Holiday Deadlines 2019

Wed 4 Dec 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., holiday, housekeeping, shipping news, usps| Posted by: Gavin

Shipping times have slowed down over the last few days due to big storms everywhere — shout out to all those shoveling snow! So here are the USPS Holiday Shipping Deadlines.

The Small Beer office will be closed from December 23 – January 2, 2019. It is unlikely we will ship over that period. Weightless Books is there for you: 24/7/365. (And Book Moon will be open . . . !)

Here are the last (domestic) order dates for Small Beer Press. Dates for international shipping are also here.

All orders include free first class (LCRW) or media mail (books) shipping in the USA.

But this is your annual reminder that Media Mail parcels are the last ones to go on trucks. If the truck is full, Media Mail does not go out until the next truck. And if that one’s full, too . . . it could be very late in December before there’s space. So, if you’d like to guarantee pre-holiday arrival, please add Priority Mail:

Domestic Mail Class/Product	Deadline
Media Mail (estimate, not guaranteed)	Dec. 14
First Class Mail (LCRW/chapbooks)	Dec. 20
Priority Mail	Dec. 21
Priority Mail Express	Dec. 23

Order a book today!

Just like to read a book, don’t care about a ding or two?

---

Kathleen Jennings Live Sketching

Wed 20 Nov 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., event, Kathleen Jennings| Posted by: Gavin

This Friday evening we’re looking forward to Grrl’s Night Out on Cottage Street in Easthampton — we’re celebrating the publication of Kathleen Jennings’s & Margo Lanagan’s chapbook, Stray Bats, with an exhibition of her original illustrations (for the chapbook & more) and an eggnog-and-snacks-fueled reception:

Art Show Reception with On-the-Spot Sketching from 7 – 8 p.m.

Sketches Available for Purchase by acclaimed visiting Australian artist & illustrator Kathleen Jennings. Art exhibit with original illustrations for books by Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, Kij Johnson, Margo Lanagan, and more.
Event date: Friday, November 22, 2019 – 5:30pm to 9:30pm
Event address: Book Moon, 86 Cottage Street, Easthampton, MA 01027

Order your chapbook here or watch the Book Moon site to get an opportunity to pick up some of Kathleen’s amazing originals!

---

Stray Bats

Tue 5 Nov 2019 - Filed under: Books, Chapbooks| Posted by: Gavin

saddle-stitched paperback · 68 pages · 9781618731753 · ebook, 9781618731760

Number 13 in the Small Beer chapbook series.

Aurealis Award finalist

Dachshund droids, sinister crones, shapeshifting children, a plethora of witches, dragonstalkers, familiars, slithering eels and, of course, bats, flit and fly through these pages, aided and abetted by Kathleen Jennings’s inspired pencil drawings. Stray Bats is a madcap miscellany consisting of fifty vignettes based on poems by Australian women. Lanagan delights in playing with language, rhyme, and rhythm.

This could be the perfect gift for that slightly otherworldly person in your life—or for yourself, when you need a moment of magic, a dip into darkness, a spark of light.

For the reader who would like to explore further, there are a list of poems that inspired the author and notes on where those poems might be found.

Reviews

“What a breath of fresh air this chapbook collection is. From start to finish I was enthralled with the wildly original takes Margo Lanagan has on storytelling. . . . Highly recommended.” — Charles de Lint, F&SF

“Those who, like me, feel the occasional need for an infusion of Margo Lanagan’s visceral, sometimes knotty, and always elegant prose could do no better than to wander through the 50 short pieces of Stray Bats, many of them inspired by the work of Aus­tralian women poets.” — Gary K. Wolfe, Locus

“The 50 very short impressionistic stories in this evocative collection from Lanagan (Yellowcake) take inspiration from the works of a wide range of Australian female poets, each of whom is credited in the acknowledgements. In flash fiction pieces that occasionally read like character sketches or prose poems themselves, Lanagan conjures eerie ghostly girls, travelers lost in strange lands, and, most frequently, fey folk and spellcasters on the fringes of society. Lanagan fully inhabits the characters, conveying short bursts of intimate emotion and precise psychologies in rich, sensuous prose: the shapeshifter of “Foxwife” inhales nocturnal scents “of star and moth, earth and fungus, corpse and sister, frog and scuttling mouthful;” the witch narrator of “Flight School” describes flying “between hill- and cloudscape… the wind in our teeth.” Kathleen Jennings’ delicate line drawings provide perfect complements to Lanagan’s fairy tale imagery.” — Publishers Weekly

About the author

Margo Lanagan has published two dark fantasy novels, and Stray Bats is her eighth short story collection. She collaborated with Scott Westerfeld and Deborah Biancotti on the New York Times-bestselling YA superheroes trilogy, Zeroes. Her work has won four World Fantasy Awards, nine Aurealis and five Ditmar Awards. Her books and stories have been translated into 19 languages. Margo lives in Sydney. Her twitter is @margolanagan.

About the illustrator

Kathleen Jennings is an illustrator and writer in Brisbane, Australia. She is a Hugo Award finalist and has been shortlisted three times for the World Fantasy Award and has received the E. G. Harvey Award for Australian SF Art and several Ditmar Awards for professional and fan art. Many of her illustrations and incidental drawings appear on her blog tanaudel.wordpress.com and she tweets @tanaudel.

Table of Contents

A Wind Age
Kites in the fog
Constellation
Maiden
More Information to Help You Get to Rookwood
Sail Away
Maiden Flight
Stray Bats
Readying
Shrunken Alice
Flight to Loreto
Familiars
Shore
Party to an Invocation
Emplotment
Hag-Hunter
Flight School
The Axe
Win
Foxwife
Being Summoned
Spirit Girl
Dragon Bride
Wyrm-Witch
Ingratitude
Interlacing
Aged Caring
Buff-house Review
Passed Master
Hand Magic
Digs
Getting There
Costumier
Those Women
Unchosen
Kez the Gardener
Tower View
Pounce
Invitations
Rabbit’s Foot
A Small Affair
Spring Visitor
Dormitory
Witches of a Certain Age
To a Mentee
The Evidence
Dragon
Fritzel
Feejee Mermaid
Peeping

 

---

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 40

Mon 28 Oct 2019 - Filed under: LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

November 19, 2019. 60 pages. Ebook ISBN: 9781618731623

News: Frances Rowat’s “Ink, and Breath, and Spring” will be reprinted in Rich Horton’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, 2020.

Fracking? Secret International Conspiracy to Topple Democracy? Rotten to the Core?

Nope.

The contents of occasional outburst of hope and joy and fabulous fiction were produced under pressure and are the stronger for it.

Reviews

“Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet is a strange and fantastic magazine, and I recommend a subscription to anyone who is on your list but also difficult to predict.”
— Vernacular Books

“This year my favorite story [from LCRW] was Frances Rowat’s ‘Ink, and Breath, and Spring’, a lovely, mysterious, and sad mystery story, about a murdered and flensed man found in the gardens of a strange library, and the way a groundskeeper somewhat unwillingly finds out what happened.”
— Rich Horton, Locus

Table of Contents

fiction

Frances Rowat, “Ink, and Breath, and Spring”
Fred Nadis, “The Giant Jew”
Amber Burke, “In Pictures”
T. S. McAdams, “Duck Circles”
Margo Lanagan, “More Information to Help You Get to Rookwood”
Mary Cool, “The Fruit That Bears the Flower”
Lisa Martin, “Seat Belt On, Falling”
Jeff Benz, “The Stone People”
Michael Byers, “Sibling Rivalry”

nonfiction

Nicole Kimberling
About These Authors

poetry

D. A. Xiaolin Spires, “Planetary Refuse: A Flurry of Haiku”

cover

Cat Mallard, “Moon Garden”

About

This is Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet issue number 40, November 2019. ISSN 1544-7782. Ebook ISBN: 9781618731623. 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 · Printed at Paradise Copies (paradisecopies.com · 413-585-0414). Print 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 © 2019 the authors. All rights reserved. Cover illustration “Moon Garden” © 2019 by Cat Mallard. Thank you authors, artists, and readers. Please send submissions (we are always especially seeking weird and interesting work from women writers and writers of color), guideline requests, &c. to the address above. Peace.

About these Authors

Jeff Benz lives in Long Island and works as a freelance court reporter in Manhattan. “The Stone People” is adapted from a chapter of his novel, Over a Thousand Sleepless Nights.

Amber Burke is a graduate of both Yale and the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars. She lives in New Mexico, where she teaches writing, yoga, and coordinates the Holistic Health and Healing Arts Program at UNM Taos. She is a regular contributor to Yoga International and her stories and essays have been published in The Sun, The Superstition Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Raleigh Review, Essays and Fictions, Sky Island Journal, and The Pinch, among others.

Michael Byers has taught creative writing at the MFA program of the University of Michigan since 2006. He is the author of The Coast of Good Intentions (stories) and two novels, Long for This World and Percival’s Planet. His stories have been anthologized several times in The Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Awards, and his novella “The Broken Man” was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award.

Mary Cool is editor in chief of Ducts literary magazine at ducts.org and hosts the Trumpet Fiction reading series in New York City. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in the journals Hogglepot, Storychord, and Barely South Review. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Brooklyn, New York.

Nicole Kimberling lives in Washington state.

A deep love of both stories and nature have been with Cat Mallard since childhood, she credits this to being an only child spending time either outdoors or at the large city library. She is a life long Florida resident and studied art at the University of Florida. She lives in North Florida in a wooded area with her family and little pup. You can find more of her work at catmallard.com.

Lisa Martin lives in San Francisco where she works at book shop and attends City College to study journalism and graphic design. Her non-fiction articles have appeared in Make: Magazine, but this is the first time her fiction has appeared in print. You can find her on twitter at @ReesesMartin.

T. S. McAdams lives with his wife, son, and bullmastiffs in the San Fernando Valley, where he is not working on a screenplay. His work has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Madcap Review, Santa Monica Review, Pembroke, Jersey Devil Press, Sierra Nevada Review, Exposition Review, and Faultline.

Fred Nadis has been a limousine driver, college professor, and dried fig bandit (he’d give them back if he could). He has published pieces in the Atlantic, Vanity Fair online, and many literary journals. He is the interviewee for wired.com’s Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast #182. His book, The Man from Mars: Ray Palmer’s Amazing Pulp Journey was a Locus Nonfiction Award Finalist in 2014.

Frances Rowat lives in Ontario with her husband, their dog, and a not-quite-startling number of cats. She was born in Canada, and while growing up spent time in England, Algeria, and Switzerland. She spends most of her time behind a keyboard, where she frequently gets lost in details. She enjoys earrings, fountain pens, rain, and post-apocalyptic settings, and can be found online on Twitter @aphotic_ink or at aphotic-ink.com.

D. A. Xiaolin Spires steps into portals and reappears in sites such as Hawai’i, NY, various parts of Asia and elsewhere, with her keyboard appendage attached. Her work appears or is forthcoming in publications such as Clarkesworld, Analog, Strange Horizons, Nature, Terraform, Grievous Angel, Fireside, Galaxy’s Edge, StarShipSofa, Andromeda Spaceways (Year’s Best Issue), Diabolical Plots, Factor Four, Shoreline of Infinity, LONTAR, Mithila Review, Star*Line, Polu Texni, Eye to the Telescope, and numerous anthologies. Her stories are available or forthcoming in German, Vietnamese or Estonian translation. She can be found on Twitter: @spireswriter and on her website: daxiaolinspires.wordpress.com.

---

Stray Bats in Los Angeles

Mon 28 Oct 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Cons, Kathleen Jennings, Margo Lanagan| Posted by: Gavin

If you are heading to LA this weekend for the 2019 World Fantasy Convention don’t miss your chance to get both Guest of Honor Margo Lanagan and Kathleen Jennings to sign your copy of their new chapbook Stray Bats.

We won’t be there (cf Book Moon) but I am happy to say — and very appreciative of their generosity — that it will be available from two lovely dealers in the dealers room, Patrick Swenson of Fairwood Press and Greg Ketter of DreamHaven.

As usual Kathleen will have work in the Art Show and she will also have extra copies of Stray Bats with her.

---

Hot Chocolate Walk 2019

Fri 25 Oct 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

On December 8 me and our kid, Ursula (now 10-years-old), and my mother-in-law, Annie, are all going to be doing the Hot Chocolate Walk for Safe Passage. Should you be up for it, please do consider sponsoring either one of us or donating. It’s a fun morning: usually cold, we do the walk, not the run, and Ursula doesn’t really love hot chocolate but we usually walk with friends, everyone has a great time. 6,000 people turn out and they raise something like $600,000, which is amazing. Thanks for any support you can give!

Here’s the kid at the end of 2017 walk — bravely trying the hot chocolate, delighted by the free sunglasses, and proudly wearing the red hat they give to people who raise over $150:

---

Half-Witch

Tue 22 Oct 2019 - Filed under: Big Mouth House, Books| Posted by: Gavin

A Big Mouth House Book
hardcover · 7/17/18 · 320 pages · $18.99 · 9781618731401 | ebook · 9781618731418
paperback · 9781618731678 · October 22, 2019 · audio: March 29, 2019

NPR Best Books of the Year
“A marvelous blend of whimsy, terror and deep feeling.”

Locus Award finalist
Crawford Award finalist
Junior Library Guild Selection
Locus Recommended Reading

Kind-hearted Lizbet and witch girl Strix embark upon a perilous quest where even the fate of Heaven is at stake.

In the world in which Lizbet Lenz lives, the sun still goes around the earth, God speaks directly to his worshippers, goblins haunt every cellar and witches lurk in the forests. Disaster strikes when Lizbet’s father Gerhard, a charming scoundrel, is thrown into a dungeon by the tyrant Hengest Wolftrow. To free him, Lizbet must cross the Montagnes du Monde, globe-girdling mountains that reach to the sky, a journey no one has ever survived, and retrieve a mysterious book.

Lizbet is desperate, and the only one who can help her is the unpleasant and sarcastic witch girl Strix. As the two girls journey through the mountains and into the lands of wonder beyond, on the run from goblins, powerful witches, and human criminals, Lizbet discovers, to her horror, that Strix’s magic is turning Lizbet into a witch, too. Meanwhile, a revolution in Heaven is brewing.

Reviews

“John Schoffstall’s Half-Witch is one of those books that are simultaneously so startlingly original and deeply familiar I can’t quite believe they’re debuts. . . . Half-Witch is a marvel of storytelling, balancing humor, terror and grace. Lizbet is so earnestly good, in a way that I think has fallen out of fashion but that I loved reading. She and Strix are a perfect double act, and the shape and texture of the friendship they build is a joy to discover. . . . This is a book of crossing and mixing, of mashing and counter-mashing, with surprise and wonder the result. The ending suggests a sequel, which I hope comes about; the book’s last act is full of revelations (as it were) about the especially strange nature of Lizbet’s world that I’m keen to see Schoffstall develop and explore. But Half-Witch is also fully satisfying in and of itself.”
— Amal El-Mohtar, New York Times Book Review

“John Schoffstall’s Half-Witch is the darkest of the dark horses, the most out there of the outliers, and the traditional review venues haven’t given this a lot of attention—one lonely star from Kirkus, one tepid review from School Library Journal. But look a little deeper and you’ll find high praise coming from the New York Times, NPR, and Locus Magazine, as well as literary fantasist Kelly Link and others. This is a strange book, one that involves God and witches and brims with humor that will appeal only to some readers. It’s slightly episodic, set in a strange fantasy world—a little medieval, a little gothic, a lot unexpected—with an unlikely pair of heroines, one deeply religious and one a witch. It’s hard to know how to take this; is it blasphemous, or deeply spiritual? Is it high fantasy or low? The odds of consensus are so slim, it’s almost not worth speculating about the chances—yet this is an odd, fizzily delightful read, with a strong setting, well-developed characters, and rich themes, that makes readers work for understanding even as they wander with Strix and Lisbet. Plus, the sentence-level writing is seamless. In other words, this has everything a winner needs—except maybe readers.”
— Sarah Couri and Karyn Silverman, School Library Journal

“Thoroughly delightful. . . . It embraces the absurdity of its medieval setting, with cheeky devils and superstitious townsfolk and even Jesus popping in for a chat, but the emotional core is anything but silly. These girls may only be half witches, but they’re each fully awesome.”
— Christina Ladd, Geekly Inc.

“Other highly recommended titles are Half-Witch from John Schoffstall, a traditional fantasy except that the sun orbits the world and God takes part as a not-very-helpful character . . .”
— Laurel Amberdine, Locus

“This book was a delight. Schoffstall’s writing is dazzlingly clever, funny, and heartfelt. The world he creates is familiar yet unique and, like all the best books, it takes a piece of you and replaces it with something else, something stronger. A scar healed, a bone mended, a pair of birch tree legs that can cover the most treacherous terrain so long as you have a friend like Strix by your side.”
— Eric Bosarge, Vernacular Books

“Plenty for all to chew on in its vision of a magic-inflected Europe and a protagonist with a direct (if interference-riddled) line to God.”
— Graham Sleight, Locus “Ten books of the year”

“A picaresque fantasy debut in the mode of L. Frank Baum, in which witches and magic and God and goblins populate a world that is possibly just next door to our own. Lizbet and the witch girl Strix are delightful company in which to set out on the road.”
— Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

“Fourteen-year-old Lizbet Lenz is used to not getting close to anyone and having to flee in the middle of the night thanks to her father’s penchant for getting in over his head. When he gets thrown into jail for causing a rain of mice it’s up to Lizbet to rescue him by scaling mountains everyone claims are impassable. As she travels, she gains a companion in Strix, a witch who doesn’t believe in friendship but looks out for Lizbet as she gets into trouble. This fantasy adventure has strong spiritual undertones, where God is not a distant unreachable figure, but someone who people can have a conversation with when they take Communion. Lizbet wrestles with her religious views as she is propelled into a world of goblins and demons in order to free her father and stop herself from being sent to an orphanage. The world feels like an antiquated version of our own—albeit with magic—though the exact time period is not clearly defined. Almost every movement made by Lizbet and Strix gets them into some kind of difficulty, which maintains a quick-paced plot and the threat of danger around every corner. Characters are initially childish in their beliefs and stubborn when those beliefs come into question. However, both Lizbet and Strix manage to grow over the course of the narrative.” —School Library Journal

Previously

July 12-15: Readercon, Quincy, MA

July 21, 1 p.m.  The Lahaska Bookshop, Peddler’s Village Store, 162 Carousel Ln & Rte 263 A, Lahaska, PA 18931 ·  First bookstore signing!

July 26, 7 p.m. Farley’s Bookshop, 44 S Main St, New Hope, PA 18938

John Schoffstall has published short fiction in Asimov’s, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Interzone, Strange Horizons, and other venues. He is a physician, and once practiced Emergency Medicine. Now he follows Candide’s advice and tends his own garden. He lives in the Philadelphia area.

Cover art by kAt Philbin.

---

Lianna Fled to the Moon

Mon 21 Oct 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Book Moon, Jedediah Berry| Posted by: Gavin

This Thursday we’re hosting our first ever event at Book Moon (formerly White Square Books) in Easthampton: an evening with GennaRose Nethercott, award-winning author of Lianna Fled the Cranberry Bog.

A spooky story told entirely in fold-up cootie catchers, Lianna Fled the Cranberry Bog transforms a traditional children’s game into an interactive fable of cruel beasts, daring thieves, lost sweethearts, and a family on the run. The cootie catchers (also known as fortune tellers, salt cellars, chatterboxes, etc.) are lavishly illustrated by artist Bobby DiTrani. Each features eight possible endings—but the endings are also beginnings, complications, transformations, and jumping-off points for other parts of the story.

Come see GennaRose Nethercott conduct a journey through this haunted, magical tale.

---

Next Tuesday is Half-Witch Tuesday

Fri 18 Oct 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., John Schoffstall| Posted by: Gavin

Coming next Tuesday: the paperback edition of Half-Witch. I love having this on the table at book fairs and conventions. The title speaks to so many people who pick up the book and say something along the lines of “I’m a bit of a witch . . . ” Pick it or here, you know, from Book Moon!

---

Coming Soon: Book Moon

Wed 25 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Book Moon| Posted by: Gavin

Here’s a project we’ve been working on for a bit and will be, with luck, working on daily for a long time to come: Book Moon!

ETA: Shelf Awareness story. Now in our local paper, the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

 

---

Kim Scott on The Vintner’s Luck

Wed 25 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Book Riot just posted this week’s episode of their Recommended podcast and one of the authors featured is Kim Scott who recommends Elizabeth Knox’s novel The Vintner’s Luck [transcript].

Kim is the second author on the show. The first is Jackson Bird (@jackisnotabird), who recommends The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Bird’s memoir, Sorted: Growing Up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place, is now available.

I highly recommend this Recommended podcast!

Good news for those that like signed books: we’re stocked up on signed copies and are shipping them out for website orders of Kim Scott’s novel Taboo, Andy Duncan’s collection An Agent of Utopia, and a few others.

---

News

Tue 24 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., John Crowley, LCRW, The Moon| Posted by: Gavin

We have some news coming tomorrow. It’s not about announcing a new short story collection coming next summer which will provoke much fainting and sharing on the sosh meeds. It’s not about the next issue of LCRW, coming together, should be out in November, as per usual, fingers crossed for a yay. Neither is it about a John Crowley reading in Easthampton in November, but that should be happening. We haven’t been unlawfully prorogued, so it’s not that. More manana!

---

Brooklyn Book Fest 2019

Thu 19 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Andy Duncan, book festivals, Sarah Rees Brennan| Posted by: Gavin

Humans and other inhabitants of this universe and others, on this coming Sunday, September 22, 2019, from 10 a.m. in the morning until 6 p.m. in the balmy early evening please make your way to

Table 649
Brooklyn Book Festival
Borough Hall
Brooklyn, NY

and join us at our booth where you will find: New Books · Old Surprises · Sale books · Zines · and perhaps even: Andy Duncan, author of An Agent of Utopia! (Andy is To Be Confirmed so that’s a solid maybe, actually. Read one of his stories here in the meantime.)

Last year I had a great time, sold tons of books, talked to a lot of people. This year I’m looking forward to having the paperbacks of Sarah Rees Brennan’s In Other Lands and maybe even John Schoffstall’s Half-Witch as last year everyone picked those up.

---

New Margo Lanagan & Kathleen Jennings

Tue 17 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kathleen Jennings, Margo Lanagan| Posted by: Gavin

We are delighted to announce our second surprise Australian title of the year: Stray Bats by Margo Lanagan, illustrated by Kathleen Jennings.

Stray Bats, which is number 13 in our very occasional chapbook series, will be published on November 5, 2019. It will also be available at the World Fantasy Convention in Los Angeles (Oct. 31 – Nov. 3) where Margo will be a Guest of Honor and Kathleen, who was one of the World Fantasy Award judges this year, will be attending.

Stray Bats will be available as a 68-page, saddle-stitched chapbook, and as an ebook on Weightless Books as well as all the other usual ebooksites once the information filters out to them.

Both author and illustrator are probably quite familiar to our readers — I’ll drop their bios in at the end, though, just in case — and being long-time admirers of their work we could not resist this fabulous collaboration. Stray Bats began when Margo started writing short vignettes in response to poems from Australian women. She gathered those and sent them to Kathleen who responded in kind, in loose enjoyable pencil illustrations that capture the same quick, quirky smart energy of Margo’s responses. The result is this chapbook of short shorts which imitate the style, character or subject of a work for the purposes of celebrating the work. There are “Dachshund droids, sinister crones, shapeshifting children, a plethora of witches, dragonstalkers, familiars, slithering eels and, of course, bats.”

For those readers who wish to explore Lanagan’s inspirations further, she has included a list of poems that inspired her and notes on where those poems might be found.

We’re very much looking forward to publishing this tiny chapbook. You can pre-order or share info about it here.

Margo Lanagan has published two dark fantasy novels, and Stray Bats is her eighth short story collection. She collaborated with Scott Westerfeld and Deborah Biancotti on the New York Times-bestselling YA superheroes trilogy, Zeroes. Her work has won four World Fantasy Awards, nine Aurealis and five Ditmar Awards and been listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Dublin IMPAC Award, Shirley Jackson, Michael L. Printz, and Seiun awards, among others. Her books and stories have been translated into 19 languages. Margo lives in Sydney. Her twitter is @margolanagan.

 

---

20% of the List is (or isn’t?) Small Beer

Fri 13 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Booklist, Sarah Pinsker, Top 10| Posted by: Gavin

We are celebrating having two titles on the recent ⁦⁦ALA Booklist Top 10 Debut SF&F list — and they’re both short story collections: shout out to Abbey Mei Otis for her Top 10 debut Alien Virus Love Disaster and ⁦⁦Sarah Pinsker for her Top 10 debut Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea.

 

---

Vandana Singh in the TLS

Fri 6 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

This lovely review seemed worth highlighting — Vandana Singh’s Ambiguity Machines was reviewed by Michael Saler in London’s Times Literary Supplement:

“Vandana Singh’s science fiction . . . highlights the interplay between scientific and mythic narratives, focusing on the ways that ‘stories make the world’. A physicist in the United States, Singh was raised in India, where she was attracted by traditional legends as well as science. Several of her tales ruminate on the self-critical representations of science and the manifold meanings of myth. In one, an eleventh-century Indian poet famous for his collection of folklore has been resurrected in the future by a scientist who records alien legends, allowing Singh to compare poetic and scientific responses to oral tales. She shows that neither science nor myth are sufficient on their own, as her characters discover when they are misled by reductive empirical descriptions or beguiled by fairy-tale desires. Singh instead champions complex systems, in which discrete parts influence each other in unpredictable ways. She combines seemingly opposed categories, such as tradition and modernity, human and animal (or machine), the urban and the natural, and – most frequently – myth and science. Each yields facets of a more capacious reality that gradually unfolds within ingenious plots, which extend from earth in the near future to alternative histories and gleeful romps across time and space.”

---

Tonight in Easthampton

Fri 6 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., events, Kim Scott, readings| Posted by: Gavin

Come join us at 7 p.m. at White Square Books, 86 Cottage Street, where Kim Scott will be reading from his award-winning novel Taboo. Kim lives in Perth, Western Australia, and this is an opportunity not to be missed. The reading was featured in the Boston Globe:

Australian novelist Kim Scott was the first writer of Indigenous Australian ancestry to win the prestigious Miles Franklin Award for his second novel “Benang,” a prize he won again for his fourth book, “That Deadman Dance.” Widely lauded in Australia, Scott’s work hasn’t yet penetrated the market in the US, but this week, the boundary-pushing Western Mass-based Small Beer Press is publishing the North American edition of his latest award-winning novel “Taboo.” In this potent, ghostly book, Scott, part of the Noongar people of Western Australia, tells what happens when a group of Noongar return to the site of a massacre which followed the killing of a white man for kidnapping a black woman. The book wrestles with the haunt of history, and poetry lives on each page. “Now his own house was haunted, and he was glad.” In the taboo farmland, the group reckon with language and connection, and what reconciling with the past means for the present. They face the way the history and its sins live on, and how rebirth demands destruction. “Death is only one part of a story that is forever beginning,” Scott writes. On a brief US tour, Scott will read and discuss “Taboo” on Friday at 7 p.m. at White Square Books in Easthampton.

And here’s a short clip of Kim reading at the Library of Congress Book Festival in Washington, DC, last Saturday:

"Come close. Closer." The spilling wheat, "Golden, it has both the look and sound of great wealth." Kim Scott reading from TABOO @librarycongress Book Festival—moderator @BWheeler_PhD who put the panel together on the left & graphic novelist @brentonemckenna on the right. pic.twitter.com/yJBhkpiYYg

— Small Beer Press (@smallbeerpress) September 5, 2019

---

All Change at the Top

Tue 3 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kim Scott, Publication day, Sarah Rees Brennan| Posted by: Gavin

This is the top of our website yesterday:

And this is how it looks today:

Yes, we have 2 new books out today: the North American edition of Kim Scott’s award-winning novel Taboo and the huuuuge paperback edition of Sarah Rees Brennan’s In Other Lands — the latter comes with an extra short story, “Wings in the Morning,” originally published in Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales (also just out in paperback).

Taboo was a lovely surprise, it came to us in January and later came the news that Kim might be attending the Library of Congress Book Fest in DC in August — which he did, this past weekend, that was fun. The novel is immersive, different, and ticks a lot of the boxes that make us and our readers happy. As Kim does events in the next week in Charlottesville, VA, Easthampton, MA, and Brooklyn, NY, I can’t wait to see how North America reacts to it.

In Other Lands went through three printings in hardcover and has already earned out its audio advance. The paperback slipped out early since Sarah’s latest novel, Season of the Witch: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina #1, came out in July — there’s a second in December — and we wanted to make it easy for readers to find the huge new paperback. So far the paperback is flying off the shelf and more stores are adding it each week. Readers sure like novels so it’s fun to have these two both out today, both so differently brilliant.

---

Taboo

Tue 3 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

trade paper · 304 pages · $17 · 9781618731692 | ebook · 9781618731708 · audiobook now available

A century after a rural Western Australian massacre, a group of Noongar people are invited back by an elderly farmer to the land where it happened.

Now shipping signed copies.

Read: an excerpt on Lithub.

Interview: Kim Scott on Book Riot’s Recommended podcast.

Kim Scott reads at the Library of Congress Book Fest from Gavin Grant on Vimeo.

From Kim Scott, two-times winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, comes a haunting yet optimistic novel charged with ambition and poetry, in equal parts brutal, mysterious and idealistic, about a young woman cast into a drama that has been playing for over two hundred years . . .

Taboo takes place in the present day, in the rural South-West of Western Australia, and tells the story of a group of Noongar people who revisit, for the first time in many decades, a taboo place: the site of a massacre that followed the assassination, by these Noongar’s ancestors, of a white man who had stolen a black woman. They come at the invitation of Dan Horton, the elderly owner of the farm on which the massacres unfolded. He hopes that by hosting the group he will satisfy his wife’s dying wishes and cleanse some moral stain from the ground on which he and his family have lived for generations.

But the sins of the past will not be so easily expunged.

We walk with the ragtag group through this taboo country and note in them glimmers of re-connection with language, lore, country. We learn alongside them how countless generations of Noongar may have lived in ideal rapport with the land. Taboo won four literary awards, was longlisted for four and shortlisted for three more. It is a novel of survival and renewal, as much as destruction; and, ultimately, of hope as much as despair.

WINNER OF THE NSW PREMIER’S AWARD BOOK OF THE YEAR 2018
WINNER OF THE NSW PREMIER’S INDIGENOUS WRITER’S PRIZE 2018
WINNER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND FICTION BOOK AWARD 2018
WINNER OF THE VICTORIAN PREMIER’S LITERARY AWARD FOR INDIGENOUS WRITING 2019
Shortlisted for the 2020 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature.
Short-listed for Miles Franklin Literary Award 2018.
Short-listed for Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Fiction 2018.
Short-listed for Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction 2018.
Short-listed for Colin Roderick Award 2018.
Long-listed for Dublin Literary Award 2019.
Long-listed for ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2018.
Long-listed for Indie Book Awards Fiction 2018.
Kate Challis RAKA Commendation 2021.

PRAISE FOR TABOO

“A story that offers a mix of magic, history, violence and reconciliation — elements that make up the larger story of the clash between Australia’s Aboriginal people and the white settlers who killed them and pushed them aside to take their land.” — Steve Pfarrer, Daily Hampshire Gazette

“In this potent, ghostly book, Scott, part of the Noongar people of Western Australia, tells what happens when a group of Noongar return to the site of a massacre which followed the killing of a white man for kidnapping a black woman. The book wrestles with the haunt of history, and poetry lives on each page. ‘Now his own house was haunted, and he was glad.’ In the taboo farmland, the group reckon with language and connection, and what reconciling with the past means for the present. They face the way the history and its sins live on, and how rebirth demands destruction. ‘Death is only one part of a story that is forever beginning,’ Scott writes.”
— Nina MacLaughlin, Boston Globe

“Deeply acclaimed upon its initial release in Australia, Kim Scott’s novel Taboo follows a group of characters revisiting the site of several acts of historical violence. In doing so, Scott charts the complexities of pain, forgiveness, and the sins of the past—often in harrowing ways.”
— Vol. 1, Brooklyn

“In this assured, complex novel, Scott (True Country) delves into the fraught history of race relations in Western Australia. . . .  Scott’s novel memorably describes this dramatic resurrection and the enduring power of ancestral traditions.”
— Publishers Weekly

“A teenage girl and her extended family return to the site of a centuries-old massacre of Aboriginal people. Kepalup is a small town in Western Australia with a dark history. In the 19th century, a white man was killed by an Aboriginal man, and his family retaliated by murdering scores of Aboriginal people. Recently widowed Dan Horton still lives on the land where his ancestor was killed; now, he’s invited the descendants of the Aboriginal people who died at the site to visit even though their culture labels the place as taboo. To Dan’s surprise, one of the people among the group who’s accepted the invitation is Tilly Smith, who was briefly his foster child until she was returned to her birth mother. That’s the only parent Tilly has known until she was summoned out of the blue by an inmate in a nearby prison, who happens to be her real father. An Aboriginal person of Noongar ancestry, Tilly’s father has turned over a new leaf from his former violence and drug addiction and is teaching fellow inmates the old language and customs. But along with meeting her dad and being introduced to a new culture and extended family, Tilly is introduced to some of his unsavory associates. When Tilly shows up in Kepalup with her relatives, she bears a number of dark secrets that threaten to collide with the largest darkness of all: the loss and generational trauma borne by her people. Scott (That Deadman Dance, 2010, etc.) has created a shadowy and elliptical story, but it is not as hopeless as it sometimes feels: Tilly is a survivor, and though her Aboriginal culture is not a perfect salvation, it nevertheless provides her with a touchstone in the chaos.”
— Kirkus Reviews

“If Benang was the great novel of the assimilation system, and That Deadman Dance redefined the frontier novel in Australian writing, Taboo makes a strong case to be the novel that will help clarify — in the way that only literature can — what reconciliation might mean.” — Australian Book Review

“Scott’s book is stunning — haunted and powerful . . . Verdict: Must Read.” — Herald Sun

“Remarkable.” — Stephen Romei, Weekend Australian

“Stunning prose.” — Saturday Paper

“This is a complex, thoughtful, and exceptionally generous offering by a master storyteller at the top of his game.” — The Guardian

“Undaunted, and daring as ever Scott goes back to his ancestral Noongar country in Western Australia’s Great Southern region; back in time as well to killings (or a massacre, the point is contested) of whites and Aborigines there in 1880. . . Taboo never becomes a revenge story, whether for distant or recent wrongs . . . The politics of Taboo — not to presume or simplify too much — are quietist, rather than radical. Ambitious, unsentimental [and] morally challenging.” — Sydney Morning Herald

“Scott is one of the most thoughtful, exciting and powerful storytellers of this continent today, with great courage and formidable narrative prowess- and Taboo is his most daring novel yet.” — Sydney Review of Books

“Scott’s most accessible novel.” — Reading Matters

Previously

Aug. 31, 10 a.m “The View From Country—Australia’s Aboriginal Writers” with Jeanine Leane and Brenton McKenna , Library of Congress Book Festival, Washington, D.C.
UVA
— Sept. 3, 5:30 p.m. Reading & Signing, Brooks Hall Commons
— Sept. 5, 6 p.m. “Truth Telling,” Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, 400 Worrell Dr., Charlottesville, VA 22911
Sept. 6, 7 p.m. White Square Books, 86 Cottage St., Easthampton, MA
Sept. 9, 12:30 p.m., NYU
Sept. 9, 7 p.m. Community Bookstore, Brooklyn, NY

About the Author

Kim Scott is a multi-award winning novelist. Benang was the first novel by an Indigenous writer to win the Miles Franklin Award and That Deadman Dance also won Australia’s premier literary prize, among many others. Proud to be one among those who call themselves Noongar, Kim is founder and chair of the Wirlomin Noongar Language and Story Project, which has published a number of bilingual picture books. A Companion to the Works of Kim Scott deals with aspects of his career in education and literature. He received an Australian Centenary Medal and was 2012 West Australian of the Year. Kim is currently Professor of Writing in the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts at Curtin University.

Cover designed and photographed by Sandy Cull.

---

In Other Lands

Tue 3 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Big Mouth House, Books| Posted by: Gavin

A Big Mouth House Book
August 15, 2017 · trade cloth · 448 pages · 9781618731203 | ebook · 9781618731357 · audiobook
Third printing: June 2018

September 3, 2019 · trade paperback · 9781618731661 · 496 pages
Second printing: July 2023

The trade paperback edition includes the story that started it all: “Wings in the Morning.”
The hardcovers here are “returns” and may have light shelfwear.

Elliot doesn’t want to fight, keeps saying the wrong thing, and is definitely the grouchiest human in fantasyland.

ALA Rainbow Book List.
Georgia Peach Book Award Nominee.
Florida Teens Read Award Nominee.
Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year.
ABC Best Books for Young Readers.
A Junior Library Guild selection.
Lodestar, Mythopoeic, Hugo, & Locus award finalist.
Shipping copies with a signed bookplate.

New York Times Book Review:
“In Other Lands is at once a classic school story, a coming-of-age tale and a parody of Harry Potter. It’s hilarious and sneakily moving. Elliot Schafer is Harry Potter if Harry had been abandoned instead of merely orphaned. Convinced of his unlovability, he wields sarcasm and braininess as weapons. . . . Brennan subverts the familiar Y.A. love triangle in uproarious, touching, unexpected ways, and her commentaries on gender roles, sexual identity and toxic masculinity are very witty. Elven culture, for instance, views men as the weaker sex. “A true gentleman’s heart is as sacred as a temple, and as easily crushed as a flower,” Serene informs Elliot. When another elf tells him, “I was saddened to hear Serene had launched a successful attack on the citadel of your virtue,” Elliot assures her, “The citadel was totally into surrendering.” Best of all, over four years in the otherlands, Elliot grows from a defensive, furious, grieving child into a diplomatic, kind, menschy hero.”

http://ew.com/books/2017/09/07/sarah-rees-brennan-and-maureen-johnson-chat-about-writing-and-murder/

Read: Sarah Rees Brennan on Our Winged Brains: The Appeal of Winged Creatures in Genre Fiction for Tor.com.

Read: Chapter One

The Borderlands aren’t like anywhere else. Don’t try to smuggle a phone or any other piece of technology over the wall that marks the Border — unless you enjoy a fireworks display in your backpack. (Ballpoint pens are okay.) There are elves, harpies, and — best of all as far as Elliot is concerned — mermaids.

“What’s your name?”
“Serene.”
“Serena?” Elliot asked.
“Serene,” said Serene. “My full name is Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle.”
Elliot’s mouth fell open. “That is badass.”

Elliot? Who’s Elliot? Elliot is thirteen years old. He’s smart and just a tiny bit obnoxious. Sometimes more than a tiny bit. When his class goes on a field trip and he can see a wall that no one else can see, he is given the chance to go to school in the Borderlands.

It turns out that on the other side of the wall, classes involve a lot more weaponry and fitness training and fewer mermaids than he expected. On the other hand, there’s Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle, an elven warrior who is more beautiful than anyone Elliot has ever seen, and then there’s her human friend Luke: sunny, blond, and annoyingly likeable. There are lots of interesting books. There’s even the chance Elliot might be able to change the world.

“The beauty of men is a sweet soft thing that passes all too soon, like a bird across the sky.”

In Other Lands is the exhilarating new book from beloved and bestselling author Sarah Rees Brennan. It’s a novel about surviving four years in the most unusual of schools, about friendship, falling in love, diplomacy, and finding your own place in the world — even if it means giving up your phone.

Cover and chapter illustrations by Casey Nowak.

Interview: Binge on Books (with bonus favorite author photo)

Reviews & Early Reader Reaction

“It has been a long time since I’ve loved a book this much.”
— Seanan McGuire, author of Every Heart a Doorway

“I loved this book. I loved it. But early on I wanted to smack Elliott, the fourteen-year-old boy who is cho- sen, from our world, to go to the Borderlands because he can see magic. And I might have stopped reading, had I not distinctly heard (not making this up, I swear) a voiceover saying: Once there was a boy named Eustace Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.“
— Michelle West, F&SF

“Brennan delivers witty, nervy, romantic adventure that fizzes with feeling and giddy imagination.”
— Leigh Bardugo, bestselling author of Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom

“A subversive, sneaky, glorious tale of magic, longing, and growing into your wings.”
— Holly Black, author of The Darkest Part of the Forest

“In Other Lands is a stunning example of Sarah Rees Brennan’s style; her characters are hysterically funny with complex and nuanced inner lives that could break a reader’s heart. Elliot, cranky and obnoxious teen that he is, desperately longs to be loved best by someone, but covers with immense sarcasm and general unkindness. Luke and Serene, both exceptionally talented and good-looking, also struggle with feeling displaced. The depiction of misandry in Elf culture is one of the funniest concepts that Rees Brennan has come up, and even that she turns into a deeper lesson for Serene, Elliot, and Luke. In Other Lands can come off as a parody of fantasy, but it delves deep into issues of race, gender, sexuality, and war, and absolutely nails the struggles and triumphs of growing up.”
— Sami Thomason, Square Books

“The existence of mythical creatures seems more plausible to snarky, studious teen Elliot Schafer than making friends or having a loving family. After enrolling at Borderlands Academy, a training school for the magical realm’s soldiers and scholars, Elliot forms an unlikely trio with Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle, an Elven warrior-scholar, and Luke Sunborn, a gifted golden boy. Narrator Matthew Lloyd Davies skillfully suggests the vulnerable qualities hidden beneath Elliot’s sarcasm as he navigates gender, war, sexuality, and friendship in the Borderlands. Humor, delightfully wrought in this production, permeates each section. Davies populates this world with vivid performances of fantastical beings such as harpies, mermaids, and elves. His clear enunciation of Elvish certainty and the sharp, grating vocal qualities of harpies and mermaids make the students’ forays into battle and diplomacy memorable.”
— Audiofile Magazine

Praise for Sarah Rees Brennan’s books:

“Breathtaking—a compulsive, rocketing read.”
—Tamora Pierce, New York Times bestselling author

“Writing with fine control and wit, Sarah Rees Brennan pits an underworld society against privileged overlords. The young golden-haired heroine sparring with her rich boyfriend and his dark-souled shadow-twin lends wry and sexy human interest to the depiction of political struggle. I suspect that word of this magical thriller will pass through the populace with the energy of wind, of fire.”
— Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Egg and Spoon

“From the pitch-perfect opening paragraph, to the heartbreaking final pages . . . delicious.” —Kirkus (starred review)

“A sparkling fantasy that will make you laugh and break your heart.”
— Cassandra Clare, New York Times bestselling author

“A darkly funny, deliciously thrilling Gothic.”
— Kelley Armstrong, New York Times bestselling author

“Readers will laugh, shiver, and maybe even swoon over this modern Gothic novel.”
— Melissa Marr, New York Times bestselling author

“Brennan takes the genres of young adult, fantasy, and romance, and through her own writerly, alchemical process converts them into something new and strange and lovely.” — Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

“A laugh-out-loud delight.” — Publishers Weekly

“. . . a charming protagonist — full of vinegar and spice. Fans of romantic fantasy will devour it.” — VOYA

“Punctuated throughout with keen humor and heartbreaking emotional resonance, it’s a stunner.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books (starred review)

“This dark-fantasy-meets-romance will have readers hooked.” — The Horn Book

Cover illustrations by Carolyn Nowak. Title lettering by Jeffrey Rowland.

Author photo by Mark Griffin Photo.

Sarah Rees Brennan (@sarahreesbrenna) was born, raised, and lives in Ireland. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Tell the Wind and Fire, the Lynburn Legacy series, and Season of the Witch (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Book 1), among others.

 

---

In Other Book Clubs

Wed 28 Aug 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., book clubs, Sarah Rees Brennan| Posted by: Gavin

Next Tuesday is the official paperback publication day for Sarah Rees Brennan’s novel In Other Lands. The book is on the ALA Rainbow Book List, the ABC Best Books for Young Readers and Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year lists, and is a Junior Library Guild selection. It was a nominee for both the Georgia Peach Book Award and the Florida Teens Read Award and a finalist for the Hugo, Locus, and Mythopoeic awards. Not bad!

Now it’s coming out in a huge trade paperback edition — extra big not just because of all the shiny gold on the cover, but also because it includes the story that started it all: “Wings in the Morning.”* Sarah originally wrote the novel on her blog as a prequel to “Wings”(!) and then rewrote it for publication.

It turns out that In Other Lands being a reader fave means it’s also turning up in book club recommendations! One bookstore near us, Annie’s in Worcester, MA, has it down for their Rainbow Readers bookclub on Sat., Sept. 14th, and over there in Columbus, Ohio, the Feminist Sci-Fi Bookclub at the fabulous Two Dollar Radio HQ have it scheduled for their Sept. 24th meeting. How awesome!

I’ll add these two book clubs to our events schedule. Do drop us a line any time your book club is reading any of our books and I’ll add it to the schedule.

---

Annie’s Book Stop of Worcester, MA

SPECIAL EVENT: Saturday, September 14, 6PM–8PM – Rainbow Readers Discusses IN OTHER LANDS by Sarah Rees Brennan. The Rainbow Readers of Massachusetts is an LGBTQIA book club that meets once a month. All are welcome!

---

Feminist Sci-Fi Bookclub: In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
Tuesday, September 24, 2019
7:00pm-8:00pm
1124 Parsons Ave, Columbus, OH 43206, USA
FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE

Hosted by Haley Cowans, Feminist Sci-Fi Bookclub:
Or, “Word After Word: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Book Club” — “Speculative fiction” (science fiction, fantasy, horror) has always been a vehicle for writers to explore identity, social inequality, the strangeness of the world, and the hopes and fears for the future. In this monthly book club we’ll be reading works of speculative fiction by women and nonbinary writers, discussing the ways these works make us think, feel, and reflect on reality. Read more: https://twodollarradiohq.com/feminist-sci-fi-bookclub

This month’s book is In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

“Four years in the life of an unloved English schoolboy who’s invited to a secret magical school and learns that even in fantasyland, real life is messier than books. . . . But over the course of four years training among child soldiers, Elliot, unsurprisingly, grows up. His slow development into a genuinely kind person is entirely satisfying, as is his awakening to his own bisexuality and to the colonialism, sexism, and racism of Borderlands society. . . . A stellar . . . wholly rewarding journey.” ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

* Bookclubs are free and open to the public with no signup required. Just read, arrive, and have fun.
* You can find the book at your local library, or available for purchase at Two Dollar Radio HQ and other fine booksellers.
* Our regular food and bar menus will be available.

LOT PARKING: The Columbus Metropolitan Library across the street (1113 Parsons Ave) has generously allowed our use of their parking lot while they are closed only; parking there allowed during the following hours: Tuesday: 8pm – close

---

*An aside: “Wings in the Morning” was originally published in the anthology Monstrous Affections: An Anthology of Beastly Tales edited by Kelly and me, and it too is now coming out in paperback!

---

A Trippy Genre-Hop Featuring a Trace of Fairy Tale, a Touch of Gothic, & More

Fri 23 Aug 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., events, Kim Scott, readings| Posted by: Gavin

Not this Saturday, but the next one, Kim Scott, the first Indigenous writer to receive the Miles Franklin Award will be traveling to the USA for a series of events in support of his fourth novel, Taboo. It has been a very quick run up for us on this book: it was submitted on January 25th of this year, which makes the publication date of September 3 the equivalent of a sprint in publishing terms. Thank you! to everyone at Consortium and all our sales reps who have brought the book to booksellers’ attention, to the trade reviewers at Kirkus and Publishers Weekly and to all the indie bookstores and others who are stocking it.

Taboo is Scott’s 4th novel. In his afterword, as quoted by Kim Forrester of Reading Matters, Scott calls it a “trippy, stumbling sort of genre-hop that I think features a trace of Fairy Tale, a touch of Gothic, a sufficiency of the ubiquitous Social Realism and perhaps a touch of Creation Story” which rings true to me.

Although Scott has twice won the Miles Franklin award in his home country and Taboo received four literary awards (totalling AU$80,000) in Australia, his voice is one of those mostly missing from literary discourse in North America so I am deeply gladdened that the Australian Embassy is bringing him to the USA.

If you’re in DC on August 31 for the Library of Congress Book Festival, I hope I see you at the 10 a.m panel, “The View From Country—Australia’s Aboriginal Writers.” This will be a near unique opportunity to see these writers in the northern hemisphere.

After a trip to UVA, and before he heads to Community Bookstore in Brooklyn, Scott will come up to Western Massachusetts for a reading at Easthampton’s own White Square Books on Friday, September 6, where I hope we can show him a SRO crowd of enthusiastic, open-minded, and curious readers.

Here’s the full list of events:

Aug. 31, 10 a.m “The View From Country—Australia’s Aboriginal Writers” with Jeanine Leane and Brenton McKenna , Library of Congress Book Festival, Washington, D.C.
Sept. 3, 5:30 p.m. Reading & Signing, Brooks Hall Commons, UVA, Charlottesville, VA
Sept. 5, 6 p.m. “Truth Telling,” Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, UVA, 400 Worrell Dr., Charlottesville, VA 22911
Sept. 6, 7 p.m. White Square Books, 86 Cottage St., Easthampton, MA
Sept. 9, 12:30 p.m., NYU
Sept. 9, 7 p.m. Community Bookstore with Terr-ann White, 143 Seventh Ave, Brooklyn, NY

---

The Mount, signed by Carol Emshwiller

Thu 22 Aug 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Carol Emshwiller, Tiptree Award| Posted by: Gavin

The Tiptree Award is going to have an auction that starts August 24 but you can preview it here. Included in the auction is a very rare item, a copy of The Mount signed by the late author, Carol Emshwiller. (Is it rare? I searched on Bookfinder for a signed copy, any edition, and none came up.)

The Mount was a Nebula Award finalist, won the Philip K. Dick Award Winner, and was selected as a Best Book of the Year by Locus, Book Magazine, and the Village Voice. More recently MaryKate Jasper and Charlie Jane Anders included it in an io9 list 10 Ultra-Weird Science Fiction Novels that Became Required Reading.

It is a weird and fabulous novel. It’s rare to find one signed and the money goes to an excellent cause. Good luck with your bidding!

---

A. B. Young’s Vain Beasts in PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2019

Tue 20 Aug 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., A. B. Young, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

Today Catapult publishes PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2019, edited by three superstars writers, Carmen Maria Machado, Danielle Evans, & Alice Sola Kim.

The dozen debut authors are all winners of the $2,000 PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. The stories collected here were originally published in Alaska Quarterly Review, Auburn Avenue, Black Warrior Review, Conjunctions, Epiphany, The Iowa Review, Kweli, Nimrod Journal, The Rumpus, The Sun, and I am delighted to say, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. That story is A. B. Young’s “Vain Beasts” from LCRW 38.

With editors like these, I am very much looking forward to reading this book. Here’s a little more about it:

“Prominent issues of social justice and cultural strife are woven thematically throughout 12 stories. Stories of prison reform, the immigrant experience, and the aftermath of sexual assault make the book a vivid time capsule that will guide readers back into the ethos of 2019 for generations to come . . . Each story displays a mastery of the form, sure to inspire readers to seek out further writing from these adept authors and publications.”—Booklist

Who are the most promising short story writers working today? Where do we look to discover the future stars of literary fiction? This book offers a dozen compelling answers to these questions.

The stories collected here represent the most recent winners of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, which recognizes twelve writers who have made outstanding debuts in literary magazines in the previous year. Chosen by a panel of distinguished judges, themselves innovators of the short story form, they take us from the hutongs of Beijing to the highways of Saskatchewan, from the letters of a poet devoted to God in seventeenth-century France to a chorus of poets devoted to revolution in the “last days of empire.” They describe consuming, joyful, tragic, complex, ever-changing relationships between four friends who meet at a survivors group for female college students; between an English teacher and his student-turned-lover in Japan; between a mother and her young son.

In these pages, a woodcutter who loses his way home meets a man wearing a taxidermied wolf mask, and an Ivy League–educated “good black girl” climbs the flagpole in front of the capitol building in South Carolina. Each piece comes with an introduction by its original editors, whose commentaries provide valuable insight into what magazines are looking for in their submissions, and showcase the vital work they do to nurture literature’s newest voices.

Stories by Tamiko Beyer, Sarah Curry, Laura Freudig, Doug Henderson, Enyeribe Ibegwam, Jade Jones, Pingmei Lan, Marilyn Manolakas, Jon Paul Infante, Kelsey Peterson, Erin Singer, and A.B. Young

ABOUT THIS YEAR’S JUDGES

Danielle Evans is the author of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, which was a co-winner of the 2011 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for a Debut Short Story Collection, the winner of the 2011 Paterson Fiction Prize and the 2011 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for fiction, and an honorable mention for the 2011 PEN/Hemingway Award. She teaches in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

Alice Sola Kim is a winner of the 2016 Whiting Award. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Tin House, McSweeney’s, BuzzFeed, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy. She has received grants and scholarships from the MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Elizabeth George Foundation.

Carmen Maria Machado‘s debut short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties, was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize, the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, the World Fantasy Award, the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for a Debut Short Story Collection, and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. She is the writer in residence at the University of Pennsylvania.

---

Kim Scott in the Valley

Mon 19 Aug 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., events, Kim Scott, readings| Posted by: Gavin

We’ve just added a local reading for Australian author Kim Scott, whose novel Taboo, we are publishing next month. Kim will be reading at White Square Books, 86 Cottage St., Easthampton, MA, at 7 p.m. on Friday, September 6.

Kim is an Australian superstar and we’re hoping to get a crowd together for good nights in Easthampton and Brooklyn. Come on by!

The full list of Kim’s events is:

August 31, 10 a.m “The View From Country—Australia’s Aboriginal Writers” with Jeanine Leane and Brenton McKenna , Library of Congress Book Festival, Washington, D.C.
UVA
September 6, 7 p.m. White Square Books, 86 Cottage St., Easthampton, MA
September 9, NYU
September 9, 7 p.m. Community Bookstore, Brooklyn, NY

---

Laurie J. Marks, Brattleboro, VT Reading

Mon 5 Aug 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks, readings| Posted by: Gavin

We are happy to announce to say that next Friday (not this Friday), August 16 at 6 p.m., Laurie J. Marks will be doing a reading/signing from the final book in her Elemental Logic series, Air Logic, at Everyone’s Books (25 Eliot St., Brattleboro, VT 05301). The bookstore is getting all 4 books in the series in so it’s a great chance to pick up a signed set. Thanks to the bookstore and all those who worked to set this up!

Air Logic is a Locus Notable Book and here’s the beginning of Katherine Coldiron’s Locus review:

“You might not believe me, but this is the truth: Laurie J. Marks’s Elemental Logic books are as good as Elena Ferrante’s monumental Neapolitan Quartet. They achieve the same depth, the same spellbinding quality, and the same sense of falling entire into a world on the page, tethered to real life by the sure hand of a master writer. They expose a talent as mighty as Le Guin’s for building intricate moral dilemmas inside fantasy universes, for creating characters the reader will remember for decades, and for presenting solutions that amount to much more than throwing soldiers or magic at the problem. These books are a profound achievement in fantasy literature.”

---

Friday night: Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin

Thu 1 Aug 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ursula K. Le Guin| Posted by: Gavin

You might remember the Kickstarter for Arwen Curry’s documentary Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin. It’s been shown at festivals around the world for the past few months and on Friday August 2nd at 8 p.m. it will premiere on PBS American Masters then be available to stream for 28 days. Do not miss.

---

First Taboo trade reviews

Tue 16 Jul 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kim Scott, readings| Posted by: Gavin

In a couple of months we will publish Kim Scott’s new novel, Taboo. Those in the know, i.e. Australian readers, have given the book 4 awards and we give it an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Kim is coming to the USA in August for the Library of Congress Book Festival on August 31 — I’m going down to DC for that, see you there? — and we’re working on a reading in New York City and maybe further north. More on that and his other events closer to the actual days and in the meantime to whet your appetite, here’s a word from Publishers Weekly

“In this assured, complex novel, Scott (True Country) delves into the fraught history of race relations in Western Australia. . . .  Scott’s novel memorably describes this dramatic resurrection and the enduring power of ancestral traditions.”

and another from Kirkus Reviews:

“Scott (That Deadman Dance, 2010, etc.) has created a shadowy and elliptical story, but it is not as hopeless as it sometimes feels: Tilly is a survivor, and though her Aboriginal culture is not a perfect salvation, it nevertheless provides her with a touchstone in the chaos.”

As The Conversation says, Scott talks about events we don’t want to remember. He circles back to one in particular, which he wrote about in an earlier novel, Benang, and then fictionalizes here in Taboo. There’s an out-of-time grace to some of Scott’s writing although he shifts registers easily from humor to tense scenes where the possible outcomes are unknown and perhaps violent. Scott is one of the writers who are taking on the hard work of actually considering how to live with our pasts and, novel after novel, building a way for it to happen.

You can listen to the first two minutes read by the author here.

---

Earlier Entries in »