Cracked Egg

Wed 28 Sep 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Yesterday Kelly drove me over to Book Moon — someone was out sick so we covered while Laura was out for lunch. Saying I covered anything is a complete exaggeration. I sat at the front, poked a little at our new point-of-sale software (great, complicated, beyond me at the moment), recycled some junk mail, admired the place, and really just sat and waited. Kelly brought in a new card rack (too heavy for me, meh), signed books, wrote a shelf talker, did a lot of work. A year ago I’d be getting into everything. I was so wrung out by sitting up and paying attention that when we came home I lay on the hammock (outside, easiest surface to reach — ground was closer but getting up and down seemed a challenge), lay on a couch, got up for dinner, lay on the couch.

The good news is that this morning I had the same amount of energy as yesterday morning. A few months ago a day like yesterday (leaving the house for at most a couple of hours) would knock me down for two-to-three days. I have no idea when I’ll be well — I am so glad I don’t have to go to the store (or the office, I miss the office) today. I can go in for 1/2 an hour, one day a week. I know people go to work 5 days in a row but from here that’s like watching Serena Williams play tennis, amazing. I never was that and will never reach it, but at least my watch says my step count is ever so slowly going up.

I got home and started reading (and stared at trees and read the news on my phone and drank coconut water — prescribed by doc, yay!) Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. I’m maybe sixty pages in but it is near unputdownable. I put some on order but we’re going to have to order more because if there’s anyone like me who missed, I want them to read it!

 


One of the Best

Tue 27 Sep 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Heroes of an Unknown World cover After yesterday’s quote from Elwin on Ayize Jama-Everett’s Heroes of an Unknown World, I’m fired up to say we received another excellent advance quote this time from John Jennings, bestselling graphic novel illustrator (Kindred, After the Rain, Parable of the Sower), professor, author,curator, Harvard Fellow, and all-around champion of Black culture.

Heroes is the fourth and final of Ayize’s Liminal novels. He self-published the first one, The Liminal People, in 2009 and Nalo Hopkinson suggested he send it out way. We published our edition in 2012 and then two more in quick succession in 2015. Now that the series is complete with Heroes — where a found family of Black superheroes has one last chance to save the world — it’s time to make some noise and celebrate the series, the stories, and the writer.

All 4 novels are downloadable by reviewers and booksellers on Edelweiss — and don’t ask me why but Am*zon has the first book on super sale at $1.99.

So here’s hoping we can get some momentum going with a little bit of Tuesday joy as we build up toward the pub date in February:

“Ayize Jama-Everett is a towering talent and one of the best genre-writers working today. His final installment of his masterfully told Liminal Series; HEROES OF AN UNKNOWN WORLD is a taut, textured feast for the minds of any ravenous reader who’s looking for something fresh and exciting to experience.”


Get Out!

Mon 26 Sep 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Heroes of an Unknown World cover We just received the kind of fantastic advance comment that publishers dream about when we send out books. Everyone is too busy, everyone is overloaded, yet sometimes writers find the time to read and respond to the unending stack of advance reading copies and floods of email. Thanks to all of them! That support is invaluable — and unpaid!

So here’s a bit of Monday joy from Elwin Cotman (Dance on Saturday, Hard Times Blues) on Ayize Jama-Everett’s Heroes of an Unknown World:

“A rollicking, irreverent action sci-fi filled with anime-esque feats, a deep appreciation for culture, and sparkling humanity. Jama-Everett’s final book in the Liminal series is the kind of grandiose battle against despair I’ll gladly sign up for. Put on your favorite record, crack this one open, and tell the darkness: ‘Fuck off!'”

And then we have the version that will go out onto other websites . . .

“A rollicking, irreverent action sci-fi filled with anime-esque feats, a deep appreciation for culture, and sparkling humanity. Jama-Everett’s final book in the Liminal series is the kind of grandiose battle against despair I’ll gladly sign up for. Put on your favorite record, crack this one open, and tell the darkness: ‘get out!'”


Podcastery Times 2

Thu 22 Sep 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Podcast week part 2: this week Robert Freeman Wexler was interviewed by Rick Kleffel on Narrative Species.

Rick has been interviewing people for many years  — here’s a podcast from 2007 with me, Kelly, and Karen: News Report; Gavin Grant, Karen Joy Fowler, Kelly Link — but his enthusiasm for books still comes through along with a deep knowledge of writers, books and more. I have his recent chat with Kim Stanley Robinson lined up next.

Listen up here.

 

"Shannon, a detective working for the Llewelyn Agency out of Chicago, is recruited to find missing money intended to purchase land in Texas for refugee Romanian Jews. It seems like a straightforward job for a straightforward man. Shannon is a methodical thinker who has family in Galveston. But while his thoughts are those of a careful, entirely rational man, his dreams are not. As he becomes involved in what he calls The Silverberg Business, the weird begins edging in, first in dreams, but does not confine itself to his hours of unconsciousness. Readers will experience a similar expansion. Robert Freeman Wexler’s novel The Silverberg Business is mind-boggling in content, and in its unique ability to entertainingly take reader places they’d never expect to go."


Could Have Had a Baby or 2 By Now

Wed 21 Sep 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

tl;dr still out sick. This is my 3-month follow up my June post which was a 3-month follow up my March post:

I’m writing from my couch where I’ve been laid up since mid-December [2021] with something — most likely post-viral fatigue . . .

and I am more frustrated with the thought of writing this (or another one in 3 months time, ugh) than anything since I don’t know — maybe since I was stuck trying to write poetry to order in high school and was only able to commit doggerel whereas of course otherwise I could write pages and pages of poetry/songs/ballads/epics.

Anyway, this post brought to you by the letters C, O, U, C again, and H, as well as H and P — Harvard Pilgrim, our family health insurance provider which we pay for, being self-employed and all that. My cheery Boston-based pulmonologist, whom I’ve spoken to twice by zoom, wants me to get a CT scan. Since I’ve had an ultrasound and a chest x-ray I was happy to try and collect the full set. Just got a call from the local hospital saying my insurance has denied the request to cover it. Here on the couch I am not filled with rage, who has the energy for that? Instead I am on the edge of tears. A side effect of either my age or condition: I’m getting much better at crying. Now the cheery pumonologist has called to do battle on my behalf. I wish him luck. [Later: nope, not covered. Appointment cancelled, dr. will try again. Will wilting but meh.]

He told me that whether or not I ever had Covid, he’s including me in the post-Covid cohort as my symptoms (basically fatigue or what I feel to be uselessness) fit. He does some testing for the groups associated with a fatigue study I just read about in New Scientist which is cheering. Resting, pacing, coconut water, more salt in my diet, and recumbent exercise are all on order. Apparently there may be some physiological changes in blood flow that can be picked up during an exercise test with a pulmonary catheter placed. If I could, I’d up and run away at the thought of that but that’s out the question so maybe I will get that done at some point. So it goes.

I am in two minds (at least, always) about how much to write. I may be improving as my phone says my step count is inching up but is that just me learning how to live with this? I am still immensely physically limited.

I can do some of the Small Beer and Book Moon work that I need to do and I can help our kid (from the couch) with her homework. I can make breakfast but actual standing around cooking for any length of time is too much — I sit down if I am chopping anything, etc. I’ve been to Book Moon twice for about 20 minutes each and hope to visit once a week but even the trip there (ooh, out the house!) is exhausting. Apparently my bandwidth, for lack of a better term, is still very limited. I haven’t been to the office but Kelly collects mail every couple of weeks. Kelly does way too many things! I can’t mail things out or move books — I can send emails and so on although even there at some point every day I realize I am done and need a break as I’m not comprehending what I’m reading or unable to type more than a word without a typo. I have taken up Asphalt 8+ to pass time. I don’t think I was a hugely active person before this but I did enjoy kicking to do things off lists, going places, seeing people. Maybe in the future.

Small Beer: I am just about to send an extended edition with bonus material of Ayize Jama-Everett’s 4th and final Liminal novel, Heroes of an Unknown World, to the galley printer. 100+ indie bookstores will be getting copies along with reviewers. All four novels should be available on Edelweiss. We’re really trying to get the completion of this series celebrated in February when it comes out. The Liminal books are pageturners, full of action and also the complicated dynamics of friends and family.

————

I have gone away from this and come back to it a couple of times and there’s a disappointing lack of narrative to it, sorry, but I am at the many typos stage again so that’s it for now. Next Monday I get another vaccine booster, woo.

In my ancient mariner way, supine on the couch, I recommend wearing a mask.


Podcastery Times 1

Wed 21 Sep 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

It’s podcast week — not at Small Beer, phew — or at least podcast day as Richard Butner was just interviewed by Gil Roth on his Virtual Memories show. A couple of weeks ago Gil posted his 500th show, it’s kind of amazing to pick through the archive to see who I could listen to.

This interview took place over some kind of electronic medium — Butner’s the engineer so he would know about that part; it was almost in person in August when Butner was in NYC and NJ for readings but the scheduling did not work out. I am glad they did in the end have a chat as I enjoyed the resulting conversation. Listen to it here.

 

"1) I posted Episode #505 of The Virtual Memories Show, featuring a conversation with Richard Butner joins the show to celebrate his marvelous first book, The Adventurists and Other Stories (Small Beer Press). We get into the F&SF story that started him on the writing path, his love of the fantastic in fiction, his background in engineering & how he has to throw it out the window when it comes to writing, and the theme of return that runs through his stories and the unfinished business it implies. We also talk about his history with Sycamore Hill Writers Workshop & how he ended up running it, how critiquing others’ stories can teach you more than having your own work critiqued, and his love of the short story as a form. Plus we discuss writing & performing theater"