2023 Warehouse Sale Is On!

Wed 17 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Here we go, it’s book bundle time! Order early — in case, fingers crossed, we run out!

 

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Tomorrow

Tue 16 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Tomorrow I’ll post a link to our 2023 Warehouse Clearance Sale. Then I will lie back on the couch* and hope that the word spreads far and many books are bought so that our monthly warehouse charges drop. They’ve been just slightly too high and as I continue to be slowed down fingers crossed this works out.

* Inaccurate: already lying back on couch.

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Brilliant Reds and Greens and Purples

Wed 10 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Anya DeNiro| Posted by: Gavin

We received a lovely note from Isaac Fellman, author of Dead Collections, on Anya Johanna DeNiro’s forthcoming short novel OKPsyche:

“OKPsyche is a spectacular novel, like a shard of stained glass in brilliant reds and greens and purples. DeNiro shows us the impossible and the possible with equal honesty. The book is a chronicle of hope and hurt and freedom, suffused with anxiety and grace, and told in prose that just won’t quit. It’s major. You’ll remember where you were when you read it.”

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Next week we’re going to run a sale

Tue 9 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Heads up!

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Set the World on Fire

Mon 8 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kathleen Jennings| Posted by: Gavin

And now, with the release of the cover art for Kathleen Jennings’s debut collection, Kindling, all our forthcoming 2023 books have covers.

The art is by Kathleen herself and features a slightly different take on some of her trademark lino cut art. Kathleen will post about her side of the process on her blog, which I always recommend to see an artist in action.

Kindling comes out in October when the trees here in Western Mass will be matching the matchbox on the cover January 2024. It has a baker’s dozen of fairy tales and more. We’ll put the full table of contents online soon. In the meantime, here’s the rather striking cover:

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Heartfelt and Uncanny

Thu 4 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Anya DeNiro| Posted by: Gavin

Delighted to say report that we received a fabulous quote for Anya DeNiro’s forthcoming OKPsyche from Morgan M. Page, screenwriter of Framing Agnes:

“Tense and funny, heartfelt and uncanny, Anya Johanna DeNiro takes us on an hallucinogenic tour through the mind of a woman on the edge. Guided by strange angels or losing touch with reality — either way, it’s happening to you!”

And then I saw this lovely early review on Edelweiss from a bookseller, Sam Edge at Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill:

“An allegorical and lyrical short novel about a transgender woman struggling to belong in a near future populated by emotional support robots and a ceaseless slew of environmental disasters. DeNiro writes with a complexity that reflects the internal emotional struggles of her unnamed protagonist as she fights for happiness and a better relationship with her young son. A uniquely told and refreshingly weird story of self-realization and the courage it takes to love.”

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Wristlet Delays

Wed 3 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

In fun news we ran out of LCRW 46 so I’ve sent it back to the printer and once it’s back we’ll be able to catch up on shipping.

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Get Lost

Tue 2 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

No, really.

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Lost Places

Tue 2 May 2023 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

trade paper · 288 pages · $18 · 9781618731999 | ebook · 9781618732002

A new collection from the author of Nebula Award winning A Song for a New Day and Philip K Dick Award winning Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea.

Locus Award finalist · Slate: Best of the Year · Book Riot Best Fantasy Books of 2023

A half-remembered children’s TV show. A hotel that shouldn’t exist. A mysterious ballad. A living flag. A group of girls goes camping. Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author Sarah Pinsker’s second collection brings together a seemingly eclectic group of stories that unite behind certain themes: her touchstones of music and memory are joined by stories about secret subversions and hidden messages in art, lost routes, last chances. Her stories span and transcend genre labels, looking for the truth in strange situations from possible futures to impossible pasts.

Watch a reading: NYRSF on YouTube

Interview: JMMW

Read a story: Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather

Reviews

A Publishers Weekly Pick of the Week

“When it comes to keeping you guessing, Sarah Pinsker is no slouch. Her new collection, Lost Places, puts extremely memorable characters into bewildering situations. As that ‘lost’ in the title suggests, many of these stories involve people who’ve misplaced themselves: in the wilderness, in the fog of dementia, in strange circumstances. Pinsker’s characters always make the best of tricky situations, which only makes their struggles in her topsy-turvy worlds more heartbreaking.
Some the stories in Lost Places are unsettling: There are swimming holes that make people disappear, and a sinister version of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood whose host tells stories that warp the fates of the children in his studio audience. But there are also stirring tales of rebellion, in which ordinary people escape from confinement, organize their neighbors to protest injustice and speak out against abuses.”
— Charlie Jane Anders, Washington Post

“Loss has infinite meanings in Sarah Pinsker’s second short fiction collection (after Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea), detailing characters’ escapes within and from eerie childhood TV shows (‘Two Truths and a Lie’), the modern liner notes of a song lyrics website (‘Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather’), and silent films (‘A Better Way of Saying’). Gathering wildly inventive speculative tales published everywhere from Uncanny to Strange Horizons to Tor.com, Lost Places also invites readers to immerse themselves in a brand-new story: ‘Science Facts!’, which recalls childhood Girl Scout trips where you were certain that there was something beyond spooky lurking in the woods.
— Natalie Zutter, Lithub

“Contagious enthusiasm for story.” — Gary K. Wolfe, Locus

“It’s a compelling vision, and one that feels distinctly of the moment, as entire species are forcibly disappeared and mass media juggernauts sling their own libraries into oblivion. But, though things look grim, there is still a desire for art, a need for community, and possibility for new experiences in this world of destruction and decay. For all the apposite fears and bleak predictions encoded in her work, Pinsker is producing some of the most enjoyable science fiction in the English-speaking world. . . . It absolutely soars.” — William Shaw, Strange Horizons

“Pinsker’s latest collection includes her Hugo Award–winning story ‘Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather,’ a folklore-esque mystery told through the annotations and comment chains of a song-lyrics website, and new story ‘Science Facts!’ in which a group of girls on an orienteering trip step into a forest that holds some eerie secrets. Pinsker is as prescient as ever, digging into the questions we’ve been asking ourselves over the past few years: What are we willing to sacrifice to be comfortable? What are the dangers of increasing digitization and gamification of everyday needs, or of even the best-intentioned surveillance? In ‘That Our Flag Was Still There,’ every day, a person must be a human flag, drugged with patriotism; in ‘Escape from Caring Seasons,’ a woman must escape a largely automated elder care community that is holding her wife prisoner. The stories are queer, hopeful, and eerie, celebrating the rebellious spirits of both immortal-feeling youth and resilient elder protagonists. These stories are inspired by the rhythms of jazz, the inspiration behind art, the power of speaking aloud. It’s a worthy follow-up to her first short story collection that fans of Charlie Jane Anders and Sarah Gailey will enjoy.”
—Leah von Essen, Booklist (starred review)

“This remarkable collection of 12 speculative shorts from Pinsker (Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea) places celebrated favorites and hidden gems side by side. The volume is nearly bookended by two of the author’s best known and most lauded works: the deliciously unsettling opener ‘Two Truths and a Lie’ and the formally playful penultimate tale ‘Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather,’ both of which won both Hugo and Nebula awards. Perhaps even more exciting, however, are the pieces that received less fanfare upon original publication, like ‘I Frequently Hear Music in the Very Heart of Noise,’ a lyrical collage that gathers musicians and writers from different eras in New York City and brings them together for a single ecstatic night, and ‘Remember This for Me,’ a poignant tale of an artist whose muse is faithful even if her memory isn’t. The collection closes with a thrilling original novelette ‘Science Facts!’ about a backpacking trip that grows increasingly disquieting. The result is sure to beguile speculative fiction fans—and anyone who appreciates a well-crafted story.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A collection of sometimes-unsettling tales that champion the power of the individual voice. . . . All together, these stories explore the aspects of our world that can’t be reduced to algorithms—the individual voice, the power of connection, and the larger, stranger mysteries we may encounter but never fully understand. . . . strange, sometimes haunting, and ultimately empowering stories.
— Kirkus Reviews

Table of Contents

Two Truths and a Lie
That Our Flag Was Still There
I Frequently Hear Music in the Very Heart of Noise
The Court Magician [Read by LeVar Burton]
Everything Is Closed Today
Left the Century to Sit Unmoved [audio]
Escape from Caring Seasons
A Better Way of Saying
Remember This for Me
The Mountains His Crown
Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather
Science Facts!

Praise for Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea

“Compelling science fiction and fantasy stories, many featuring LGBTQIA characters, some about music. Anyone with a common name will appreciate this collection’s culminating story, ‘And Then There Were (N-One).’” — Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, Best Books of 2019

“When I got to the last page I was already looking forward to rereading them. Highly recommended.”—Charles de Lint, The Magazine Of Fantasy and Science Fiction

“Compelling science fiction and fantasy.” — Des Moines Register

“Sarah Pinsker’s debut short story collection is speculative and strange, exploring such wide-ranging scenarios as a young man receiving a prosthetic arm with its own sense of identity, a family welcoming an AI replicate of their late Bubbe into their home, or an 18th century seaport town trying to survive a visit by a pair of sirens —all while connecting them in a book that feels cohesive. The stories are insightful, funny, and imaginative, diving into the ways humans might invite technology into their relationships.” — Arianna Rebolini, BuzzFeed

“This was my first time reading Pinsker, and she BLEW MY MIND. . . . These 13 stories are wildly original and, frankly, jaw-dropping. A man’s new prosthetic arm dreams that it is a road in Colorado; the dream children of childless parents sun themselves on the rocks like seals; a rock star washes up on an island, where she is rescued by a recluse. So. Many. Amazing. Stories. My favorite might be the last story, in which a bunch of Sarah Pinskers attend a writer’s conference, where one of them is murdered. Every story was unlike anything I had read before, as well as smart and fun, which is everything I want from a story collection. RUN, DON’T WALK.” — Liberty Hardy, Bookriot

“Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea cannot be recommended enough for fans of LGBT+ sci-fi and fantasy. Pinsker’s collection has such a range and depth to it storytelling and emotional resonance that the reader will be left in complete awe after reading any chosen story.” — Alexander Carrigan, Lambda Literary

“One of the year’s most anticipated collections is even better than advertised.” — Joe Sherrry, Nerds of a Feather

“A must-have first collection.” — Rich Horton, Locus

“A voice resonant with feeling and desire.” — Gary K. Wolfe, Locus

“This collection from an exciting new voice in speculative fiction is both haunting and hopeful.” —Booklist (starred review)

“This beautiful, complex debut collection assembles some of Nebula winner Pinsker’s best stories into a twisting journey that is by turns wild, melancholic, and unsettling.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A collection whose musing visions none should try to resist.” — Foreword Reviews (starred review)

Earlier

May 2, 7 p.m. Launch party! Bird in Hand, 11 East 33rd Street, Baltimore, MD 21218
July 13 – 16 Readercon, Boston, MA
July 18, 7 p.m. Barrow’s Intense Tasting Room, 86th 34th Street, Brooklyn, NY
— with Jeffrey Ford, Brian Trent, & Michael Swanwick
Aug. 12, 3 p.m. Bakka Phoenix Books, Toronto, Canada
Sept. 29 – Oct. 1 Capclave Guest of Honor

Cover illustration: Thomas Baldwin, Airopaidia (1786)

Biographical Note:

Sarah Pinsker‘s first novel, A Song For A New Day, won the Nebula Award, and her first short fiction collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea won the Philip K Dick Award. She is also a singer/songwriter who toured nationally behind four albums on various independent labels. She has wrangled horses, managed grants, taught writing to college students, and tended bar badly. She lives with her wife and two rescued terriers in Baltimore, Maryland. Find her online at sarahpinsker.com and on Bluesky @sarahpinsker.

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3 Questions: Juan Martinez

Mon 10 Apr 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., 3 Questions, Juan Martinez| Posted by: Gavin

Earlier this fast-moving year, we celebrated Juan Martinez publishing his first novel, Extended Stay. We’d published Juan’s short story collection, Best Worst American, a few years before and we’re always going to celebrate a new book by an author we’ve published. I was curious about the title so I sent Juan a few not very serious questions — plus a request for some book recommendations. For an actual, decent interview, here’s Tobias Carroll’s on Vol.1 Brooklyn.

What’s his first novel about? Publisher’s Weekly summed it up this way:

“Martinez’s impressive debut — part of the University of Arizona’s Camino del Sol series, which spotlights Latinx authors — reads like a collaboration between Lewis Carroll and H.P. Lovecraft, from an idea by Stephen King. This is a fresh and stunning winner.”

Gavin: You may have covered this in another interview, sorry: have you ever lived in an extended stay hotel? 

Juan: I don’t think anyone’s asked, actually! I totally did live in an extended hotel during my first two weeks in Las Vegas: it was a Budget Suites of America that had lost its franchise rights, so they put a tarp over “Budget,” possibly over “Suites.” I may have stayed in an “of America.” It was rough. They did have free coffee and there was this real effort on the part of the manager to keep the place nice — the lobby, at least. And anyone who had lived there a while had clearly made an effort to keep their area kind of nice. I remember a window that had a bunch of lighthouses neatly arranged. You did what you could to make the place yours.

GG: Are there other meanings that should be read into the title, such as trying to get a dog to sit while you walk 20 yards with their ball?

JM: The title does have a bunch of other meanings — or does suggest some other meanings. I’ll take the dog one! There’s also the whole bit about one overextending a tourist visa to circumvent immigration policies (the siblings do this in the novel). But there’s also the whole experience of leaving your home country for another place: there’s a sense, at least for a while, that you’re just, you know, extending a visit, that the whole experience is temporary, that eventually you’ll make your way back to your “real” home.

GG: What is it about horror that pulls you in?

JM: I love the nightmare logic of horror: how surreal horror can get, how it helps narratives navigate and blur the border between the world of the senses and whatever’s beyond that. I’m also just grateful for horror — I read so much of it, so much Peter Straub and Stephen King and Ramsey Campbell when I was a teenager and super sick — and I wanted to go back to that feeling of deep immersion in darkness. It was just such a wonderful way to navigate my own trauma back then, and now, even. Horror is just so good at that.

GG: One bonus question: Have you read anything good recently?

JM: I’m halfway through Elizabeth McKenzie’s The Dog of the North & Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions For You — they’re both excellent! As is Nathan Ballingrud’s The Strange. I also can’t say enough good things about George Gissing’s New Grub Street, a brutal novel about writing and money and the publishing crisis. It’s a 19th-century novel but it turns out things were right back then too.

GG: Thanks, Juan!

Pick up Extended Stay from Women & Children First or Bookshop.org.

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Richard Butner in NYC: 4/10

Fri 7 Apr 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., readings, Richard Butner| Posted by: Gavin

I know New York City is pretty much dead on a Monday night and everyone sits on their stoops just wishing there was a place they could go to get a decent cocktail and listen to some good stories. I am delighted to say that this coming Monday will be much less boring than normal as Leopoldo Gout, Karen Heuler, Randee Dawn, & Richard Butner get together at the Someday Bar for the #YeahYouWriteSTRANGE reading. Doors open at 6 p.m., it’s at 364 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11217, there’s no cover, just weird fiction!

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White Cat, Black Dog

Tue 28 Mar 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin

We’re celebrating as today Kelly’s new collection White Cat, Black Dog comes out!

Kelly will be reading at the Brookline Booksmith tonight, followed by a q&a with Holly Black and at Greenlight Bookstore on April 4, followed by a q&a with Carmen Maria Machado. There are also a couple of online events — including one with Leigh Bardugo on Friday, March 30.

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The Curator

Fri 10 Mar 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Owen King expanded his story “The Curator” — first published in LCRW 31 — into a novel which came out this week. He’ll be at Book Moon next week, Thursday, March 16, on his way to his in-person reading and then Q&A with Kelly at 7 pm at the Odyssey. Maybe we can get him to sign some LCRWs, too.

Here’s part of Dexter Palmer’s review of The Curator in the NYT and then Kelly’s comments:

“[The Curator] has its own smooth lyricism and evocative imagery, helping the book’s pages turn quickly. King has a knack for colorful metaphors and thoughtfully considered perspective. This novel is richly imagined, its surface pleasures deliberately subverted by the bleak suggestion at its core: that a successful organized attempt to reduce inequity will have to overcome not just the inertia of a nation’s politics, but human nature.” —The New York Times

“The Curator feels a little like Owen King somehow brought a curiosity cabinet to life. There are terrors here, but also marvels and delights, and a set of the most interesting characters I’ve met in some time. Put The Curator on the same shelf as other classics of the uncanny and uncategorizable, like Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi and Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast. I loved it.” —Kelly Link, bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Get in Trouble

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Ayize in Locus & @ City Lights

Fri 3 Mar 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ayize Jama-Everett, Liminals, readings| Posted by: Gavin

Pick up this month’s Locus and you’ll see on the cover there’s an interview with Ayize Jama-Everett — there’s also an interview with Nisi Shawl and a review of Sarah Pinsker’s Lost Places, and so much more — which covers his novels, comics, the craft of writing, Black joy, and more:

And City Lights just posted their excellent reading and Q&A event with Ayize Jama-Everett & Tân Khánh which I recommend for a relaxed and fascinating chat:

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Closed to book submissions

Wed 1 Mar 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Long Covid| Posted by: Gavin

We have slowed down our publishing schedule and as of today, March 1, we are closed to book submissions for the foreseeable future.

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History of the Alternate Present

Tue 14 Feb 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ayize Jama-Everett| Posted by: Gavin

Please send cakes, high-altitude balloons, plaudits and so on to Ayize Jama-Everett to celebrate the publication of his latest novel, the fourth and final Liminal novel, Heroes of an Unknown World.

We asked some writers for their thoughts on the book and they sum up the books better than I can:

“The Liminal Books deserve a place on the bookshelf alongside ambitious fantasy series like Marlon James’s Dark Star Trilogy and N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy. Big, ambitious, wildly inventive and full of heart. Heroes of an Unknown World displays the voice and verve that are staples of Ayize Jama-Everett’s work. Dive in, you will love what you discover.”
—Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling

“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.”
— John Jennings

“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!’”
— Elwin Cotman

 

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Heroes of an Unknown World

Tue 14 Feb 2023 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

trade paper · 320 pages · $17 · 9781618731975 | ebook · 9781618731982 | Trailer

In the final Liminal novel, a found family of Black superheroes has one last chance to save the world.

The Liminal People · The Entropy of Bones · The Liminal War · Heroes of an Unknown World

New: Ayize interviewed on FanFiAddict.

Read: Locus interview · Watch: City Lights event

After traveling back in time to rescue his fostered daughter, Taggert has returned to the present and found himself in his favorite place: up against the wall. But the world they’ve returned to is not the one they left: everything is slightly grayer, the music is boring, joy is just out of reach. The liminals’ entropic enemies, the Alters, are trying to bring about the end of the world by sucking the life — literally — out of enough people to tip the balance their way.

Traveling from Jamaica to London to Indonesia to the heart of the whirlwind in the desert at the heart of all deserts, Taggert and his found family of liminals and supporters have to find a way to bring back the joy before they’re all ground down into the gray dust.

Reviews

“The decision is shocking, and it highlights one of the key themes of the book: we are all imperfect, broken, compromised. The salvation of the world has fallen to Taggert and his team, and they are choosing to answer the call—but neither they nor the reader should be under any illusion that this makes them good guys. They’re not good now, and maybe they never can be. It’s just that they’re all they’ve got. Taggert and Tamara and Prentis are powerful, sure, but the most important thing they are is passionate.”
— Jenny Hamilton, Strange Horizons

“A prescient examination of issues pressing hard upon our actual reality, Heroes of an Unknown World is a necessary addition to the genre and will be devoured and adored by the most hardcore of readers.”
— Sal A. Joyce, Booklist

“The Liminal Books deserve a place on the bookshelf alongside ambitious fantasy series like Marlon James’s Dark Star Trilogy and N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy. Big, ambitious, wildly inventive and full of heart. Heroes of an Unknown World displays the voice and verve that are staples of Ayize Jama-Everett’s work. Dive in, you will love what you discover.”
—Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling

“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.”
— John Jennings

“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!’”
— Elwin Cotman

“Therapist and theologian Jama-Everett takes his group of Black superheroes from 1970s London to contemporary Morocco in the fascinating and action-packed final Liminal novel (after The Liminal War). Liminals possess supernatural powers, among them central figure Taggert’s ability to manipulate DNA to harm and heal; his adopted daughter Prentis’s empathy with animals; and wind spirit A.C.’s power over the elements. Taggert and his seven major allies must finally defeat the beautiful but monstrous Alters, who work to drive all of humanity to lemming-like suicide by creating a physically and spiritually depressed new world. In breathlessly paced adventures told from ever-shifting perspectives, Jama-Everett celebrates the power of family, community, and music to unite peoples and combat entropy, using dramatic flashbacks to illustrate the salvific power of self-sacrifice for a greater good. His fictionalization of the role psychedelics (here “manna,” the food of the gods) can play in mental health and clear conviction that writing can heal those whom mainstream culture has ignored add depth to the rip-roaring action. Series fans and new readers alike are sure to be drawn in.” — Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Ayize Jama-Everett (ayizejamaeverett.com) was born in Harlem, New York. He has traveled extensively in Northern Africa, Northern California, and Oaxaca, Mexico. He holds three Master’s degrees (Divinity, Psychology, and Creative Writing), and has worked as a bookseller, professor, and therapist. He has a firm desire to create stories that people want to read. He believes the narratives of our times dictate future realities; he’s invested in working subversive notions like family of choice, striving when not chosen to survive, and irrational optimism into his creations. His four-book Liminal series has been published by Small Beer Press. His graphic novel, The Box of Bones, with noted artist John Jennings was published by Rosarium Publishing and his graphic novel with Tristan Roach, The Last Count of Monte Cristo, was published by Abrams Press. Shorter works can be found in The Believer, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Racebaitr.

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Lost Places: May Pub Date, Second Star

Thu 2 Feb 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

We have moved the publication date of Sarah Pinsker’s forthcoming collection, Lost Places, from March to May 2.

In better news, the book just received its second starred review, this from Booklist:

“Pinsker’s latest collection includes her Hugo Award–winning story ‘Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather,’ a folklore-esque mystery told through the annotations and comment chains of a song-lyrics website, and new story ‘Science Facts!’ in which a group of girls on an orienteering trip step into a forest that holds some eerie secrets. . . .  The stories are queer, hopeful, and eerie, celebrating the rebellious spirits of both immortal-feeling youth and resilient elder protagonists.”
—Leah von Essen

 

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The Patreon I Didn’t

Wed 1 Feb 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Recently I’ve been finding that after sending some emails, instead of them being sent, they mysteriously end up back in Drafts. I’m using a gmail account (why did webhosts give up offering email?) and Apple’s Mail app on my 2020 Mac laptop if anyone has any clue. I am guessing the years and years of email have added up and the system is just slow so that when I hit send, it is not live-saved so goes to Drafts. Which sounds as if I know what I might be talking about. But I don’t.

Anyway, back in 2014 I was thinking about starting a Patreon — I liked the way Clarkesworld and some other people were using it and thought it could be a good additional support for the press, as well as being fun. I made a video (somewhere) and apparently wrote this up as an email. I’m always wondering whether we should do this or that thing, buy AOL, sell our New York skyscraper HQ, drive across the country hand-delivering our books, etc., etc. I do like the line below about every dollar being a 92 cents we don’t have to pay on rent. (There is a fabulous anonymous reader out there who sends us a month’s rent ever year: what an amazing surprise, what a gift that’s been!)

Turns out we published 5 originals, 2 Peter Dickinson reprints, a chapbook by Greer Gilmans, plus 2 ebooks of Howard Waldrop’s Old Earth Books collections that year (12 ebooks). We didn’t, suffice to say, ever launch a Patreon and now since I’m thinking about what else I can do to slow everything down here to my new slow levels, we won’t be any time soon. But this amused me, so maybe it will amuse here:

———————————————————

We publish weird and awesome books. We’re the publisher of first resort for half a dozen or so of the best books every year and we’d like to send them—either in print or ebook form—to you!

Some of our books sell by the truckload, some don’t! But: they’re all hands down page turners each in their own unique way. Note: none of them is the most unique, because as you know uniqueness can’t be quantified.

Why Patreon? Well, we never did set up a subscription option for our books—the LCRW sub gets in the way—and we never managed a Kickstarter (there was that lunch I was going to do and then the crosscountry tour—but that’s a different post) but we do manage to put books out on a semi-consistent manor, so, hey, why not? Sign up, get books!
​
​FAQ
​
​Q. You sell books, right?
A. Yes! And this way you will get them slightly before anyone else!
​
​Q. How often do you publish books?
A. For 2014 we are on track to publish 7 books, 1 chapbook, 2 issues of our zine, LCRW, and ebooks of each (10 ebooks).
​
​Q. Is it worth backing this at the one dollar a month level?
​A. Yes! Support us at $1 a month and suddenly our office rent has just dropped by $0.92! (After Patreon’s cut) Less rent: more $$ and time for ads/publicity = more books sold = happy authors = universe collapses into itself at the sight of a happy author.
​
​

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Cozy!

Tue 24 Jan 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Karen Lord| Posted by: Gavin

Isabelle Popp put up a very tempting list of books over on Book Riot, 20 Must-Read Cozy Fantasy Books, which included Karen Lord’s Redemption in Indigo along with many other inviting reads:

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Two for Texas

Thu 19 Jan 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Robert Freeman Wexler| Posted by: Gavin

Two items popped up this week from the grizzled weird part of Texas: first, Tobias Carroll interviewed Robert Freeman Wexler, Skulls, Detectives, and the Texas Surreal in Vol. 1 Brooklyn (“There’s a point early on in Robert Freeman Wexler‘s novel The Silverberg Business where you might have an idea of where things are heading. . . .”) then Vick Mickunas’s WYSO Christmas Day interview popped up online — although I think the audio file will actually appear in a day or two.

 

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SBP BS Bestsellers

Fri 6 Jan 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Bestsellers, Naomi Mitchison, Nathan Ballingrud, Sarah Rees Brennan| Posted by: Gavin

2022 was an odd year for the press. I am working at 1/4-speed, we published fewer books and while we did 2 issues of LCRW the mailing has been delayed into the new year as the Book Moon peeps are doing inventory.

In BookScan news — the BS above — here are our top 14 bestsellers of 2022. I imagine many readers of this post will have read a good number of the books on this list. Sometimes our books hit right away (In Other Lands), sometimes they grow and grow (North American Lake Monsters), sometimes they go away and come back (Travel Light). 

2023 will be a good book year. Looking forward to it.

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