Poppy Z. Brite / Billy Martin Fundraiser

Sun 10 Jun 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., fundraiser, Poppy Z. Brite| Posted by: Gavin

If you’ve enjoyed Poppy Z. Brite’s books (including Second Line [excerpt], but there are so many good ones) and can help out here it would be much appreciated:

Amazing, Electric Stories

Fri 1 Jun 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis| Posted by: Gavin

Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will just sent us this after reading Abbey Mei Otis’s upcoming debut Alien Virus Love Disaster:

“These are amazing, electric stories—you can feel the live wire sizzling in them from the first sentence, and you know you’re about to take a wild, unforgettable trip. Abbey Mei Otis is my favorite kind of writer: her worlds are uniquely strange yet eerily relatable, and she knows how to make you laugh and weep at the same time.”

Tomorrow: Sofia Samatar AMA

Wed 23 May 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Sofia Samatar| Posted by: Gavin

Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards Winner: Best Worst American by Juan Martinez

Wed 16 May 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Awards, Juan Martinez| Posted by: Gavin

The Neukom Institute for Computational Science at Dartmouth College has announced that Best Worst American by Juan Martinez has been named the recipient of the inaugural Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Debut Speculative Fiction.

The awards will is presented for a debut work in the genre of speculative fiction. Martinez will receive a $5,000 honorarium that will be presented during a Dartmouth-hosted panel to discuss the genre and their work.

The judging was spearheaded by New York Times-bestselling author Maria Dahvana Headley, whose wide-ranging work includes speculative fiction for both adult and young readers. Her soon-to-be-released novel The Mere Wife (MCD × Farrar, Straus & Giroux) is a contemporary retelling of the classic “Beowulf.”

Ohioana Award Finalist!

Thu 10 May 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Congratulations to Jeffrey Ford whose A Natural History of Hell is a finalist for the Ohioana Book Awards!

The awards, first given in 1942, honor outstanding Ohio authors and books in six categories. They are the second oldest state literary prizes in the nation. Past winners include Anthony Doerr, Toni Morrison, Paula McLain, Dan Chaon, and last year’s recipient, Marisa Silver.
In addition to the awards selected by judges, the Ohioana Readers’ Choice Award invites readers to vote online for their favorite book from among all 30 finalists (five in each award category).
Each Ohioana Book Award winner receives a $1,500 cash prize. The Readers’ Choice Award carries with it a $1,000 cash prize.
The winners will be announced in July, and the awards will be presented at a reception and ceremony in the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on Thursday, October 18.

Space Junk and Toxic Glitter

Fri 4 May 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis| Posted by: Gavin

We just heard from Joanna Ruocco, author of Dan, who read an advance copy of Abbey Mei Otis’s Alien Virus Love Disaster:

Abbey Mei Otis deposits the reader in bargain bin worlds remaindered from the near futures of the more fortunate, worlds filled with space junk and toxic glitter, gel candy and gutted elk. These are stories for the many, for lovers and mourners, for those who want to split their minds from their bodies and those who know how to merge their organs in a single skin. In Alien Virus Love Disaster, language itself is in phase change. This book is a volatile, dangerous gift.

Sarah Pinsker Cover Reveal Tomorrow

Wed 2 May 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Art, covers, Sarah Pinsker| Posted by: Gavin

Tomorrow morning on Tor.com there will be a cover reveal of Sarah Pinsker’s forthcoming debut collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea, at which point we will open up preorders for print and ebooks here and on Weightless.

Who is

Here’s a bio:

Sarah Pinsker‘s award winning fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, as well as numerous other magazines, anthologies, year’s bests, podcasts, and translation markets. She is also a singer/songwriter who toured nationally behind three albums on various independent labels. She has wrangled horses, taught advocacy and SATs to teens (two different jobs), and tended bar badly. She lives with her wife in Baltimore, Maryland. Find her online at sarahpinsker.com and on Twitter @sarahpinsker.

See you tomorrow!

Mary Rickert on Wired’s Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy

Wed 2 May 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Mary Rickert| Posted by: Gavin

Delighted to listen to Mary Rickert talk about balloon animals, her collection You Have Never Been Here, and much more on the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast:

Best Worst Telling the American Map

Mon 9 Apr 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Christopher Rowe, Juan Martinez| Posted by: Gavin

Delightful news from the weekend, Juan Martinez’s Best Worst American and Christopher Rowe’s Telling the Map are both on the shortlist for the inaugural Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards. Note that plural: there are two awards, both worth $5,000, one for a debut work and one for an established author in the genre of speculative fiction. The awards will be presented “during a Dartmouth-hosted panel to discuss the genre and their work.”

Here’s the full shortlist:

2018 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards Shortlist of Books:
“After Atlas” by Emma Newman (Roc, 2016)
“Best Worst American” by Juan Martinez (Small Beer Press, 2017)
“Central Station” by Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon Publications, 2016)
“Children of the New World” by Alexander Weinstein (Picador, 2016)
“Made for Love” by Alissa Nutting (HarperCollins, 2017)
“New York 2140” by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit, 2017)
“On the Edge of Gone” by Corrine Duyvis (Amulet/Abrams, 2016)
“Six Wakes” by Mur Lafferty (Orbit, 2017)
“Telling the Map” by Christopher Rowe (Small Beer Press, 2017)
“Using Life” by Ahmed Naji (UT Press, 2017)
“Void Star” by Zachary Mason (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017)

and the press release is here.

LCRW: Always Seeking Work by Women of Color

Wed 4 Apr 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW, Publishing| Posted by: Gavin

Since we’re about to put out the prime and fantastic 37th issue of LCRW (the one with the dragon on the cover), it’s a good time to call for more submissions.

Last year we raised the LCRW pay rates to US$0.03/word ($25 minimum) for fiction and $10/poem. As stated in our guidelines, we are always especially seeking work by women and women of color and other historically underrepresented groups.

We only read submissions on paper so that Kelly and I can read everything. Writers who live outwith the USA can email submissions but please be forewarned: we are even slower to read email submissions than we are paper submissions. But we do read them all.

We would very much appreciate it if you could pass this call for submissions on to women writers, especially women of color.

Out Today: The Invisible Valley

Tue 3 Apr 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Austin Woerner, Su Wei| Posted by: Gavin

Today we’re thrilled to publish Austin Woerner’s translation of Su Wei’s first novel, The Invisible Valley. It’s the story of an ambiguous utopia (is there any other type?) a young man comes across in the mountains of Southern China when he is “sent down” for re-education during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Lu Beiping’s big, weird story grabbed me and took me with him and by the time I had reached the end, I was looking forward to publishing the book — so, besides the author and translator, I also owe a debt of thanks to John Crowley for being one of the people who suggested Austin send it to us.

One of the most fascinating parts of the run up to publication was seeing the bilingual excerpt go up on Samovar. All this time we’d worked on the book, I’d barely looked at the original text. How great to see both versions together, thank you, Samovarians. I am delighted that Austin and Su Wei managed to get permission for us to use Liu Guoyu’s chapter illustrations — and one of which we used for the cover.

After launch events with both Su Wei and Austin Woerner at the Shanghai and Macau Literary Festivals, we’re in the process of setting up events for this coming July in Boston, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and maybe more.

As for the book, you can catch up with a few reviews below — I am fascinated by the reviews on this book because this period of Chinese history is so unknown to many readers, definitely including me, so I am appreciating the readers to whom this world is new as well as those who know the area or the history.

You can: read another excerpt here; reviewers: I think it’s still available on Edelweiss (I should know, but I find Edelweiss options a little opaque sometimes!); here’s an excerpt from a video of Austin Woerner telling the story of his life in translation and his relationship with Su Wei at Duke Kunshan in Shanghai, China; and as ever, you can get the book here or the DRM-free ebook here.

“The Invisible Valley takes the reader along a journey full of mystery, magic, and political intrigue. The characters are full of nuance and contradiction, each keeping their own secrets. As each secret is revealed, the reader comes closer to understanding the larger picture. Combined with the balance between the natural and supernatural, this makes the novel interesting for any reader.”
— Amy Lantrip, World Literature Today

“Based on the author’s own experiences, the story may surprise readers expecting a ghost story, but what comes to light at the end is more shocking and gritty than anticipated. The vernacular of the driftfolk, well translated by Woerner, recalls Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn; obviously these characters are not in the mainstream.”
— Library Journal

“As an outsider, Lu Beiping (and by extension, the reader) finds himself constantly, if vaguely, aware that he is missing context and subtext. The truth slowly reveals itself in Wei’s lushly atmospheric and haunting novel.” — Jennifer Rothschild, Booklist Online

In Other Lands in Audio

Tue 3 Apr 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., audio, Sarah Rees Brennan| Posted by: Gavin

Today Sarah Rees Brennan’s Hugo finalist (yay!) In Other Lands is released as an audiobook by Tantor Audio. It is read by Matthew Lloyd Davies and is available directly from Tantor (where you can listen to an excerpt) as well as from Audible and wherever else you get your audiobooks. Enjoy!

The Invisible Valley

Tue 3 Apr 2018 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

trade paper · 400 pages · $16 · 9781618731456 | ebook · 9781618731463

A teenager working in a mountain encampment during the Chinese Cultural Revolution stumbles upon an ambiguous utopia.

World Literature Today’s 75 Notable Translations of 2018

Read a bilingual excerpt on Samovar.

Read an excerpt

Lu Beiping is one of 20 million young adults the Chinese government uproots and sends far from their homes for agricultural re-education. And Lu is bored and exhausted. While he pines for romance, instead he’s caught up in a forbidden religious tradition and married off to the foreman’s long-dead daughter so that her soul may rest. The foreman then sends him off to cattle duty up on Mudkettle Mountain, far away from everyone else.

On the mountain, Lu meets an outcast polyamorous family led by a matriarch, Jade, and one of her lovers, Kingfisher. They are woodcutters and practice their own idiosyncratic faith by which they claim to placate the serpent-demon sleeping in the belly of the mountains. Just as the village authorities get wind of Lu’s dalliances with the woodcutters, a typhoon rips through the valley. And deep in the jungle, a giant serpent may be stirring.

The Invisible Valley is a lyrical fable about the shapes into which human affection can be pressed in extreme circumstances; about what is natural and what is truly deviant; about the relationships between the human and the natural, the human and the divine, the self and the other.

Watch: an excerpt from a video of Austin Woerner telling the story of his life in translation and his relationship with Su Wei at Duke Kunshan in Shanghai, China.

Praise for The Invisible Valley

“The Invisible Valley is an extraordinary novel. It opens, even to Chinese readers, the world of a southern hinterland, a world of rubber groves, mystery and superstition.  At the same time, the novel is intimately rooted in China’s modern history and resonates with universal implications. Austin Woerner’s vivid and supple translation has made it even more readable.”
— Ha Jin, winner of the National Book Award

“Su Wei’s The Invisible Valley is a remarkable work, pungent, funny, and mind-widening. Austin Woerner’s translation is nearly invisible: it erases all barriers of strangeness and places the reader deep within a Chinese experience that comes to seem as familiar to us as our own daily round — if ours too had ghost brides and very big snakes.”
— John Crowley, author of Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr

“Su Wei’s The Invisible Valley is a rich romantic story told with sharp humor and filled with vivid descriptions of the lush, dense highlands of a remote Chinese tropical island. Translated with a light hand and subtle wit by Austin Woerner, the novel moves in quick graceful stages after its hapless young hero, Lu Beiping, discovers to his dismay that he’s been ghost-married to a dead girl. Bizarre folkways, rituals and superstitions abound, along with hints of a great serpent awakening. It’s a joy to read such a strange, wonderful tale by a Chinese master in this brisk and lucid translation.”
— Patrick McGrath, author of Asylum

“Su Wei’s remarkable novel The Invisible Valley has drawn praise in Chinese literary circles both inside and outside China. Su Wei belongs to the generation of Chinese writers who ‘went down to the countryside’ at the behest of Chairman Mao in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his novel was inspired by his personal experience in the wild, semi-tropical hills of Hainan Island in China’s far south.  The power of this natural background—typhoons, jungles, giant snakes, pungent odors, and more—pervades the work and melds into the vivid human characters that populate it.”
— Perry Link, Emeritus Professor of Chinese, Princeton University

Reviews

“The Invisible Valley is the product of a serendipitous encounter. It is a respectful portrait of real history, whose prose and storytelling give it a fantastical flourish. Su Wei’s challenging early life and Woerner’s pains-taking translation have resulted in a book that crosses that critical threshold where life is pushed to its limits.”
— Kevin McGeary, Los Angeles Review of Books

“The Invisible Valley takes the reader along a journey full of mystery, magic, and political intrigue. The characters are full of nuance and contradiction, each keeping their own secrets. As each secret is revealed, the reader comes closer to understanding the larger picture. Combined with the balance between the natural and supernatural, this makes the novel interesting for any reader.”
— Amy Lantrip, World Literature Today

“There are books that you devour, slurping them up like thick stew, or a hearty noodle dish, because they’re so brilliant, so lulling in their language, yet so dense with events. So delicious. Invisible Valley is one such book.”
— Katya Kazbek, ABCInsane

“In The Invisible Valley, Su Wei asks us to broaden our definition of reality, as Lu does, in order to better understand the peoples and landscapes around us.” — SF in Translation

“In 1960s China, life takes a dramatic turn for 21-year-old Le Beiping immediately after he is tricked into entering a “ghost marriage” with Han, the dead daughter of the foreman from his reeducation group. Sent off to work as a cattle herder in a remote area called Mudkettle Mountain, Lu meets Jade, a woman in a free, loving community of “driftfolk,” who has three children by three different men in the community. Lu is soon adopted into the group and enjoys the contentedly nudist lifestyle of several individuals there. Based on the author’s own experiences, the story may surprise readers expecting a ghost story, but what comes to light at the end is more shocking and gritty than anticipated. The vernacular of the driftfolk, well translated by Woerner, recalls Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn; obviously these characters are not in the mainstream.”
— Library Journal

“During China’s Cultural Revolution, Lu Beiping is sent down to a Hainan rubber plantation for reeducation. After being tricked into ghost-marrying the foreman’s dead daughter, he is sent to herd cattle outside the camp. In the mountain jungles, he can read forbidden books and meets a makeshift family of woodcutters who live on the edge of society, eking out a barely legal existence. A strict set of rules and laws on how to appease the local spirits govern their otherwise free-loving, carefree ways. When the details about Lu Beiping’s ghost bride’s death, the camp’s zealousness for Chairman Mao’s edicts, and the woodcutters’ lifestyle clash, the effect is more destructive than the typhoons that ravage the mountains. Although Wei’s tale lacks the magic realism of those by the renowned Chinese author Yan Lianke, readers will recognize the same ever-shifting ground as the memorable characters take the plot in unexpected directions. As an outsider, Lu Beiping (and by extension, the reader) finds himself constantly, if vaguely, aware that he is missing context and subtext. The truth slowly reveals itself in Wei’s lushly atmospheric and haunting novel.” — Jennifer Rothschild, Booklist Online

Previously

March 16, Shanghai Literary Festival
March 24, Macau Literary Festival
July 12, 7 p.m. Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, MA (with Su Wei) [Facebook]
July 25, 7 p.m. Asian American Writers’ Workshop, NYC (with Su Wei)
July 28 at 7 p.m. Elliot Bay Books, Seattle, WA

About the Author

Like many Chinese writers of his generation, Su Wei spent his teenage years being “re-educated” through farm labor in the countryside, working for ten years on a rubber plantation in the mountains of tropical Hainan Island. He is known for his nonfiction essays as well as for his highly imaginative novels, which are seen as unique in their treatment of the Cultural Revolution. He left China in 1989, and since 1997 he has taught Chinese language and literature at Yale University. The Invisible Valley is his first book to be translated into English.

Austin Woerner is a Chinese-English literary translator. His works include two volumes of poetry, Doubled Shadows: Selected Poetry of Ouyang Jianghe and Phoenix. He served as English translation editor for the innovative Chinese literary journal Chutzpah!, and co-edited the short fiction anthology Chutzpah!: New Voices from China. He holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Yale and an MFA in creative writing from the New School.

Juniper Fest & LCRW 37

Mon 2 Apr 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., conferences| Posted by: Gavin

This Saturday, April 7, from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., we will be tabling at the Juniper Lit Fest Bookfair along with many other local and not-so-local publishers, magazines, a couple of food trucks, and bookstores (see below).

We will be dropping (and picking up and wondering who put butter on our fingers) the new issue of LCRW, the one with the dragon on the cover and besides some new books our half table of wonders will include some 3-for-2 or 2-for-1 or 50-for-10 deals of some description. Hope to see you there!

• Amherst Books
• Bateau Press
• Black Ocean
• Big Big Wednesday
• Calamari
• Cosmonauts Avenue
• Emily Dickinson Museum
• Factory Hollow Press
• Fence & Fence Books
• jubilat
• Juniper Summer Institute
• Levellers Press
• Massachusetts Review
• Meridians
• Mount Analogue
• Noo Journal/Magic Helicopter Press
• Ozy.com
• Perugia
• Post Road Magazine
• Radius
• Small Beer Press
• Siglio Press
• St. Petersburg Review
• Straw Dog Writers Guild
• The Common
• University of Massachusetts Press
• Wakefield Press

Here’s the fair’s own description:

The annual Juniper Literary Festival celebrates the literary community of the region and the UMass MFA Program present, past, and future and the intersections of those communities with the larger literary world. Join us for three days of events including readings by Sarah Lapido Manyika and Sally Wen Mao on Friday, April 6 at 8 pm.

Return on Saturday, April 7th for a small press and journal fair featuring local literary arts groups alongside local, regional, and national publications; discussions with literary agents and editors; an MFA alumni reading at 4:30 with Gabriel Bump, Stella Corso, Madeline ffitch, and Wendy Xu; community workshops with UMass MFA faculty; and a showcase of rare audio by Sterling Brown & Wallace Stevens. Experience Writers Off the Page and performance poetics. Explore a gallery of writing as visual art in the Visualizing Language exhibit. And join us for a reception where you can meet writers mentioned here and many others. Full schedule here.

There’s parking in the garage near South College ($1.75/hour) or on this map — there’s even an interactive parking map.

The Invisible Valley on Samovar

Fri 30 Mar 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Austin Woerner, excerpts, Su Wei| Posted by: Gavin

This is neat: Samovar magazine is running a bilingual excerpt from Su Wei’s The Invisible Valley, with Austin Woerner’s translation running interspersed with the Chinese original. The excerpt is from the third chapter where hapless teenager Lu is sent to be a cowherd and meets what to him is a very strange group of people:

A Super-Intelligent Infection

Tue 27 Mar 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Sofia Samatar| Posted by: Gavin

Sometimes I get great emails:

“After I read this book, I woke up with bumpy, reddish growths along my spine. They burst, releasing marvels: aliens, robots, prefab houses, vinyl, chainlink, styrofoam, star stuff, tales from the edge of eviction, so many new worlds. Alien Virus Love Disaster is a super-intelligent infection. Let Abbey Mei Otis give you some lumps.”
— Sofia Samatar, author of Tender

Questioning the Paradigms

Tue 20 Mar 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

This weekend Vandana Singh was interviewed on the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy Podcast, which is featured on Wired. Although it has an odd title which doesn’t really fit the book or author (this is an author who whenever I talk to her she is always juggling 3 different tasks), it’s well worth a listen to try and catch up on some of Vandana’s thinking about the world, Arctic ice, the universe, and writing.

Since it came out last month Vandana’s first North American collection, Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories is shooting like a rocket through the sky and it’s looking increasingly likely that we’ll have to send it to back to the printer — always a cause for celebration! I am pretty optimistic when it comes to print runs:

Spreadsheets: There are 273 preorders for this title that publishes in 62 days.
Me: Everyone’s doing Just-in-Time Ordering these days. Let’s print 5,000!

And sometimes that means going over, oops, and even yet, sometimes the world is hungrier for a book than I expected. In which case everyone from the printer to the distributor to the bookstore to the author will be delighted — except for that period when it’s out of stock at the distributor, hmm.

The reviews have been pouring in from newspapers and magazines large and small:

“There’s a wonderful discordance between the cool, reflective quality of Singh’s prose and the colorful imagery and powerful longing in her narratives” (Washington Post) | “The capstone to this hopeful, enriching collection is the small masterpiece ‘Requiem.'”(Wall Street Journal) | “Rich, dense, and balanced.” (Tor.com) | “Singh’s compassionate imagination and storytelling talents are here clearly on display.” (Intergalactic Medicine Show) | “Singh underscores the ultimate point that stories make the world and the universe has a place for all of them.”(Woven Tale Press) | “Full of risky experiments that turn out beautifully: colorful, emotionally resonant, and consistently entertaining.” (Publishers Weekly [starred review])

And this review by Aditya Desai on Aerogram is particularly fascinating:

Singh is laying the groundwork attempt to re-write the plots of Chosen Ones, dystopian governments, and self-actualizing hero tropes common to Western literature, where the quest for “the meaning of life” is often seeking a single endpoint, an origin. Singh’s characters wish only to know for the sake of knowing. Life isn’t defined by linear time, it is the richness of experience.

And there’s be more reviews coming along soon.

Kelly and I have known Vandana and admired her writing for many years. One of her early stories, “The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet, was published in an anthology Kelly edited, Trampoline. Occasionally we’d run into Vandana at Readercon or at a Boston event and we’d talk about a collection but I don’t think it was until 2015 that I actually got Vandana to send us some stories.

A total bonus of publishing this book has been the reading the two essays Vandana wrote on the intersection of her work as a physics professor and her writing, one for Tor and one for Powell’s. Climate change is a semi-regular cause of personal despair, and these thorough and thoughtful essays are useful bulwarks against that.

You can read some of Vandana’s stories here: Life-pod · Wake-Rider · Ruminations in an Alien Tongue · Ambiguity Machines: An Examination; listen to Vandana on PW Radio with Rose Fox; or read an interview by Kylie Korsnack in the Los Angeles Review of Books: Transcending Boundaries, and of course pick up the book (or DRM-free ebook) here.

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 37

Fri 2 Mar 2018 - Filed under: LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

April 2018. 64 pages. Ebook ISBN: 9781618731470

LCRW is an occasional outburst of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and chocolate. Since here in spring 2018 publishing still seems to exists, LCRW 37 has been published. Release the kraken! Fire off the rockets! Sit on a comfy chair! Read it on the bus! Put the kettle on, love.

Here: Two Poems.
There: Three Poems of the Abyss.

New fiction from Maria Romasco Moore, Leslie Wilber, Howard Waldrop, Izzy Wasserstein, and James Sallis — who returns to LCRW for the first time since LCRW #14. Nicole Kimberling’s column “Sweet, Sweet Side Dish” might be about what you’re thinking of, if you’re thinking of eggplant. Those two, three, three — and then one more — poems are from Holly Day, Juan Martinez, Catherine Rockwood, and Michael Werner.

“Dying Light” by Maria Romasco Moore is on the 2018 Locus Recommended Reading List

Reviewers Say

“Quite a work, and not like anything I’ve recently read.”
— Rich Horton, Locus

Karen Burnham in Locus on Maria Romasco Moore’s “Dying Light” and 2 other stories: “As always with the best of speculative fiction, it is the the newest blend of the oldest ingredients that can move us most deeply.”

“Read it slowly and savor the language.” — SF Revu

“My very favorite story this year may have been another story from a veteran of both SF and Mystery: ‘Dayenu’, by James Sallis, from Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. It’s an exceedingly odd and unsettling story, beautifully written, about a veteran of a war and his rehab – from injuries? Or something else done to him? And then about a journey, and his former partners. . . . The story itself a journey somewhere never unexpected.”
— Rich Horton, Locus

Table of Contents

Fiction

Maria Romasco Moore, “Dying Light”
Leslie Wilber, “Time Served”
Howard Waldrop, “Till the Cows Come Home to Roost”
Izzy Wasserstein, “Their Eyes Like Dead Lamps”
James Sallis, “Dayenu”

Nonfiction

Nicole Kimberling, “Sweet, Sweet Side Dish ”

Poetry

Holly Day, Two Poems
Juan Martinez, Three Poems of the Abyss
Catherine Rockwood, Three Poems
Michael Werner, “The Opossum”

Cover photo

Dawn Kimberling

From Three Abyss Poems by Juan Martinez:

The abyss never dreams.
He called late last night
to let you know: He forgot
to throw you a farewell party in this dream he did not have. . . .

Excerpted from “Time Served” by Leslie Wilber:

The first time Annie Savage stole anything, she was eight and living in a group home. She shared a bedroom with two other girls, improbably named Annie too. Maybe you wouldn’t be surprised to learn three young orphans named Annie became obsessed with the musical by the same name. The Annies stuck together, and were a perfect gang. Annie Z was a hulk of a girl, bigger than the other kids by a head and a large sack of flour. When one of the Annies absolutely needed something from any dust-up, Annie Z took it. Annie H’s family was from Mexico, so she was actually called Ana before taking up with the other Annies. She was the prettiest and best-mannered, the type of kid adults trusted, because she brushed her teeth without reminder, won spelling bees and helped with the dishes. Annie H smoothed out trouble the girls had with anyone so big and authoritative that Annie Z couldn’t handle them. My Auntie A was Annie S by this naming convention. She had a knack for being clever, sneaky and invisible. She was their mastermind and a thief. Stealing things started out of a perceived necessity. The Annies believed if one of them was cute enough and charming enough, she’d be adopted by a bazillionaire—as in the musical—and convince him to save the others as well. Annie H was their best bet. The girls began tireless efforts to dress her in the most adorable fashion. . . .

Excerpted from “Their Eyes Like Dead Lamps” by Izzy Wasserstein:

I saw the car coming from a long way off, first as a line of dust up along the ridge, then bending its way forward, disappearing and reappearing behind the hills. A black sedan, gleaming in the late afternoon sun, the kind of car only city people owned, all but useless in the winter. Most people along the banks of the Marais des Cygnes River had trucks, and the cars you saw were old and rusted and not bothered about the dirt that caked their sides. This car had the look of people who bothered. . . .

About these Authors

Holly Day has taught writing classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 2000. Her poetry has recently appeared in Tampa Review, SLAB, and Gargoyle, and her books include Walking Twin Cities, Music Theory for Dummies, and Ugly Girl.

Juan Martinez lives in Chicago where he is an assistant professor at Northwestern University. His work has been collected in Best Worst American and has appeared in Glimmer Train, McSweeney’s, Huizache, Ecotone, Mississippi Review, NPR’s Selected Shorts, and elsewhere and is forthcoming in the anthology Who Will Speak for America? Visit and say hi at fulmerford.com.

Maria Romasco Moore’s stories have appeared in Unstuck, Interfictions, and Lightspeed’s Women Destroy Science Fiction. Her flash fiction collection, Ghostographs, is forthcoming from Rose Metal Press. She is an alumni of the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop and holds an MFA in Fiction from Southern Illinois University.

Catherine Rockwood is an early-modernist and lapsed (alas) martial artist. She lives near Boston with her family. Poems in concis, the Fem, The Rise Up Review, Liminality, and elsewhere. Reviews and essays in Strange Horizons, Rain Taxi, and Tin House.

Best known for the Lew Griffin series and Drive, Jim Sallis has published 17 novels, multiple collections of stories and essays, four collections of poetry, a landmark biography of Chester Himes, and a translation of Raymond Queneau’s novel Saint Glinglin. He’s received a lifetime achievement award from Bouchercon, the Hammett award for literary excellence in crime writing, and the Grand Prix de Littérature policière.

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.

Howard Waldrop, born in Mississippi and now living in Austin, Texas, is an American iconoclast. His highly original books include Them Bones and A Dozen Tough Jobs, and the collections Howard Who?, All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past, Night of the Cooters, Other Worlds, Better Lives, Things Will Never Be the Same, and Horse of a Different Color. He won the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards for his novelette “The Ugly Chickens.”

Izzy Wasserstein teaches writing and literature at a midwestern university, and writes poetry and fiction. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming from Pseudopod, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review and elsewhere. She shares a home with her spouse and their animal companions. She’s a graduate of Clarion West and likes to slowly run long distances.

Michael Werner’s work has been recognized with a Troubadour International Poetry Prize and an American Academy of Poets honorary prize. He has taught history, Latin American studies, and human rights at Moravian College, Iowa State University, and Laney College, among others. He was editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society, and Culture, which Choice named one of the academic books of the year. He presently lives in Jerusalem.

Leslie Wilber is a former newspaper reporter and current bicycle mechanic. She tinkers with words and bikes in Denver.

All That and All That and All That

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet is texty. This is issue number 37, Spring (Northern Hemisphere), 2018. ISSN 1544-7782. Ebook ISBN: 9781618731470. Text: Bodoni Book. Titles: Imprint MT Shadow.

Prime quotes from Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

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 (see page 45 for options). 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 © 2018 the authors. Cover photo © 2018 by Dawn Kimberling. All rights reserved. Thank you, skilled authors and artists. Raise a glass of your favorite beverage with us as we celebrate Jeffrey Ford’s A Natural History of Hell winning a World Fantasy Award. And, a glass raised to the memory of Ursula K. Le Guin. And a glass and these walking shoes to every march there is against guns and fascism.

Please send submissions (we are always especially seeking weird and interesting work from women and writers of color), guideline requests, &c. to the address above. Peace.

Out there in summerland

Wed 28 Feb 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., John Schoffstall| Posted by: Gavin

People will be reading John Schoffstall’s Half-Witch. One bookseller, Christina at Ravenna Third Place in Seattle, got a jump on summer (see Edelweiss if this sounds like it could be you) and sent us this, heh.

Is there some kind of list available where I can sign up to join Lizbet and Strix’s witchy duo? Because that would be so amazing. This otherworldly, sweet story of madcap adventures shared between seemingly mismatched companions has shades of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth — it will totally delight any fans of Catherynne Valente’s Fairyland series.

LeVar Burton Reads Joan Aiken

Tue 20 Feb 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., audio, Joan Aiken| Posted by: Gavin

This is amazing: LeVar Burton gives a fantastic introduction and then reads Joan Aiken’s story, “Furry Night,” from The People in the Castle.

This week on #LeVarBurtonReads we travel to England for a fanciful Victorian Gothic tale by Joan Aiken, FURRY NIGHT, from her collection THE PEOPLE IN THE CASTLE@smallbeerpress.#bydhttmwfihttps://t.co/QoJ423l2tL

— LeVar Burton (@levarburton) February 20, 2018

Ambiguity Machines

Tue 13 Feb 2018 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

trade paper · 320 pages · $16 · 9781618731432 | ebook · 9781618731425
February 2018 · Second printing: February 2019

Philip K. Dick Award finalist · Locus Recommended Reading List

Publishers Weekly

• Holiday Gift Guide: Fiction “A delicate touch and passionately humanist sensibilities sweep through this magnificent collection.”
• Top 10 SF, Fantasy & Horror Spring: “Physicist and SF author Singh’s first collection for U.S. readers is a spectacular assembly of work and not to be missed by fans of cutting-edge SF with a deeply human sensibility.”
• Starred review: “A perfect introduction to her work.”

B&N, Year’s Best Collections
“Combine scientific sharpness with quiet, lyrical power.”

Spectrum Culture, Favorite Books of 2018
“Brilliant. . . . Singh’s stories are acts of relentless ingenuity and reports of human yearning. . . . Her ambiguity machines grant dangerous wishes and that’s always the best kind of writing. It is the type of book that doesn’t just sit on the tomb of your bookcase once you’ve finished your first pass. It will leave a clear mark in the dust due to constant visitation.”

Nonfiction by Vandana
Tor.com: Beyond Hope and Despair Teaching Climate Change
Powell’s: Leaving Omelas: Science Fiction, Climate Change, and the Future

Listen: Vandana Singh on the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, as featured on Wired.
Listen: Vandana Singh on PW Radio with Rose Fox.
Read: Transcending Boundaries, an interview with Vandana Singh by Kylie Korsnack in Los Angeles Review of Books

Exploring the uncertainty with which we move through space and time, by ourselves and with others.

In her first North American collection, Vandana Singh’s deep humanism interplays with her scientific background in stories that explore and celebrate this world and others and characters who are trying to make sense of the people they meet, what they see, and the challenges they face. An eleventh century poet wakes to find he is as an artificially intelligent companion on a starship. A woman of no account has the ability to look into the past. In “Requiem,” a major new novella, a woman goes to Alaska to try and make sense of her aunt’s disappearance.

Singh’s stories have been performed on BBC radio, been finalists for the British SF Association award, selected for the Tiptree award honor list, and often reprinted in Best of the Year anthologies. Her dives deep into the vast strangeness of the universe without and within and with her unblinking clear vision she explores the ways we move through space and time: together, yet always apart.

Praise for Ambiguity Machines:

“Singh defies expectation with every exquisite turn of phrase. She gives you strange, powerful visions that move the heart and challenge the mind.”
— Ken Liu, author of The Grace of Kings and The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

“Ranging in scale from the smallest life to far-ranging interplanetary adventures, and drawing upon both science and mythology, Vandana Singh’s stories are luminous and compassionate.”
— Yoon Ha Lee, author of Ninefox Gambit

Table of Contents

With Fate Conspire
A Handful of Rice
Peripeteia
Life-pod
Oblivion: A Journey
Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra
Are you Sannata3159?
Indra’s Web
Ruminations in an Alien Tongue
Sailing the Antarsa
Cry of the Kharchal [read on Clarkesworld]
Wake-Rider
Ambiguity Machines: An Examination
Requiem

Reviews

“Science fiction written by a scientist! These stories involve artificial intelligence, time travel, space travel, and more. It’s a fantastic collection about people navigating the unusual situations they find themselves in, whether by their own making or not.” — Liberty Hardy, Book Riot

“Vandana Singh’s poetic collection Ambiguity Machines: And Other Stories is as ambitious and cerebral as the various experiments her scientist characters embark on. The stories are full of the musings of these scientist-philosophers as they navigate relationships, grief and the space-time continuum — fitting, as Singh herself is a physicist. “A Handful of Rice,” told in the cadence of a biblical tale, explores the friendship of two men after one becomes a powerful king. “Are You Sannata 3159?” is like the darkest “Black Mirror” plot, about a young boy who follows his hunch that the new slaughterhouse that has brought jobs and food into town is more than it seems. “Ruminations of an Alien Tongue” is a trippy look at how people are connected across time and universes, how they remain familiar even as they change. There’s a wonderful discordance between the cool, reflective quality of Singh’s prose and the colorful imagery and powerful longing in her narratives. Singh’s final novella — exclusive to this collection — has no finality to it. It’s a new beginning.”
— Washington Post

“For all the book’s diversity, though, a few signal traits stand out. Like Ursula K. Le Guin, Ms. Singh is drawn to scientists, and her speculative worlds are often fleshed out through field reports and research abstracts. . . . The capstone to this hopeful, enriching collection is the small masterpiece ‘Requiem,’ set in Alaska in a future scarred by climate change and dominated by massive tech corporations. A university student named Varsha has gone to a polar outpost to collect the effects of her aunt Rima, a brilliant scientist and engineer who died while researching whales. There Varsha witnesses a whale migration herself, and it’s this miraculous encounter amid the increasingly artificial world that reaffirms the ‘tenuous, temporal bridge between being and being.’ The more mechanized our future, Ms. Singh suggests, the more precious our connections with the living will be.”
— Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

“Through the complexities of physics and the wisdom of ancient stories, Singh breathes new life into the themes of loneliness, kinship, love, curiosity, and the thirst for knowledge. Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories is a literary gift for us all.”
— Rachel Cordasco, World Literature Today

“Singh’s detailed explorations of far- and near-future tech are grounded in a feeling and therefore messy human quotidian. In ‘Peripeteia,’ for example, we learn that the physicist-narrator Sujata can see through matter, and perceive the flow of time, but her own understanding of these abilities is shaped by two recent experiences of personal loss. In ‘Indra’s Web,’ new technology brings hope, and is shown to depend entirely on vital, communal working relationships. It’s a wonderful collection, contemporary and clear-eyed.”
— Catherine Rockwood, Strange Horizons

“A major short story collection.”
— Jonathan Strahan, Locus

“An essential short fiction collection in a year that saw many good ones. Singh’s superb work has appeared in a wide range of venues, and it is good to have a representative selection in one place.” — Graham Sleight (Ten books of the year), Locus

“Story, in fact, and how we are defined by it, is really Singh’s grand theme, and while her sophisticated narra­tive choreography may give some readers pause – since her tales often begin with classic SF tropes and then move elsewhere – it’s what makes her one of the most compelling and original voices in recent SF.”
— Gary K. Wolfe, Locus

“Vandana Singh tells sci-fi stories that stray far from the norm. In her debut collection, residents of a future version of Earth build machines to look into the past and rediscover some lost part of their humanity; a self-aware lifepod floats through space carrying both human and alien passengers; and the Ministry of Abstract Engineering studies machines that battle loneliness through time travel and transmutation. Ambiguity Machines is a remarkable and thought-provoking collection.”
— Virginia Living Magazine

“The novella original to the collection, ‘Requiem,’ comes at the question of life, connection, and the near-future of our planet by putting Indian and Native Alaskan cultures into conversation among the backdrop of a rising tide of White Nationalism in America. Singh’s story of a woman coming to retrieve her much-beloved aunt’s personal and research materials from a far-north research facility is rich, dense, and balanced in its handling of grief as well as its argument about whales, humans, and the languages that can connect us all.”
— Lee Mandelo, Tor.com

“There is immense beauty and aching longing to be found in these stories. Singh’s gorgeous prose and high-concept ideas clasp hands like perfectly compatible lovers, putting her on par with some of our finest living writers of SFF and “literary” cross-genre short fiction, such as Ted Chiang and Carmen Maria Machado.”
— Indrapramit Das, Scroll.in

“The stories include a fair share of spaceships, slaughterhouses, nanoplagues and alien races, but with each one the author is trying to create an ambiguity machine that defies and blurs the usual narrative and genre structures. The messiness of the term experimentation doesn’t properly define what Singh has done with these stories. There’s a specificity to her genre bending that garners the readers trust. She is also a master of the captivating first sentence, a talent that caused those feelings of love reported above, who trusts her audience to follow her fierce imagination with minimal expository guideposts. As a teacher of physics she is undoubtedly adept at communicating big ideas with ease and clarity, but how she does so in prose is a wonder. Aspiring writers should consider this collection a conceptual space they need to map and dissect to improve their craft.”
— Don Kelly, Spectrum Culture

“Singh is laying the groundwork attempt to re-write the plots of Chosen Ones, dystopian governments, and self-actualizing hero tropes common to Western literature, where the quest for “the meaning of life” is often seeking a single endpoint, an origin. Singh’s characters wish only to know for the sake of knowing. Life isn’t defined by linear time, it is the richness of experience.”
— Aerogram

“Singh often makes even weird science concepts sound like beautiful poetry. The most engaging aspect of this book is her own widely-ranging and visionary imagination, where she merges eastern and western tropes and traditions and even blurs the lines between genres and narrative styles.”
— PopMatters

“Singh’s compassionate imagination and storytelling talents are here clearly on display.”
— Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Intergalactic Medicine Show

“Exhibiting Ursula K. Le Guin’s prescription for hard times, the voice of this visionary writer explores alternative ways to live and offers hope, joining other ‘realists of a larger reality.’ The takeaway from Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories is: We are all story. Vandana Singh underscores the ultimate point that stories make the world and the universe has a place for all of them.”
— Lanie Tankard, Woven Tale Press

“A delicate touch and passionately humanist sensibilities sweep through this magnificent collection, which ranges from the near future of our world to eras far away in space and time. Highlights include “With Fate Conspire,” in which Gargi, taken from slum life because of her ability to use a device which lets her look through time, has more power to influence history than the scientists around her suspect; “Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra,” about an 11th-century Indian poet who has become the companion of a spacefaring folklorist; and “Ambiguity Machines: An Examination,” a story in the form of a test that pushes the limits of narrative by trying to define what is not possible rather than what is. The short piece “Indra’s Web” is more interested in depicting its solar-powered utopia than in plot or characterization, but in general this collection is full of risky experiments that turn out beautifully: colorful, emotionally resonant, and consistently entertaining. Refreshingly for this flavor of SF, the protagonists are often bright, passionate women in middle life, driven by some kind of art or science or cause and in no way defined by their relationships with men. Those not familiar with physicist and SF author Singh (Younguncle Comes to Town) will find this a perfect introduction to her work.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“In ‘Wake Rider,’ a young woman faces death in different forms as she also contemplates the possibilities of her life. In ‘Oblivion: A Journey,’ a long-held need for revenge keeps the protagonist striving for life beyond death until the realization sets in that mortality may be the only relief. The heroine of ‘Requiem’ travels to Alaska a year after her aunt’s disappearance, seeking answers. All of the stories here feature characters who are trying to discover the nature of their existence and how their lives connect others. VERDICT Rising star Singh draws on her Indian roots and physics background to bring her first North American collection to readers. Admirers of literary sf will want to read this.”
— Library Journal

“The best science fiction requires a protagonist who normalizes the fantastic to tell their story. Vandana Singh’s Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories achieves this and more, with a bold collection of stories about fate, worth, and inner magic. . . . From plot to setting to payoff, Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories is a marked achievement in science fiction.”
— Foreword Reviews

“Reading a Vandana Singh story is a bit like finding a new window in a familiar room, opening the blinds, and being astonished at the richness and beauty of the light streaming in: often, they show us the familiar, but illuminated strangely. Singh is both a physicist and a writer, and her stories combine scientific sharpness with quiet, lyrical power. She makes constant connections between history, the present, and the future; humans and nature; space and Earth. An old woman travels back in time in search of ancient poetry. A man tries to achieve immortality. A human looks for revenge against a machine by trying to find its true name. An engineering exam that considers the classification of three new types of machine life. In every story, she brings big, fantastically speculative ideas so close, it feels as if you can reach out and touch the worlds they inhabit.”
— Joel Cunningham, B&N, Favorite Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2018

Reviews of Vandana Singh’s stories:

“A most promising and original young writer.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

“Lovely! What a pleasure this book is . . . full of warmth, compassion, affection, high comedy and low.”
― Molly Gloss, author of The Hearts of Horses

“Vandana Singh’s radiant protagonist is a planet unto herself.”
― Village Voice

“Sweeping starscapes and daring cosmology that make Singh a worthy heir to Cordwainer Smith and Arthur C. Clarke.”
― Chris Moriarty, Fantasy & Science Fiction

“I’m looking forward to the collection . . . everything I’ve read has impressed me.”
—Niall Harrison, Vector

“Opulent space opera . . . literate and compelling.”
— Locus

“The first writer of Indian origin to make a serious mark in the SF world … she writes with such a beguiling touch of the strange.” —Nilanjana Roy, Business Standard

“I read the story again because of the artist and mathematician, and those moments of quiet pathos. In rereading, I became conscious of the tensions between the introduction and the vignettes. There is, first of all, the obvious tension between the standardized answers of an exam and the profligate forms of emotion and experience, typically left out of the simple rights and wrongs of institutionalized knowledge. But “Ambiguity Machines: An Examination” also contains a strong, deliberate tension between “possible” and “impossible,” those dual realms which the fantastic stitches together. According to one hoary perspective, the impossible — and, by extension, fantasy — is false. Back before there was even a genre called fantasy, Tolkien and Lewis were defending the inherent truth of the unreal against naysayers. Personally, I am less interested in inherent truth than I am in the relationships between truth, untruth, speaker, and listener. I’d hazard a guess that Singh is, too. . . . For readers who love the friction of contradictions, ‘Ambiguity Machines: An Examination’ offers so much more than what is described here. Each reading offers new strings, tightened and tuned, far more than I have had time to strum.”
— Sessily Watt, Bookslut

“Echoing Le Guin to some extent, Singh follows Anasuya, who has a visceral ability to understand mathematics, as she helps visitors from a distant planet… It’s a complex setup, hinting at quite a fascinating galactic backstory.”
— Rich Horton, Locus

“Singh writes with a beautiful clarity. Each character is sharply drawn, and the inevitability of the story pulls the reader headlong with it—helped by a compelling sparseness of prose. . . . It is the best short fiction, and possibly the best fiction, I have read this year.”
— Michael Fay, The Fix

“[A] subtle tale of possession, humanity, and history that is compelling to read and written with a great sensitivity to language and detail. Singh combines a few different SF concepts in a rich and vital story, one that succeeds at provoking thought by creating multifaceted characters and situations.”
— Matthew Cheney, SF Site

“Singh plays with expectation versus reality, and the notion that reality simply can’t contain some people – or some machines – they will always want more. Singh builds an intriguing pattern of repeated images woven through the story – stones and tiles and individuals out of synch with the world around them. These repetitions make the story itself a machine, a delicate network of circuitry made up of interweaving lives. There’s a hint of the mythic as well. What is literal and what is metaphor can’t be trusted. The machines here are the memory and face of loved one left behind, a courtyard that separates lovers through a walked pattern, a device that slips an entire group of people out of phase with the world. Themes of impermanence and loss run through the tales, but there’s beauty as well. A message that could be taken from the story is that our desires may never be fulfilled, but that it isn’t a tragedy, unless we make it one. It’s part of what makes life worth living, not resting easy, but following the drive to turn one more corner and find out what happens next.”
— A. C. Wise, SF Signal

“Some day, Vandana Singh’s going to write that novel, put out that story collection. There may not be dollar signs winking around the book to signify its importance, but read it . . . simply because she writes with such a beguiling touch of strange.”
— Nilanjana S. Roy

Vandana Singh was born and raised mostly in New Delhi, India and currently lives in the United States near Boston, where she professes physics and writes. Her short stories have appeared in numerous venues and several Best of Year anthologies including the Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy and she is a recipient of the Carl Brandon Parallax award. She is the author of the ALA Notable book Younguncle Comes to Town and a previous short story collection, The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories (Zubaan, Penguin India).

Donations in Memory of Ursula K. Le Guin

Fri 26 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ursula K. Le Guin| Posted by: Gavin

Ursula K. Le Guin loved this world — among others! — and rather than flowers, we are making a donation in her name to the non-profit closest to her heart, the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Sarah Rees Brennan: Audio + Events in Montreal & Boston

Thu 25 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Sarah Rees Brennan| Posted by: Gavin

I am posting this which I had foolishly left in “drafts” instead of publishing. Argh.

We are delighted to announce that Tantor has picked up audio rights to Sarah Rees Brennan’s In Other Lands and will release their audio edition on April 3.

The second lovely announcement is that Sarah will be over here in North America and will be doing two readings: the first at Argo Bookshop in Montreal & the second at the Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, Boston:

Events

Feb. 1, 4:00 p.m. book club
7:00 p.m. Argo Bookshop, 1915 Rue Sainte-Catherine O, Montréal, QC H3H 1M3, Canada

Feb. 5, 7:00 p.m. 279 Harvard Street Brookline MA 02446-2908 Tel: 617-566-6660 Fax: 617-734-9125
(with Kelly Link, Cassandra Clare, and Holly Black)

Her Words: the Best Words

Tue 23 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ursula K. Le Guin| Posted by: Gavin

“This is the truth. They stood on the stones in the lightly falling snow and listened to the silvery, trembling sound of thousands of keys being shaken, unlocking the air, once upon a time.”

Later on maybe I will have more to say and be able to post more of Ursula K. Le Guin’s words. Right now I am too sad and so I am only posting these last few lines from the late, damn it all, Ursula K. Le Guin’s story “Unlocking the Air,” one of many stories and novels of hers that I love.

Ursula K. Le Guin, 21 October 1929–22 January 2018. Much admired, much missed.

Austin Woerner’s translator origin story

Mon 22 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Austin Woerner, Su Wei| Posted by: Gavin

How did a kid from Wellesley, Massachusetts become a Chinese-to-English translator lecturing at Duke Kunshan University in Shanghai?

Find out in this short video of Austin Woerner telling the story of his life in translation and his relationship with Su Wei, author of The Invisble Valley.

Sooner or Later Some Good News

Thu 18 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Sarah Pinsker| Posted by: Gavin

My collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea: Stories is going to be published by @smallbeerpress! pic.twitter.com/TUnIETVC9x

— Sarah Pinsker (@SarahPinsker) January 18, 2018

Ghost Brides and Very Big Snakes

Thu 4 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., John Crowley, Su Wei| Posted by: Gavin

John Crowley did us the kindness of reading our forthcoming translation of Su Wei’s The Invisible Valley and says:

“Su Wei’s The Invisible Valley is a remarkable work, pungent, funny, and mind-widening. Austin Woerner’s translation is nearly invisible: it erases all barriers of strangeness and places the reader deep within a Chinese experience that comes to seem as familiar to us as our own daily round — if ours too had ghost brides and very big snakes.”

(In case you missed it, John has a new website, here, which isn’t quite a deep dive but will be a very enjoyable browse for any Crowley reader.)

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