“An Absolutely Delightful Book”

Wed 27 Sep 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

The River Bank cover - click to view full sizeMichael Dirda is delighted by Kij Johnson’s The River Bank — as you can see in his new review just posted in the Washington Post:

“If you’re going to write a sequel to one of the most beloved children’s books of all time, you’ll need to be pitch perfect, hit all the right notes and, at its end, leave your reader shouting “Bravo!” Or in this case, “Brava!” and “Encore!” Kij Johnson has brought out an absolutely delightful book, as charming and funny and rereadable as Kenneth Grahame’s “Wind in the Willows” itself.”

Yay! There are a couple of Kathleen Jennings’s illustrations included in the review (they “add just the right extra magic”) and a comparison to Georgette Heyer. Not bad for a Wednesday morning!


Made a thing and it is a zine

Fri 22 Sep 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Picture by Marija Smits

Picture by Marija Smits

Since people are posting about getting LCRW on twitter* — wait, what if they’re posting about it on other platforms (in other silos) and I can’t see, wah, so sad to be a human not an AI scanning all social media in these times — then it must be real and not just a dream that it was printed recently at Paradise Copies and sent out to those lovely readers.

Some people get the chocolate, some people get the epub (where chocolate must be self-supplied). Some people are probably not getting it on the Am*zone, etc., as the epub failed some kind of test there. Feh. Anyone who think ebooks should be free should try producing an epub file that passes all the different epub validator tests — and then come back in 2-3 years when it has to be remade to pass the newer tests.

Anyway: LCRW. It is the 36th iteration, the first of the year. Maybe 2017 will not completely suck? No, it will. The title is in pink, can you tell? The cover of the print copy does not look like the ebook version for fun. I haven’t used a color cover for too long and this one makes my eyes hurt so well. It is good to make things and send them out in the supposedly analog world — hat tip to the world-as-simulation or Berenst*in Bears theorists.

Also: it’s gone out to some lovely bookstores: Borderlands, DreamHaven, Magers & Quinn, & more. How do I love thee, independent bookshops and booksellers? A lot. A whole lot. Even the ones that don’t want to carry a supposedly twice-yearly occasional outburst. Yesterday I went into Broadside Books here in Northampton and instead of dropping off the zine I picked up a bunch of books for kid presents. But they had such nice books!

Oh well, next time. In the meantime, if you too have already read M. T. Anderson’s Landscape with Invisible Hand and aren’t ready for the heartbreak of The Penderwicks in Spring, then sure, pick up LCRW. Will it hold back the unending crush of news of immensely stupid people doing immensely stupid things? For a little while, just a little while.

* Not all lcrw tweets will be LCRW tweets.


Annalee Newitz Recommends The Mount

Wed 20 Sep 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

The Mount cover - click to view full sizeToday on Bookriot’s Recommended podcast, Annalee Newitz (whose novel Autonomous drops this week!) recommends Carol Emshwiller’s Philip K. Dick Award winning novel The Mount.

We love this novel here at Small Beer. Every now and then I go back to it and realize again how weird and great it is. Our edition is in shortish supply at the moment so it’s back to the printer it’ll have to go — in the meantime, you can pick up the Penguin mass market edition or the ebook. (Will there ever be a movie edition? No recent news, but never say never!)


The Story Spilling Over

Thu 14 Sep 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

The River Bank cover - click to view full sizeOccasionally I read a review of a book we’ve published and it makes me want to pick up the book and read it all over again. I just had that experience reading Amal El-Mohtar’s review of The River Bank on the NPR website. Amal begins her review writing about fan fiction and reading that made me wonder if fan fiction was labelled something else, would it be more acceptable to those who don’t like it? Much of the time fan fiction can pass me by but then Kij sent us a book that Amal accurately labels fan fiction and I love it. I love a book in conversation with another but sometimes, ach, you know how it is. There’s no one rule that describes even one reader’s preferences. I know a good book when I see it! Right? Sure.

Enough of me, here’s a part of Amal’s review. I urge you to read the whole thing:

I was never less than delighted with this book. From beginning to end, it thoroughly charmed and engaged me, speaking the native literary language of my childhood. Like a river, it is in places languid and broad, in others narrow and rushing, the story spilling over sharp rocks of incident before pooling in afternoon sunshine, smelling of lilies and mud. I loved the sweetness of its pace, which spoke of a deep, abiding love not so much for the source material’s specific contents as their tone: a wistful, enchanted melancholy that walks hand in hand with summer’s end.

There are passages here that I treasure, that take up the timbre of Kenneth Grahame’s voice to speak of new things that feel timeless: the joys and pains of being an author at work; the changeability of a summer’s day from possibility to exhaustion; the quiet loneliness of a home half-dwelt in, a home asleep until woken by occupation, activity, presence. Sentences like “an animal lives in the long now of the world.” So much of this book dwells deeply in that long now.

In addition to its many native felicities, the text is embellished by Kathleen Jennings’ beautiful incidental illustrations, grace notes sounded in E. H. Shepard’s mode with a line reminiscent of Beatrix Potter and a sensibility all Jennings’ own.


Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 36

Wed 13 Sep 2017 - Filed under: LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

56 pages. Ebook ISBN: 9781618731395

2 x 18. 3 x 12. 4 x 9. 6 x 6. There are many ways to look at or approach the number 36. It is a square and therefore seemingly as far from a prime number as it is possible to get. (37 is a prime: so the previous statement sounds interesting, but is wrong.) There are not 36 short short stories within. But there are at least 2 poems although they are not 18 pages each.

There is a cover from kAt Philbin.

There are stories of possibly eerie encounters; stories of regrettable encounters; stories that do not hold a single encounter, except the imminent encounter between you, the reader, and the writer who is somewhere other in space and now retreating further in time each day. And if the enchantment of fiction — and poetry and nonfiction — works as planned, that magic will take someone’s thought that has been encapsulated in words, those words that were encased by ink, that ink that was pinned to paper, and then maybe, just maybe, that magic will be enacted upon you by the act of reading and you will take into your synapses, the space between your synapses, something of what that far distant writer hoped to impart in these words.

Table of Contents

Fiction

Gabriela Santiago, “Children of Air”
Lily Davenport, “The Crane Alphabet”
T. L. Rodebaugh, “The Secret History of the Original Line”
Mollie Chandler, “Evidence of a Storm”
Todd Summar, “Watching You Without Me”
Laurel Lathrop, “Cunning”
Christi Nogle, “The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future”
Zhao Haihong, “Windhorse”

Nonfiction

Nicole Kimberling, “How to Cook (Dis)Comfort Food”

Poetry

D M Gordon, Two Poems

About these Authors

Mollie Chandler is soon to complete her MFA in poetry at Lesley University, where she also concentrates in fantasy, fairy tale, and pedagogy. She works in Boston as an editorial assistant at an educational publishing company. Off the clock, she studies jazz vocals and acting, haunts thrift stores, and hunts for the best diners in New England. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, The Charles River Journal, Light: a Journal of Photography and Poetry, Paradise in Limbo, Poems2Go, and others.

L. M. Davenport is a first-year MFA candidate at the University of Alabama. She has read Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness a ridiculous number of times, and once knitted a five-and-a-half-foot-long giant squid. Her work has previously appeared at Hobart, Shimmer, and Luna Station Quarterly.

D M Gordon is the author of Fourth World and Nightly, at the Institute of the Possible, a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award and International Book Award. Gordon’s poems and stories have been published widely. Prizes include First Prize from Glimmer Train, and Editor’s Choice Awards from the Beacon Street Review and descant. An MCC Artist Fellow in fiction for a portion of her novel Geography, as well as a two time finalist in poetry, she’s a freelance editor in multiple genres, and the editor for Hedgerow Books.

Nicole Kimberling lives in Bellingham, Washington, with her wife, Dawn Kimberling. She is a professional cook and amateur life coach. Her first novel, Turnskin, won the Lambda Literary Award for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror. She is also the author of the Bellingham Mystery Series.

Laurel Lathrop is studying fiction in the Creative Writing PhD program at Florida State University, where she has been awarded a Legacy Fellowship. She teaches composition and works as Assistant Nonfiction Editor of the Southeast Review.

Christi Nogle teaches college writing in Boise, Idaho. She has published in CDM recording studio’s Portable Story Series and the Pseudopod podcast and has a story forthcoming in C. M. Muller’s literary horror anthology Nightscript III.

T. L. Rodebaugh is a clinical psychologist and an Associate Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. He lives with his wife and two children. When not conducting psychological research or writing fiction, he enjoys being barely competent in playing the guitar and gardening. Although he has published widely in the field of psychology, this is his first published short story. You can find him on twitter.

Gabriela Santiago grew up in Illinois, Florida, Montana, and Yokosuka, Japan; these days she lives in St. Paul, where she spends her days professionally playing with kids at the Minnesota Children’s Museum. She is a graduate of Macalester College and the Clarion writing workshop, as well as a proud member of Team Tiny Bonesaw. Her fiction has appeared in People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction!, People of Colo(u)r Destroy Horror!, Betwixt, Black Candies—Surveillance: A Journal of Literary Horror, and States of Terror; her Black Candies story is also available in audio form on the GlitterShip podcast. You can find her online on Tumblr or Twitter.

Todd Summar writes fiction and essays, and serves as an editor for publishers and individuals. His work has appeared in Literary Hub, PANK, and Electric Literature, among others. He is the founding editor of Goreyesque and has an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago. You can learn more about him on toddsummar.com or ToddSummar.

About

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 36 Early Autumn 2017. ISSN 1544-7782. Ebook ISBN: 9781618731395. Text: Bodoni Book. Titles: Imprint MT Shadow. LCRW is (usually) published in June and November by Small Beer Press, 150 Pleasant St., #306, Easthampton, MA 01027 · smallbeerpress@gmail.com · smallbeerpress.com/lcrw. twitter.com/smallbeerpress · Printed at Paradise Copies (paradisecopies.com), 21 Conz St., Northampton, MA 01060. 413-585-0414. Subscriptions: $20/4 issues. Please make checks to Small Beer Press. Library & institutional subscriptions are available through EBSCO. LCRW is available as a DRM-free ebook through weightlessbooks.com &c. Contents © 2017 the authors. Cover illustration “I Was Raised by the Forest” ©2017 by kAt Philbin (katphilbin.com). All rights reserved. Thank you, lovely authors and artists. Please send submissions (we are always especially seeking weird and interesting work from women and writers of color), guideline requests, playlists, &c. to the address above. Peace.

 


Return to the River Bank

Tue 12 Sep 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

The River Bank cover - click to view full sizeToday, five years or so after we published Kij Johnson’s collection At the Mouth of the River of Bees we are delighted to be publishing her new novel The River Bank.

The River Bank is a sequel to Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows and, given Kij’s recent stories such as “Ponies” and “Spar”) you would not be the only one surprised that Kij had chosen this as one of her next projects. For us, the first illustrator who came to mind was Kathleen Jennings. Her detailed lines and light sense of whimsy combined with her deep knowledge of illustration made her the perfect choice and we were quite enchanted when she started sending pencil sketches for chapter and incidental illustrations.

So today the book comes out in a lovely paper-over-boards hardcover — we’ve never done that before, what fun! — and ebook editions. People seem to love it as much as we do and as much as we’d hoped, especially once they have it in their hands. It’s very different from Kij’s other work but as ever her love of the natural world and for animals shines through.

If you’re in the Kansas City environs, Kij is launching the book at the Raven Book Store tonight (so you can order a signed copy if you’d like) and she has a few more readings planned:

Sept. 12, 7 p.m. Raven Book Store, 6 East Seventh St., Lawrence, KS
10/14, 1 p.m., Uncle Hugo’s Bookstore, Minneapolis, MN
11/2-5, World Fantasy Convention, San Antonio, TX
11/20, 7 p.m., Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, OR
11/21, 7 p.m., Elliot Bay Book Co., 1521 Tenth Ave., Seattle, WA


The River Bank

Tue 12 Sep 2017 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

paper over boards · 208 pages · 9781618731302 | ebook · 9781618731319

  • Washington Post Notable Books
    “A charming and funny sequel to Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows.“
  • Seattle Times Noteworthy Books of 2017
    “A sequel to children’s classic The Wind in the Willows as enchanting as the original, this feminist take on Toad, Water Rat, et al., introduces us to Beryl, a ‘young lady mole’ who’s also a novelist, and her best friend, Rabbit.”
  • NPR Best Books of 2017
    “A beautiful, pitch-perfect sequel to Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, with characters original to Kij Johnson and spot illustrations by Kathleen Jennings.”

In this delightful dive into the bygone world of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows staunch Mole, sociable Water Rat, severe Badger, and troublesome and ebullient Toad of Toad Hall are joined by a young mole lady, Beryl, and her dear friend, Rabbit. There are adventures, a double kidnapping, lost letters, a series of sensational novels, two (threatened) marriages, and family secrets.

The River Bank has color endpapers, chapter illustrations, and more than 40 incidental illustrations by award-winning artist Kathleen Jennings.

New

Kij Johnson in the Guardian: Writing women into The Wind in the Willows revitalises the canon

The University of Kansas: A creative critical response to absence of women in classics

Table of Contents

New Arrivals
Tea at Toad Hall
Arcadia
A Regrettable Consequence
The Dustley Turismo X
Water Lilies
Flight
A Den of Thieves
Mole and Beryl
Cribbed, Cabined, and Confined
Escape!
Return to the River Bank
Author’s Note

Reviews

“If you’re going to write a sequel to one of the most beloved children’s books of all time, you’ll need to be pitch perfect, hit all the right notes and, at its end, leave your reader shouting ‘Bravo!’ Or in this case, ‘Brava!’ and ‘Encore!’ Kij Johnson has brought out an absolutely delightful book, as charming and funny and rereadable as Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows itself.”
— Michael Dirda, Washington Post

“I was never less than delighted with this book. From beginning to end, it thoroughly charmed and engaged me, speaking the native literary language of my childhood. Like a river, it is in places languid and broad, in others narrow and rushing, the story spilling over sharp rocks of incident before pooling in afternoon sunshine, smelling of lilies and mud. I loved the sweetness of its pace, which spoke of a deep, abiding love not so much for the source material’s specific contents as their tone: a wistful, enchanted melancholy that walks hand in hand with summer’s end.
There are passages here that I treasure, that take up the timbre of Kenneth Grahame’s voice to speak of new things that feel timeless: the joys and pains of being an author at work; the changeability of a summer’s day from possibility to exhaustion; the quiet loneliness of a home half-dwelt in, a home asleep until woken by occupation, activity, presence. Sentences like “an animal lives in the long now of the world.” So much of this book dwells deeply in that long now.
In addition to its many native felicities, the text is embellished by Kathleen Jennings’ beautiful incidental illustrations, grace notes sounded in E. H. Shepard’s mode with a line reminiscent of Beatrix Potter and a sensibility all Jennings’ own.”
— Amal El-Mohtar, NPR

“The prose is delightful, matching Grahame’s as it does but with Johnson’s own unique sense of humor and scenery—and, given that Beryl is herself a writer, it often has a clever self-referential quality that I found charming. The illustrations scattered throughout also add to the sense of place and time Johnson has constructed with this return/revision. It’s a different kind of project than I expected but I can’t say I’m at all disappointed. I wouldn’t have thought I needed a sequel to The Wind in the Willows, but Johnson has done a fine job here by making me realize I wanted one and delivering it all at the same time.”
— Lee Mandelo, Tor.com

“The familiar figures of Mole, Water Rat, Badger, Mouse, and of course Toad are here, but the story opens with two new figures, a young mole lady named Beryl and her companion the Rabbit, an impressionable young woman described by Mouse as ‘‘right flighty,’’ moving into Sunflower Cottage on the River Bank. Beryl is a successful ‘‘Authoress’’ of potboiling adventure novels, and while Johnson has a good time giving us hints of these novels and of Beryl’s own writing process, her real significance is that she is not only one of the first female characters to move into the village, but one of the first who actually has a clear occupation. Both she and Rabbit are welcomed by the locals, although Mole himself seems oddly reticent to have any dealings with her, for reasons that become clear much later. Most of these residents are familiar in their dispositions, although Toad may if anything be a bit darker and more reckless and impulsive than in Grahame. One of the more intriguing aspects of The Wind in the Willows, maybe especially for SF readers, was the satirical manner in which it introduced technology into the world of the animal fable, and Toad’s famous passion for motorcars is here supplanted by an equally voracious and hilarious lust for the new motorcycles, after he sees a messenger riding one. That, of course, leads to the series of disasters – and attempted interventions on the part of Toad’s friends – that make up Johnson’s fast-moving plot. . . . The delicate balance of challenging the assumptions of a beloved classic while retaining the oracular charm of that classic seems almost effortless in Johnson’s hands, but it’s more of an achievement than it might at first seem.”
— Gary K. Wolfe, Locus

“Critics might say that The River Bank overly focuses on the two female characters, and that may be so. However, their presence brings a new flavor to the Wind of the Willows world, one that I was unaware was missing when I read it as a child. There are Victorian elements that are more pronounced with Beryl and Rabbit’s presence, and yes, even feminist elements with the enterprising Rabbit solving problems in a most female way. I can’t think of a better way to bridge the world of Mole and the River Rat to readers in this day and age.”
— Lashawn M. Wanak, Lightspeed

“It’s a lovely homage to a story she loved as a child. I should also note that Kathleen Jennings’s art is effective throughout, reminiscent of Shepherd’s work . . . Johnson has done a terrific job with this material.”
— Charles de Lint, F&SF

“Anthropomorphized friends Mole, Water Rat, Badger, and the notorious Toad of Toad Hall are back in Johnson’s sequel to Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 children’s novel set in Edwardian England, The Wind in the Willows. When a young lady-mole named Beryl and her companion, Rabbit, move to the River Bank, they spark a series of comical misunderstandings and adventures. Johnson neatly captures the quaint whimsy of Grahame’s original book, complete with asides from the omniscient narrator (“The Mole took the kettle off and banked the fire—for he knew that one should never leave a fire unattended, and so ought you.”) She also does an excellent job of addressing issues of gender and class in Grahame’s original novel; Beryl, an “authoress” of successful murder mysteries, and her friend Rabbit, whose spirit of recklessness could put the Toad himself to shame, incite a flurry of anxieties. “I am sure they are very nice animals,” says the Mole, “but—females, you know. You know what they are like…. I don’t see why we need anyone else. We went along admirably enough without them.” The Mole may come to eat his words, and the adventures that expose the root of his assumptions are sparkling and witty without sacrificing narrative tension. This is a sequel that will hit the spot for Grahame fans, but isn’t afraid to build on his characters and fill in some gaps for a modern readership.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Johnson’s attention to world-building and characterization create an engaging read with modern appeal while maintaining the aesthetic of the original. It also works as a stand-alone for new readers, though references to events covered in the first book are sprinkled throughout. Black-and-white line spot art and full-page spreads add to the nostalgic feel.”
— School Library Journal

Praise for Kij Johnson’s writing:

“Johnson’s language is beautiful, her descriptions of setting visceral, and her characters compellingly drawn. These 18 tales, most collected from Johnson’s magazine publications, are sometimes off-putting, sometimes funny, and always thought provoking.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Ursula K. Le Guin comes immediately to mind when you turn the pages of Kij Johnson’s first book of short stories, her debut collection is that impressive. The title piece has that wonderful power we hope for in all fiction we read, the surprising imaginative leap that takes us to recognize the marvelous in the everyday.” —Alan Cheuse, NPR

“Kij Johnson has a singular vision and I’m going to be borrowing (stealing) from her.” —Sherman Alexie

“The Fox Woman immediately sets the author in the front rank of today’s novelists.” —Lloyd Alexander

“When she’s at her best, the small emotional moments are as likely to linger in your memory as the fantastic imagery. Johnson would fit quite comfortably on a shelf with Karen Russell, Erin Morgenstern and others who hover in the simultaneous state of being both “literary” and “fantasy” writers.” —Shelf Awareness

Previously

9/12, Raven Bookstore, Lawrence, KS
10/14, 1 p.m., Uncle Hugo’s Bookstore, Minneapolis, MN
11/20, 7 p.m., Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, OR
11/21, 7 p.m., Elliot Bay Book Co., 1521 Tenth Ave., Seattle, WA
1/5/18, 3 p.m. Brazos Bookstore, Houston, TX

About the Author

Kij Johnson has won the Sturgeon, World Fantasy, Hugo, and Nebula awards for her stories which were collected in At the Mouth of the River of Bees. She is the author of three previous novels and has taught writing and has worked at Tor, Dark Horse, Microsoft, and Real Networks. She has run bookstores, worked as a radio announcer and engineer, edited cryptic crosswords, and waitressed in a strip bar. She is an Assistant Professor in the English department at the University Kansas.

About the Illustrator

Kathleen Jennings (@tanaudel) was raised on fairytales in western Queensland. She trained as a lawyer and filled the margins of her notes with pen and ink illustrations. She has been nominated for the World Fantasy award and has received several Ditmar Awards. She lives in Brisbane, Australia.


Tomorrow the green grass

Mon 11 Sep 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Tomorrow there will be some amount of fuss over the new iPhone (does it come with a toaster?! Find our tomorrow!) meanwhile there will a much more relaxed portion of the populace who will be reading Kij Johnson’s new book The River Bank.


Sarah Rees Brennan & Maureen Johnson Chat on EW

Thu 7 Sep 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin


I’m delighted to say that Entertainment Weekly just posted a chat between these two friends and New York Times bestselling authors today. They chat about In Other Lands “and Johnson’s forthcoming Truly Devious series, out in January 2018, which centers on a haunted boarding school. Oh — and since Brennan is editing a murder mystery and Johnson is writing a murder mystery, they talk about that grisly but endlessly fascinating subject, too.”

Check out their conversation here:

Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson chat about writing and murder


The River Bank Goodreads Giveaway

Tue 5 Sep 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Quick: there are only 2 days left to win one of 8 advance copies of Kij Johnson’s forthcoming sequel to The Wind in the Willows, The River Bank.