Ladies of Horror

Thu 30 Jun 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Yay! Congratulations Isabel Yap and Hailey Piper whose collections Never Have I Ever and Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy were jointly awarded the 2021 Ladies of Horror Award for Best Collection.


Locus Reading & Panel

Wed 22 Jun 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

As part of the Locus awards readings and celebration, Kelly will do a zoom reading on Thursday June 23 with Michael Swanwick and be on a panel on Connie Willis and Gary K. Wolfe on Saturday, June 25:

Thursday, June 23 – 4 p.m. PDT/7 p.m. ET – Reading: Kelly Link and Michael Swanwick

Saturday, June 25 – 2 p.m. PDT/5 p.m. ET – DONUT SALON: In Conversation: Kelly Link, Connie Willis, and Gary K. Wolfe (bring your own donuts!)

Jeff Ford and Sarah Pinsker are two of the many readers and panellists. Should be fun. I’ve lifted the post from the Locus site so check here for updates.

Event links at Locus Awards Online 2022 will become live at their scheduled time. Here’s the full list of events from Locus:

LOCUS AWARDS SCHEDULE

Wednesday, June 22  –
4:00 p.m. PDT–  Reading: José Pablo Iriarte and Nnedi Okorafor
5:00 p.m. PDT–  Reading: Nalo Hopkinson and Catherynne M. Valente
6:00 p.m. PDT – Reading: Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Fran Wilde
Thursday, June 23  –
4:00 p.m. PDT – Reading: Kelly Link and Michael Swanwick
5:00 p.m. PDT – Reading: Suzanne Palmer and Wole Talabi
6:00 p.m. PDT – Reading: Jeffrey Ford and Angela Slatter
Friday, June 24 –
4:00 p.m PDT – Reading: Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Cat Rambo
5:00 p.m PDT – Reading: John Wiswell and Connie Willis
6:00 p.m PDT – Online Hangout with Connie Willis and Locus folks
Saturday, June 25 –
10:00 a.m. PDT – PANEL: “Hauntings & Histories” with Akemi Dawn Bowman, TJ Klune, Darcie Little Badger, Sam J. Miller
11:00 p.m. PDT – PANEL: “Power Dynamics in New Worlds” with Daniel Abraham, C.L. Clark, Fonda Lee, Sarah Pinsker
12:00 p.m. PDT – PANEL: “Writing Rules and How to Break Them” with Charlie Jane Anders, Charles Payseur, Sheree Renée Thomas, A.C. Wise
2:00 p.m. PDT – DONUT SALON: In Conversation: Kelly Link, Connie Willis, and Gary K. Wolfe
(bring your own donuts!)
3:00 p.m. PDT – LOCUS AWARDS CEREMONY with MC Connie Willis

 

*Memberships include a set digital subscription to the magazine, from our February 2022 issue (our Year-in-Review issue with Recommended Reading List and Poll and Survey) to August 2022 (with the Locus Awards photo coverage and writeup) and everything in between. Member subscription is non-transferable and does not affect or extend existing subscriptions.

Connie Willis
MC Connie Willis

Locus Supports Inclusivity! Thinking of attending? Please do. We encourage people of color, women, people with disabilities, older people, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people to attend. We welcome people of any gender identity or expression, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, age, size, nationality, religion, culture, education level, and self-identification. Locus associate editor Arley Sorg will serve as our PoC/LGBTQQIA Ombudsman.  Feel free to reach out to him in advance at locus@locusmag.com subject: Arley Ombudsman. Our Code of Conduct is available here: Locus Science Fiction Foundation Code of Conduct.


Not so shoddy

Tue 21 Jun 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

In preparation for the next issue of LCRW — we’re working on it, but, I’m a little slower than ever — we’ve read most submissions up to about a month ago. Responses, even to stories that are embarrassingly old which I have moved again and again into the maybe stack have either gone out by mail or email.

Reading for the next issue begins when this issue is out, if not before. Turns out reading subs (slowly, meh) on a hammock is one thing I can do these days.

I also tidied up the LCRW subscription page for the first time in a while. Got rid of an html table which was beginning* to look a bit too shoddy.** At some point a proper update is needed but thanks in the meantime to everyone who has ever subscribed through that page. I’ve tested the new version and all the links should work.

Now to the fun part: getting some more chocolate bars in!

* as of 2014 or so
** these yarns (cough) aren’t shoddy, they’re top notch!


Such a punch!

Mon 20 Jun 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

This week on on Book Riot’s Under the Radar SFF podcast Jenn and Sharifah discuss many interesting books (including Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel) and other things including a review of Alaya Dawn Johnson’s Reconstruction: Stories.

Alaya was recently chosen to co-write the first story in Janelle Monáe’s New York Times bestselling first book The Memory Librarian.

I enjoyed he podcast so much I used the voice memo app on my phone and then the dictation app on my laptop to make this lightly edited transcript. It’s definitely not 100% accurate as I was looking to capture the description of this book I love more than keep it to 100% of what was said. You can listen to the full episode or subscribe here:

Alaya Dawn Johnson is a writer whose career I have been happily following for some times now. This collection is such a punch. From the opening story right on through it is putting you on notice. You’re gonna go some places here and you’re not gonna be able to look away. It’s an amazing collection.
The title story is the last story in the collection and the longest  in the collection. It takes place during the end of the Civil War in the United States. You’re following a black woman who is a laundress, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, and now following a regiment of black soldiers. It’s really good. That character, Sally, is so justifiably angry but one of the through lines of the story is a breakdown of the different kinds of anger and what they do to you and why you cling to them and how they affect you and how you move through the world through these different forms of anger. It’s so insightful and perceptive and so visceral and present.
The first story is such a punch. It’s called “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawaii” and it imagines a world — sort of our time — in which vampires are in charge and have enslaved humanity and put them in camps and are breeding them as a food supply and our main character is an overseer who is a human working for the vampires. So it’s about coercion and collaboration, what does it mean to survive? What does it mean to try to carve out enough power to do the good that you can while knowing that you are perpetuating harm? It’s so intense. It’s beautifully written.
The stories are not easy and I think they’re not supposed to be. I think Johnson is doing so much in here. There’s a huge range of what speculative elements she’s using between the stories and the tones shift and the settings shift. Each story is very different. They are so good. She is such good short story writer — she’s also an excellent novelist — but you really feel the power of her short fiction in this collection. And there’s a really interesting author note at the end.


Adventurists and Businesses on the Road

Fri 17 Jun 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

We’re busy with Robert Freeman Wexler setting up readings for his forthcoming novel The Silverberg Business as well as with Richard Butner setting up a couple of NYC area events for The Adventurists.

So far for the very strange historical Texas business book, there are two readings set up — the first at $2 Radio HQ, oh, how I’d love to get there with none other than short story superstar Jeffrey Ford, and ah, now there are 3! A Jo-Beth Cincinnati reading was just finalized. There should be a Chicago reading coming and then, of course, given the Texan nature of the business at hand, events in Austin, Houston, and maybe Galveston. More TK, as I am wont to say.

Aug. 23, 8 p.m. Two Dollar Radio HQ, Columbus, OH — with Jeffrey Ford
Aug. 27, 8 p.m. The Emporium, Yellow Springs, OH
Aug. 29, 7 p.m. Joseph-Beth,  Cincinnati, OH — in conversation with Rebecca Kuder

Richard Butner is leaving North Carolina — but only temporarily! — and will be in NYC at the fabled KGB Bar for the fantastic fiction series with a friend, New York city native, and excellent writer, Veronica Schanoes, and the second over the water (but not very far) in Hoboken, at the outstanding indie bookstore, Little City Books:

Aug 17, 7 p.m. Richard Butner & Veronica Schanoes, KGB Fantastic Fiction, KGB Bar, NYC
Aug 18, 7 p.m. Little City Books, Hoboken, NJ

The Adventurists cover - click to view full size The Silverberg Business cover - click to view full size


6 Months in a Leaky Boat

Wed 15 Jun 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

This is a 3-month follow up my March post:

I’m writing from my couch where I’ve been laid up since mid-December with something — most likely post-viral fatigue. In the first week of December I had a small cold(?) and had multiple negative Covid results.

which was a 3-month update on me succumbing to some kind of post-viral something last December. The stunning accuracy of my self-diagnosis is the same as it was then.

Now it’s early summer and as I was then, I’m writing this lying flat on our couch. I can lie around and do a little bit of work but I can’t lift a box of books (ha ha ha. No chance) or do most of the things I’d usually do. I walk around very slowly. My max is about about 200 yards and then I regret having walked so far as going back takes twice as long. If I do anything physical or a lively phone or zoom call that will be me flat on the couch for 2-3 hours (or, worst case: 2-3 days, ugh) doing nothing. I haven’t worked at Book Moon — or the Small Beer office — since December and do I miss it.

I’m taking more vitamins and supplements than I ever have. Do they work? Don’t know. I’ll try just about anything now. Talked to my doc today who’s referring me to a post-COVID clinic in Boston — after previous cardio, rheumatology, and neuro referrals.

Small Beer: we’ve slowed down on publishing — Ayize’s 4th and final Liminal novel, Heroes of an Unknown World, was too much for me this month. It’s needs more energy behind it so we moved it to February. (Don’t ask me why as it’s not us, but the ebook is onsale at a certain website for $1.99.) We’re at the contract stage with a few more 2023/2024 titles and I’m working — even slower than usual — on the new LCRW.

I have no idea of my prognosis. Maybe this is middle age for me or maybe this is long covid. If it’s the latter (I am 2 x vaxxed, 2 x boosted), good golly, wear a mask.

ETA: thank you for lovely emails, comments, support. I would be completely pancaked out on the floor but for Kelly’s patience, love, and advocacy — please spare her a thought as I lie here, yes, on the damn couch.

 


Ladies of Horror Fiction Award Nominees

Fri 10 Jun 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Frightfully happy to see Isabel Yap’s Never Have I Ever on the 2021 Ladies of Horror Fiction Award Nominee list for Best Collection and her story “Syringe” from her collection on the Best Short Fiction list. Congratulations to all the nominees!
Never Have I Ever cover - click to view full size