Ayize @ ALA, July 1

Wed 26 Jun 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Ayize Jama-Everett (Heroes of an Unknown World) will be winging his way down to San Diego next Monday to take part in a panel at 2024 ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition:

How the World Might Be: Speculative Fiction, Horror, and the Endless Possibilities of Genre Fiction

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Speculative fiction, horror, and sci-fi offer endless possibilities for future worlds – so then why is so much of this genre associated with outdated tropes? In this diverse panel of authors and publishers, we’ll talk about how libraries can maintain a strong collection of genre fiction, and why speculative fiction can still give us hope in the bleakest times.

Panelists: Esme Addison, author of An Intrigue of Witches (Severn House); Bill Campbell, writer, editor, and owner of Rosarium Publishing; Ayize Jama-Everett, author of Heroes of an Unknown World (Small Beer Press); M. M. Olivas, author of Sundown in San Ojuela (Lanternfish Press); Jim Ruland, author of Make It Stop (Rare Bird); Sharon Virts, author of The Grays of Truth (Flashpoint); and moderated by Beth Reinker, manager of Collection Development Curation for Ingram Library Services.

Monday, July 1, 2024 

11:30 AM- 12:20 PM 

Stage: Diversity in Publishing Stage (Booth 2250)

There was a good and thoughtful review of Ayize’s most recent one by Jenny Hamilton on Strange Horizons:

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.
What does it take to save the world — even if it’s not as you know it? Friends, frenemies, family, sacrifice, and a hell of a party.


Approving Proofs, Short Run Printing

Tue 25 Jun 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Just like old days here: sent two books to the short run printer before breakfast — 1 box of Laurie J. Marks’s Fire Logic for Book Moon, 5 boxes for our distro; along with another 3 boxes of Geoff Ryman’s Was. Both books generally receive a small annual boost from Pride Month, which — from a publishing and personal standpoint — heartlifting.

Was is also taught in a couple of universities. If you’ve visited our table at AWP or, really, almost any bookfair, in the last 10 years I may have tried to put this book in your hands. It is a heartbreaker, an absolute unstoppable train that no matter how many times I reread it, I keep hoping the end will be different. It wasn’t ever a book I expected we would reprint but then, after we published the US edition of The King’s Last Song we were able to pick up the rights. And I keep re-reading it, and keep hoping. So many readers have found the same. Ack. What a book.

I started this meaning to write 2 lines: one about reprinting books, the other about approving printer proofs. I am not sure when I’ll next do this so there’s an odd feel to it. What used to be a run-of-the-mill task now holds an extra weight. The proofs are for the limited edition of Kelly’s novel, The Book of Love, and are for the endpapers, the signing sheet, the illustrations, the onlays, and the text, and I am not sure we’ll get them all approved today. Luckily for the two of us, this (hmm, somewhat mentally exhausting, there goes the day!) work also qualifies as fun.


Slow Moving

Fri 21 Jun 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

LCRW 48 comes along very slowly caused entirely by my laptop keyboard and trackpad no longer communicating with the computer. Who knew that could happen?