! Ebook fans: go here. If you’d like it from a large online booksite, we recommend Powells or Indiebound.

Get a head start on the book: “Standing Room Only” · “Always” · “The Last Worders” · or: Scribd.

Readings:

Oct. 7, 7 PM, Copperfields, Santa Rosa, CA
Oct. 11, 7 PM, Moe’s Books, Berkeley, CA — check out their new site with the lovely ad for Karen’s reading on the front page!
Oct. 15, NCIBA, Oakland, CA (Friday evening Author Reception)
Oct. 16, SF in SF (with Claude Lalumière), San Francisco, CA
Oct. 19, Capitola Book Cafe, Capitola, CA
Oct. 21, read. booksellers, Danville, CA
Nov. 5, 7 PM, Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena, CA

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On the dark and lurid side

Wed 22 Sep 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kathe Koja, readings| Posted by: Gavin

Thomson-Shore emailed us to say that Kathe Koja’s novel Under the Poppy should ship out in a couple of weeks which will get it into stores just about on publication date of October 19.B&N and Borders (who will have it stacked up—not kidding here!) will have it a week or two later. In the meantime, Library Journal really gets it:

“Despite all the trappings of puppets, sex shows, stabbings, and drawing-room treachery, this is a love story about how, sometimes despite themselves, Rupert, Istvan, and their friends have created a family. . . . she creates an atmospheric tale for those who like their historical fiction on the dark and lurid side. Those readers who enjoyed Emma Donoghue’s Slammerkin or Sarah Water’s Fingersmith will find similar themes.”
—Library Journal

Dark! Lurid! Sexy puppets! A love story. Yep. The call outs to Sarah Waters and Emma Donoghue seem right on the money.

Kathe has a couple of readings coming up—more maybe TBA. If you’re a booksellery person in the Great Lakes area you can meet her at the GLIBA Author Reception on Oct. 8th. Everyone else should dress up to the 9s and go to see her here:

Wed, Nov. 10, 7pm – 9pm
Common Language Bookstore 317 Braun Ct. Ann Arbor MI 48014
Launch event for Under the Poppy at the Blackbird Theatre sponsored by Common Language—the theatre is right across the courtyard. Dramatic reading with puppets and signing of Under the Poppy.

Thu, Nov. 11, 2010
Five15, 515 Washington Avenue, Royal Oak, MI
Kathe Koja reads from and signs her new novel Under the Poppy.

Wed, Nov. 17, 7pm – 9pm
KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave) New York, NY 10003
Kathe Koja reads from her new novel Under the Poppy as part of Ellen Datlow and Matt Kressel’s Fantastic Fiction @ KGB Series.

Kathe should also be taping an appearance with Jim Freund and the Hour of the Wolf in NYC and with luck will be on the radio in Detroit, too. It’s a heck of a book. Can’t wait to see it out there.

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Award Season: British Fantasy Awards

Tue 21 Sep 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., 51%, Award Season| Posted by: Gavin

Congratulations to the winners of the of the British Fantasy Awards. Continuing our rather basic count of these things here’s the breakdown:

13 men
2 women

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What I Didn’t See and Other Stories

Tue 21 Sep 2010 - Filed under: Books, Karen Joy Fowler| Posted by: Gavin

September 21, 2010 · trade cloth · 9781931520683 | ebook · 9781931520935
April 2013 · trade paper · 9781931520485

World Fantasy Award winner.

Signed paperback copies available.

“A stunning collection that mixes history, fantasy, myth, and something else altogether unknowable. Witty and powerful and totally out there.”—Flavorwire

“One of the most accomplished and most adroit fiction writers in America.”
—Brooks Landon, Los Angeles Review of Books

“Beautifully written & subtly discomforting stories.”
—Nancy Pearl in “Spooky-book suggestions from Seattle literati” in the Seattle Times

~ Short interviews at The Short Review and the Shirley Jackson Award site.
~ Read Karen’s new story: “Younger Women” on Subterranean Online.
~ Follow Karen’s occasional Small Beer blog: What I See
~ Read a short interview in the LA Times.
~ Listen to an interview with Rick Kleffel. [mp3 link]
~ Shelf Starter on Shelf Awareness

In her moving and elegant new collection, New York Times bestseller Karen Joy Fowler writes about John Wilkes Booth’s younger brother, a one-winged man, a California cult, and a pair of twins, and she digs into our past, present, and future in the quiet, witty, and incisive way only she can.

The sinister and the magical are always lurking just below the surface: for a mother who invents a fairy-tale world for her son in “Halfway People”; for Edwin Booth in “Booth’s Ghost,” haunted by his fame as “America’s Hamlet” and his brother’s terrible actions; for Norah, a rebellious teenager facing torture in the World Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Award winner “The Pelican Bar” as she confronts Mama Strong, the sadistic boss of a rehabilitation facility; for the narrator recounting her descent in “What I Didn’t See.”

With clear and insightful prose, Fowler’s stories measure the human capacities for hope and despair, brutality and kindness. This collection, which includes two Nebula Award winners and some stories which have been significantly rewritten since first publication, is sure to delight readers, even as it pulls the rug out from underneath them.

Awards

Shirley Jackson Awards shortlist
Locus Award shortlist
Story Prize Notable Books
Frank O’Connor Award longlist
“Booth’s Ghost” was also a World Fantasy Award finalist.
LA Times Holiday Gift Guide

Table of Contents

The Pelican Bar
Booth’s Ghost
The Last Worders
The Dark
Always
Familiar Birds
Private Grave 9
The Marianas Islands
Halfway People
Standing Room Only
What I Didn’t See
King Rat

Reviews

“Just gird your soul for some devastating walks on the dark side. As a bonus, the cover on this is fucking AWESOME.”
— Book Punks

“One of the pleasures of reading an eclectic collection is being constantly turned around and never knowing what to expect, but trusting the author to pull off the next story. Fowler does so brilliantly, whether chronicling a girl’s life in a brutal reform home or tying together a family history through the stewardship of a homemade submarine. Again and again, Fowler combines the mundane and the extraordinary to produce fiction as imaginative as it is relatable.”
—Mike Beeman, Chamber Four

“Fowler’s stories are gripping and surprising, with multiple pleasures awaiting the reader. Unlike the heroine of “Always,” we do not have unlimited time, but what time we do have is well used by reading—and rereading—What I Didn’t See.”
—Michael Matthew, Belletrista

Locus Recommended Reading

“Gripping from the start…. We are can never be sure where we are or what each page might bring. This is eclectic approach to a collection is exciting, and steers us away from the safer approach that many other collections take. ”
—The Short Review

“[Fowler] refuses to engage fantastic elements in an expected way, often confining them to the edges of a story, leaving the choice of how real a character’s perception is to the reader. Her work reflects how strange and unpredictable life is, how difficult–perhaps impossible–to fully understand.”
—Gwenda Bond, Subterranean Online

“Because of this range and because of the plain high literary quality of so many of its stories, What I Didn’t See would provide an excellent introduction to Fowler’s work if you’ve somehow managed to remain unacquainted with it.”
—Strange Horizons

“An exceptionally versatile author . . . Fowler has “the best possible combination of imagination and pragmatism,” as she applies unique narratives into carefully crafted structures.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“In all these stories, Fowler (“Sarah Canary,” “The Jane Austen Book Club”) delights in luring her readers from the walks of ordinary life into darker, more fantastical realms. There, as one of her characters remarks, “Your eyes no longer impose any limit on the things you can see.” . . . Fowler’s closing story, “King Rat,” is a masterpiece. Reading more like a personal essay than fiction, it pays eloquent tribute to “the two men I credit with making me a writer.” Here’s a volume that serves as a fine introduction to Fowler, if you haven’t come across her before—and one that will deeply satisfy fans who’ve been with her from the beginning.”
—Seattle Times

“One of those writers who can write an almost thoroughly mainstream realistic story and nearly convince us we’re reading SF, or write and SF story and convince us we’re reading mainstream realism.”
—Locus

“That rare writer who can match the power of her novels with the power of her short stories. She works in the world of myth with great ease. We feel, reading her stories, that we are in our world, but some portion of it that connects vitally with everything else. What happens here is gripping, important, compelling, and often terrifying. Her new collection of stories, ‘What I Didn’t See’ offers readers perfect renderings of a New American Mythos”
—Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column

“Karen Joy Fowler takes the short story in directions readers could never anticipate, and her latest collection from the wonderful Small Beer Press, What I Didn’t See: Stories, offers up numerous delights for the smart and creative reader. From the wham-bang start of “The Pelican Bar” to the Hemingway-esque title story, Fowler takes you from the past to the future in stories that feature speculative fiction elements, or are starkly true to life. Cast your preconceived notions aside and settle in to explore the human mysteries Fowler mines with abandon. This is literature at its most intriguing, and a reminder of how bold and daring a gifted writer can be.”
—Colleen Mondor, Bookslut

“The practicality of her views is what makes them upsetting, a reminder how tragedies great and small affect people everyday even if we aren’t privy to them. And that is where Fowler succeeds — even if her brutal boarding houses or Congolese misadventures aren’t real to us, post-traumatic stress disorder is. All of her narrators are survivors, and they tell their stories in blunt, practical ways we imagine they need to protect themselves.”
—For Books’ Sakes

“Fowler cements her place in fiction history–genre or otherwise–not because of her fancy tricks but through sheer technique and her excellence in characterization.”
—Charles Tan, Bibliophile Stalker

“Witty and humane.”
—Cascadia Subduction Zone

“The bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club goes genre-busting in this engrossing and thought-provoking set of short stories that mix history, sci-fi, and fantasy elements with a strong literary voice. Whether examining the machinations of a Northern California cult, in “Always,” or a vague but obviously horrific violent act in the eerie title story, the PEN/Faulkner finalist displays a gift for thrusting familiar characters into bizarre, off-kilter scenarios. Fowler never strays from the anchor of human emotion that makes her characters so believable, even when chronicling the history of epidemics, ancient archeological digs, single family submersibles, or fallen angels. She even displays a keen understanding of the historical world around Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, in two wonderfully realized historical pieces. Her writing is sharp, playful, and filled with insights into the human condition. The genre shifts might surprise fans of her mainstream hit, but within these pages they’ll find familiar dramas and crises that entertain, illuminate, and question the reality that surrounds us.”
—Publishers Weekly

“These stories, characterized by obsession, disappearance, and revelation, often feature first-person narrators—e.g., the smart, sarcastic resident of a cult whose leader promises immortality but forbids sex with anyone but himself; John Wilkes Booth; a druggy teenage girl whose parents have foisted her off in the name of tough love; a woman who accompanies her husband on a jungle mission (what she did or didn’t see feels like a riff on Joseph Conrad); and an expert on historical and contemporary instances of the bubonic plague. Fowler’s previous short story collection, “Black Glass”, won the World Fantasy Award. Several stories here also fall within the realm of fantasy and sf, having appeared for the first time in publications like “Asimov’s Science Fiction”. However, Fowler is surely best known today as the author of “The Jane Austen Book Club”, a novel in which we learn, among other things, that sf readers and Austenites have more in common than we might think. VERDICT In these captivating stories, Fowler’s discerning eye makes the incredible feel entirely credible.”
—Library Journal

Praise for Karen Joy Fowler:

“No contemporary writer creates characters more appealing, or examines them with greater acuity and forgiveness.”
—Michael Chabon

“Fowler’s witty writing is a joy to read.”
—USA Today

“Stories that engage and enchant.”
—San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

“She has a voice like no other, lyrical, shrewd and addictive, with a quiet deadpan humor that underlies almost every sentence.”
—Beth Gutcheon, Newsday

“What strikes one first is the voice: robust, sly, witty, elegant, unexpected and never boring.”
—Margot Livesey, The New York Times Book Review

“Arresting . . . each piece puts us on notice in its own way that an intriguing intelligence is at work.”
—The Boston Globe

“Unforgettable . . . incandescent . . . bewitching.”
—Los Angeles Times Book Review

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of six novels, including We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Wit’s End, and The Jane Austen Book Club, which spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, was a New York Times Notable Book, and was adapted as a major motion picture from Sony Pictures. Her novel Sister Noon was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and her short-story collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Award. She has co-edited three volumes of The James Tiptree Award Anthology. Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children, live in Santa Cruz, California.

These stories were originally published as follows:

The Pelican Bar, Eclipse 3, 2009
Booth’s Ghost appears here for the first time.
The Last Worders, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 20, 2007
The Dark, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1991
Always, Asimov’s Science Fiction, April-May 2007
Familiar Birds, Journal of Mythic Arts, Spring 2006
Private Grave 9, McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, 2003
The Marianas Islands, Intersections: The Sycamore Hill Anthology, 1996
Halfway People, My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, 2010
Standing Room Only, Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 1997
What I Didn’t See, SciFiction, 2002
King Rat, Trampoline, 2003

Author photo by Beth Gwinn.
Hardcover collage by Erica Harris.
Paperback cover art by Kathleen Jennings.

Previous Readings:

Oct. 7, 7 PM, Copperfields, Santa Rosa, CA
Oct. 11, 7 PM, Moe’s Books, Berkeley, CA — check out their new site with the lovely ad for Karen’s reading on the front page!
Oct. 15, NCIBA, Oakland, CA (Friday evening Author Reception)
Oct. 16, SF in SF (with Claude Lalumière), San Francisco, CA
Oct. 19, Capitola Book Cafe, Capitola, CA
Oct. 21, read. booksellers, Danville, CA
Nov. 5, 7 PM, Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena, CA

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Editing for clarity

Thu 16 Sep 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., [people unlike me]| Posted by: Gavin

David Moles and 100s of others point out that there are crazy people on the internets trying to tell everyone else that this country is only for people like them. Er. Wrong. David and a few others also mention that pointing this stuff out is important. I generally am not very good at speaking out when the batshitedness raises its head, but thought perhaps I should start. I was especially sad to see that the 521 comments (thus far) were deleted. Pronouncements: apparently ok! Conversations: Not so much!

So here is part of Ms. Moon’s post, edited for clarity:

I do not dispute that there are moderate, even liberal, [PEOPLE UNLIKE ME], that many [PEOPLE UNLIKE ME] have all the virtues of civilized persons and are admirable in all those ways.  I am totally, 100%, appalled at those who want to burn the [HOLY BOOK UNLIKE MY HOLY BOOK] (which, by the way, I have read in [MY LANGUAGE, NOT YOURS, OK] translation, with the same attention I’ve given to other holy books) or throw paint on [HOLY BUILDINGS THAT I DON’T WANT IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD] or beat up [PEOPLE UNLIKE ME].  But [PEOPLE UNLIKE ME] fail to recognize how much [SHIT I’VE HAD TO PUT UP WITH FROM PEOPLE UNLIKE ME] forbearance they’ve had.

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New Geoff Ryman + new editions

Wed 15 Sep 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Forthcoming, Geoff Ryman| Posted by: Gavin

We are very proud and happy to announce that in November we will publish Geoff Ryman’s new collection of stories, Paradise Tales. It is a huge, excellent book of short (and long!) stories collected from 20+ years of Geoff’s career. You can readShould be one of the best, most thought provoking collections of the year. The cover that you might have seen on Powell’s or Indiebound isn’t final: we’ll have that to unveil in the coming weeks.

We’ll also announce a blog giveaway for advance copies to those who might be inspired to write about the book (we’ll make sure to send a copy to the Rev. Jones in Gainesville!) and there should be a few stories appearing on the web to whet your appetite. Geoff’s stories are fantastic explorations of what it means to be human and we can’t wait to get them out there.

You can see the Table of Contents here. We’ve just added Paradise Tales to the preorder page—at some point soon we’re going to shift all our ebook links to Weightless which will mean we can use the shipping widget in Paypal. In the meantime, continued apologies to international readers: please remember to add shipping.

This is the second Geoff Ryman book we’re going to publish—but it won’t be the last! We just signed contracts to bring three of Geoff’s books back into print: The Child Garden, a biopunk future London novel with a love story between a woman and a piano playing polar bear(!), Was, which explores the book and the writing of The Wizard of Oz from many angles, and lastly Geoff’s previous novella collection, The Unconquered Country. Look for one of these every six months or so—which means The Child Garden will be out in May!

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Interfictions 2—where are the paranormal cowboy romances?

Wed 15 Sep 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Interfictions 2, Uncategorized| Posted by: Gavin

Two reviewers look at Interfictions 2 and wonder whether interstitial is a reading protocol, a limitation, or . . . what? Is every story interstitial as Paul Di Filippo suggests in Asimov’s?

Imagine that you reprinted the entire contents selected by editors Delia Sherman and Christopher Barzak, but without any identifying matter as to its origins, and then wrapped it inside covers labeled Eclipse 3, or The Solaris Book of New Fantasy, or the January/February issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, or even The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories for 2010. Then you gave this camouflaged book to any literate yet unsuspecting reader. Would the nominated reader, after carefully perusing X number of stories, look up and say, “Wait one darn minute! These hybrid stories are too odd for their genre label! I’m really reading interstitial fiction! Not pure fantasy or pure SF or pure mimetic fiction, as advertised!

Paul goes on to ask:

One final thought experiment. The interstices explored in this volume are exclusively those between literary fiction and SF/Fantasy. Where are the stories that lie in the uncanny valleys between, say, the espionage and nurse genres, the western and the paranormal romance?

and over at The Short Review Steven Wingate likes the book . . .

Many of the stories have a devil-may-care brio to them—the verve of knowing that their experiments might not hold completely together—and that gives the book a freshness and insouciance that many “best of”-type anthologies don’t have.

and asks the same question:

There are many interstices in the world of fiction; claiming just one as “interstitial fiction” may help gain territory for one group of writers on the cusp between the mainstream and the speculative, but what does it do for those writers who labor at one of many, many other fault lines?

Since the IAF emerged from the sf&f field, it may be natural for it to have some bent toward that genre but the stories in Interfictions 2 came from an open submission period so the answer to the above question is either in the editors’ preferences or in the population that submitted work. One of the simplest yet hardest part of editing is that you can only publish what you’re sent. Gordon Van Gelder has a great take on this. He advises writers not to edit his magazine: in other words, don’t think you know what he wants, send your story along and let him decide.

And now the book is out, it’s up to the readers to decide!

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Last Week; This.

Mon 6 Sep 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, Julia Holmes, Karen Lord| Posted by: Gavin

Last week: found a postcard on the street for a band called A Sunny Day in Glasgow. Well that can be some rare thing so had to check them out. They have a fun—weather inappropriate—video filmed in New Orleans.

This week: prep for Sunday which is the Brooklyn Book Festival—come on by and say hi!

We could take a week in reviews like last week any time. Just in case you were worried and thought you should call your friends at Good Morning America and maybe Terri Gross or Jon Stewart and say, “Hey, you know, I think Small Beer needs a bit of down time. Why don’t you cover the Boring Blockbuster of the Week this week instead?” because, really, we don’t need you to do that. We love it! Bring it on!

Julia Holmes’s Meeks got a total dream review in the New York Times Book Review and then was an Editor’s Choice this week. Swoony! Also, Julia was interviewed on Portland’s Reading Local and picked 5 Recent Reads for Impose Magazine.

Then this week A Life on Paper and Redemption in Indigo were in Jeff VanderMeer’s Science Fiction Chronicle (hope this becomes a regular feature)—see more below.

With that review and us bringing some stock back to the office for the Book Festival both of our debut novels, Meeks and Redemption in Indigo, have shipped out their first printing—Whoop de do! (Ok, so go on: order the Alasdair Gray!)

A Life on Paper got a handful of great reviews this week—we’re hoping to publish more of Edward Gauvin’s excellent translations of Châteaureynaud. All these people agree:

“The celebrated Châteaureynaud, who over the course of a distinguished career has created short tales that are not exactly contes cruels but which linger on the edge of darkness and absurdity.”
—New York Times

“Châteaureynaud is a master craftsman, encapsulating weighty themes with pith and heart. In his hands, the short story is a Gothic cathedral whittled from a wine cork.”
—The Believer

“Châteaureynaud celebrates the quiet, hidden beauties of the world and the objects or knowledge we hold tight like talismans to protect us from its losses and horrors.”
—The Quarterly Conversation

You can get a great taste of Karen Lord’s Redemption in Indigo from her set of readings taped on launch night. From the pictures and so on it looks like a fun night and the readers were great. I had them on in the background and enjoyed their take on the book.

“A clever, exuberant mix of Caribbean and Senegalese influences that balances riotously funny set pieces (many involving talking insects) with serious drama initiated by meddlesome supernatural beings.”
—New York Times

That’s it for now. Back at some point with more on the Brooklyn Book Fest, a Steampunk! update, some reprint news from Kelly, and so on und so weiter.

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Award Season: Hugos

Mon 6 Sep 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., 51%, Award Season, the world| Posted by: Gavin

Congratulations to all the nominees and the winners!

However, once more the mens are the big winners. As with the World Fantasy Awards they need help with finding women artists to even be nominated.

Quick count has the winners as:

• 20 men
• 5 women

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Scribd crazy

Mon 6 Sep 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., ebooks, Karen Joy Fowler, Kathe Koja, Scribd, Working Writer's Daily Planner| Posted by: Gavin

Ok, so, went a bit Scribd crazy the other night. Had to do something while watching the bairn sleep.

First I put up an excerpt from A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2011. Last year I put up March, this year I decided to make it simple and put up January. Last year’s sample was very popular, hope this one is too. Then I added the ebook to Weightless—only $4.99!

Then I put up excerpts for two of our upcoming books:

Karen Joy Fowler, What I Didn’t See and Other Stories
—which is shipping, baby, shipping! And we’re still adding (mostly California) events to Karen’s schedule.

Kathe Koja, Under The Poppy
—and this one is at the printer and ships out in October. Events—KGB Bar, Ann Arbor, Detroit, WFC—being added here, too.

And! I added a handful of LCRWs to their ebook store—we sell much more at Weightless or RudeGorilla.com or Fictionwise than we have at Scribd, but still, it’s a good and easy place for people—there are tons of international readers who use it—to check things out. Besides, adding stuff was easy!

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 21 ebook

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 20 ebook

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 19 ebook

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 18 ebook

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 16 ebook

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Award Season: World Fantasy Awards

Mon 30 Aug 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., 51%, Award Season, the world| Posted by: Gavin

A little late (but better that than never): huge congratulations to all the World Fantasy Award nominees, those we know and those we don’t. Having been a juror, I know how much a nomination is worth! And, there’s a ton of stuff I haven’t read on here so it makes a good reading list.

I’ve occasionally done gender breakdowns of nominees (i.e. Locus 2009) and winners looking at it from a very simplistic and reductive gender angle: how many men are nominated and how many women? This point of view is the same one that makes looking at the ToC of The New Yorker so depressing every week. Also, even though Kelly is on the jury and is somewhere within hailing distance she has nothing to do with these posts. I like keeping track. When the winners approach a gender balance, I don’t post about that, because that’s not (or shouldn’t be) news.

And, yes, I agree that it is totally possible that in any single year all the best books may have been written by men. 2009 was apparently a year like that, according to the National Book Award winners. However, I don’t believe that year after year all the books by women are apparently not quite good enough. So, enough chuntering. One note: next year, nominators might consider finding some women artists. Here’s this year’s breakdown (from Locus, thanks Mark) and a link to last year’s. (Apologies is anyone has been mischaracterized by gender or nationality in my somewhat quick count.)

• 37 men
• 19 women

• 38 USA
• 10 UK
• 3 Australia
• 3 Canada
• 1 Japan
• 1 Russia

Novel

• Blood of Ambrose, James Enge (Pyr)
• The Red Tree, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Roc)
• The City & The City, China Miéville (Macmillan UK/ Del Rey)
• Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland)
• In Great Waters, Kit Whitfield (Jonathan Cape UK/Del Rey)

Novella

• The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, Kage Baker (Subterranean)
• “I Needs Must Part, the Policeman Said”, Richard Bowes (F&SF 12/09)
• “The Lion’s Den”, Steve Duffy (Nemonymous Nine: Cern Zoo)
• The Night Cache, Andy Duncan (PS)
• “Sea-Hearts”, Margo Lanagan (X6 )
• “Everland”, Paul Witcover (Everland and Other Stories)

Short Story

• “The Pelican Bar”, Karen Joy Fowler (Eclipse Three)
• “A Journal of Certain Events of Scientific Interest from the First Survey Voyage of the Southern Waters by HMS Ocelot, As Observed by Professor Thaddeus Boswell, DPhil, MSc, or, A Lullaby”, Helen Keeble (Strange Horizons 6/09)
• “Singing on a Star”, Ellen Klages (Firebirds Soaring)
• “The Persistence of Memory, or This Space for Sale”, Paul Park (Postscripts 20/21: Edison’s Frankenstein )
• “In Hiding”, R.B. Russell (Putting the Pieces in Place)
• “Light on the Water”, Genevieve Valentine (Fantasy 10/09)

Anthology

• Poe,  Ellen Datlow, ed. (Solaris)
• Songs of The Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, eds. (Subterranean/Voyager)
• Exotic Gothic 3: Strange Visitations, Danel Olson, ed. (Ash-Tree)
• Eclipse Three, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade)
• American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny: From Poe to the Pulps/From the 1940s to Now, Peter Straub, ed. (Library of America)
• The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology, Gordon Van Gelder, ed. (Tachyon)

Collection

• We Never Talk About My Brother, Peter S. Beagle (Tachyon)
• Fugue State, Brian Evenson (Coffee House)
• There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (Penguin)
• Northwest Passages, Barbara Roden (Prime)
• Everland and Other Stories, Paul Witcover (PS)
• The Very Best of Gene Wolfe/The Best of Gene Wolfe, Gene Wolfe (PS /Tor)

Artist

• John Jude Palencar
• John Picacio
• Charles Vess
• Jason Zerrillo
• Sam Weber

Special Award – Professional

• Peter & Nicky Crowther for PS Publishing
• Ellen Datlow for editing anthologies
• Hayao Miyazaki for Ponyo
• Barbara & Christopher Roden for Ash-Tree Press
• Jonathan Strahan for editing anthologies
• Jacob & Rina Weisman for Tachyon Publications

Special Award – Non-Professional

• John Berlyne for Powers: Secret Histories
• Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan, & Sean Wallace for Clarkesworld
• Susan Marie Groppi for Strange Horizons
• John Klima for Electric Velocipede
• Bob Colby, B. Diane Martin, David Shaw, and Eric M. Van for Readercon
• Ray Russell & Rosalie Parker for Tartarus Press

The Life Achievement Awards will be released in the coming weeks in a separate announcement.

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& now the first review for Under the Poppy

Mon 30 Aug 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kathe Koja, Reviews, Under the Poppy| Posted by: Gavin

Publishers Weekly is again first off the blocks with their take on Kathe Koja’s huge sexy historical novel, Under the Poppy:

“The latest from Koja (Skin) is a page turner with riveting language and
close attention to sensory detail. Set in late 19th-century Brussels, the
story follows the adventures of puppeteer Istvan and brothel owner Rupert
who bond as friends and lovers. The first half of the novel is set at
Rupert’s brothel, Under the Poppy, a haven for bawdy puppet shows and loose
women. With war in the air, the brothel is forced to house soldiers led by a
corrupt general. A mysterious assault on Rupert leads to more violence and
an exodus of prostitutes from the establishment. Istvan and Rupert, with one
of the former working girls, who morphs into a theater owner and puppeteer,
leave as well and arrive in a new town, where they cavort with a family of
aristocrats that includes Isobel, who falls for Rupert (as does her young
brother, Benjamin, the family heir). Koja’s style is unconventional,
resulting in a melodrama with deep insights into character and a murky plot
balanced with prose as theatrical as the world it portrays.(Oct.)”

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West Coast Holmes

Fri 20 Aug 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., bookshops, Julia Holmes, Karen Lord, readings| Posted by: Gavin

If you’re in Portland (Monday, 8/23) or Seattle (Wed. 8/25) next week don’t miss the Meeks roadshow. Then, on Thursday the 26th Julia will be reading with our own Jedediah Berry at the Porter Square Bookshop in Cambridge (that place next to Cambridge, not that place in England). Fingers crossed I’ll see you at the Boston(ish) one!

Next month Julia will be reading with Karen Lord who is visiting from Barbados and will be at McNally Jackson and Greenlight Books as well as the Brookyln Book Festival—where she’s reading with N.K. Jemisin. October and November are busy with readings, too: check it out.

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Friday wondering: to comment or not comment?

Fri 20 Aug 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW, Publishing, writing| Posted by: Gavin

One of the perpetual questions around here is whether to provide feedback to writers when they send us something that’s not for us. Some writers love it, some hate it. And everyone knows that our response time has slowed horribly over the last year (sorry) so why spend extra time? Occasionally I’m asking to see another story, sometimes I’m trying to be helpful or useful. I received this email the other day in reply to a note I added about a story I turned down. It’s not the first such letter nor no doubt will it be the last (how many rejections-of-our-rejections have we received?) but perhaps I should short circuit them and not include notes at all?

This isn’t about this letter in particular (be nice, impolite comments deleted). I’m just curious what people like: comments/no comments; feedback/no feedback.

Thanks for taking the time to make a handwritten note on the rejection letter for my story, “TITLE.”  You wrote, “This was fun but a little reminiscent of ‘The Cold Equation’ or James Patrick Kelly’s ‘Think Like a Dinosaur.’”

I’ve never heard of these works. Were they recently published in your magazine? Or were you simply trying to say “TITLE” is derivative and unoriginal?

If it was the latter: I realize there are other stories on the topics of teleportation and genetic engineering, and even more stories involving children. I’m not surprised my story reminded you of others you have read, but I’m not sure why that is a problem. The mere existence of similar works is not a solid rationale for rejecting a story. Literature should be judged on its own merits rather than what others have achieved or—even worse—the arbitrary, preconceived notions of what constitutes “good” writing. Based on your note, it appears that you may want to think more carefully about the basis for rejecting the works you receive.

The collective unconscious runs deep, especially for writers. I recently saw an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that was so strikingly similar to “TITLE,” it gave me chills. The episode was called “The Masterpiece Society” if you want to look it up. I don’t feel threatened by the similarities because I know “TITLE” is different. I wrote “TITLE” when I was 20 years old and saw the Next Gen episode about a month ago (I’m 24 now). In different time periods from different perspectives, the Star Trek writers and I explored the exact same topics. How’s that for science fiction!

Just a thought.

Best good wishes,

AUTHOR

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