Consistently resisting easy categorization

Sat 24 Oct 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

The Entropy of Bones cover - click to view full sizeI think that’s my new favorite description, a t-shirt or a mug waiting to happen. When people ask what kind of books we publish they often have an idea already: short story collections that resist easy categorization — except Ben Rosenbaum’s collection, The Ant King, it being what it says on the label: Plausible Fabulism. But while that thing about short story collections is true, it’s only one part of a whole that changes half a dozen times or more every year when we publish another book.

Last week Charles Yu used that phrase to describe Ayize Jama-Everett’s The Entropy of Bones in the New York Times Book Review. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you like books that consistently defy being stuck in a category, give it a shot:

“Jama-Everett’s book consistently resists easy categorization. Chabi’s mixed racial background offers a potentially nuanced look from a perspective that seems underserved. And by setting the book in a weird, if recognizable, Bay Area, ­Jama-Everett captures something about the way it feels to live so close to so much money and yet so far; he traces the differences between postindustrial East Bay towns, the gray melancholy of an older city, the particular feeling of struggling while surrounded by otherworldly wealth. If the book veers among different approaches — now a philosophical kung fu master story, now a seduction into a rarefied subculture, now an esoteric universe made from liner notes and the journal entries of a brilliantly imaginative teenager — there’s nevertheless a vitality to the voice and a weirdness that, while not always controlled or intentional, is highly appealing for just that reason.”

Read the first chapter on Tor.com.


David Mitchell on Ursula K. Le Guin

Fri 23 Oct 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

“Adulthood brings more demanding critical standards and many a childhood favourite has been booted off my podium of most cherished books, but my admiration for Le Guin’s artistry has only grown with every rereading.”

I imagine that many people I know feel the same way.

Read the whole thing on the Guardian.


Sending All Your Love—In the Form of Brownies Through the Mail

Tue 20 Oct 2015 - Filed under: Free Stuff to Read, , , | Posted by: Gavin

This column is the first Nicole Kimberling wrote for us and was originally published in LCRW 27. As new issues come out we will keep adding columns and at some point there will be enough for a book!

Equipment: cupcake tin & baking liners, waxed paper, plastic wrap, rigid shipping container, packing material, packing tape, pen, a piece of cardboard big enough for ten cupcake-sized brownies to sit on, oven, timing device, mixing bowl, measuring cups and spoons, cooling rack, a little cash, hands, and at least some love to spare for another.

Time: Approximately three hours total, plus travel time. Actual labor time: 30 minutes.

Step Zero: Read whole recipe. Read more


Meanwhile

Mon 5 Oct 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy 2015Out there in the world, the peoples they reads the books. What do they say? They like ’em! Just wait to see what’s going to be reviewed next week. Oh? Oh yeah, mmmhmm.

But I am meanwhiling here first about Sofia Samatar who has two stories in the inaugural edition of HMH’s latest addition to their Best American series: Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015. Also: are there more SBP authors  in this book? Yes! See Nathan Ballingrud,  Kelly Link, and two stories (Holly Black’s and Paolo Bacigalupi) from Monstrous Affections received honorable mentions.

It’s interesting to look at the list of stories passed on to Joe Hill by series editor John Joseph Adams to see where they were first published.

You can read Joe Hill’s introduction to the book on Entertainment Weekly where he calls Sofia ” a rising star in the genre” and “a young she-can-do-anything star” and describes her two stories as “incredibly different and equally breathtaking stories.” Absolutely!

More fun Best American fun news? Yes! Owen King’s story “The Curator” from Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 31 got a honorable mention nod in T.C. Boyle’s Best American Short Stories 2015.

Meanwhile over in bookland, Mary Rickert’s You Have Never Been Here: New and Selected Stories received two lovely trade reviews from PW and Kirkus. We’re sending out our last few galleys now and fingers crossed we will have the book on hand at World Fantasy Con in Saratoga Springs in a month or so! Mary will be there and we will not be running out of books the way we did with Archivist Wasp at Readercon. Dammit! (Sorry again, Nicole!) See below for links to the reviews. Suffice to say if you’ve enjoyed collections we’ve published by Elizabeth Hand, Nathan Ballingrud, Kelly Link, etc., etc., this one is for you.

And we are working on another collection, this one for July of next year by none other than Jeffrey Ford. But, hey, enough for today. More on that manana!

“Beautiful, descriptive prose enriches tales of ghosts, loss, and regret in this leisurely collection. . . . Fans of . . .  Kelly Link will appreciate Rickert’s explorations of myth and memory.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Short stories about people haunted by loss and transformed by grief. Ghosts walk through this collection. Witches are rumored. People collect bones, sprout wings, watch their feet turn into hooves. Above all, people tell stories—stories that cast spells, stories that change the world. In “Journey into the Kingdom,” a tale about ghosts who walk out of the sea has a powerful effect on a young widower. In “Anyway,” a mother asks herself what she would sacrifice to save her son’s life. In the collection’s longest story, “The Mothers of Voorhisville,” a group of women are drawn together when they realize their newborn babies have something very strange in common. Not every piece sings, but those that do have a powerful, haunting effect. As the mother of a dead girl puts it in “The Chambered Fruit,” the best of these stories show how “from death, and sorrow, and compromise, you create,” how “this is what it means…to be alive.” Rickert’s (Holiday, 2010, etc.) writing is crystal-clear, moody, occasionally blood-chilling. Her characters maneuver through a world where strange, troubling transformations are possible, but they live and breathe on the page, fully human. The worlds Rickert creates are fantastical, but her work should appeal not just to fantasy fans, but to anyone who appreciates a well-told tale.”
— Kirkus Reviews


Growing Your Own Hops: So Easy You Don’t Need to Read This

Thu 1 Oct 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Michael

IMG_2024“Hops are a wicked and pernicious weed” said Henry VIII in 1519—at least according to a t-shirt I bought from the excellent Wicked Weed Brewing of Asheville, NC. Their point being ironic: ole Henry doesn’t know what he’s talking about; they love hops, we all love hops. Except, of course, for those of us who don’t—and not without reason: craft brewers have conspired to beat our taste buds to death with them. I sympathize with the hop haters. For years I counted myself among them, as becomes obvious on paging back through Literary Beers past on how to brew beers bittered with sage, rosemary, alehoof, sweet fern, chamomile, yarrow, wormwood, spruce, chiles and cacao. Inevitably, however, all-encompassing lover of fermented culture that I am, hops brought me back around. Take it from someone who’s devoted years of homebrewing experimentation to figuring out how to brew beer without them: hops are delicious. Thanks to an explosion of new breeds, they’re available in as many varieties and as complex flavors as wine grapes or cider apples. Used with discretion, they’re a balm for every palate. Used with abandon, they possess the palate-killing power to move even the hardcorest of neckbearded hopheads to tears—but this latter proclivity among beer nerds was only half the reason I spent years avoiding hops in my homebrew. The other half was what it took to get them. Hop shortages in the US and UK drove up prices, necessitating the importation of hops, at significant cost in dollars and fossil fuels, from Germany, the Czech Republic, Australia, New Zealand. I want my ingredients as local, low-cost and low-footprint as I can get them. Which motivation found me hunting hop substitutes in the woods, where footprints were literally all I had to give to get them. Once I found myself in possession of a little land, it was only a matter of time before I tried growing my own hops. As it turns out, it’s easy—ridiculously so, as long as you live someplace cool and wet, ideally within a half-dozen degrees of the 42nd parallel.

Follow me to learn how.

Read more