LCRW + a Chapbook

Fri 29 Aug 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Thank you Jenny Z. for asking if we offered LCRW subscriptions with a chapbook but without chocolate. My answer: Um, no.

For some reason when I made that little list of serious-to-silly offerings some time ago (and even during the many remakings) it never struck me to offer a chapbook with the first issue of the zine.

Ok, so now here it is.

Or: a 4-issue sub with 1, 2, 3, or 4 chapbooks(!).

We have:

  • two Greer Gilman Ben Jonson chapbooks,
  • one by Hal Duncan (illustrated by Eric Schaller),
  • one by Benjamin Rosenbaum (with illustrations from Peter Reiss),
  • and one by Margo Lanagan (illustrated by Kathleen Jennings),

so please don’t forget to say which one(s) you’d like. I’ve just done (most of) the Jan-Jun 2025 royalties and most of these authors get a little payment each time.


Kindling is a World Fantasy Award finalist

Tue 22 Jul 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Congratulations to all the finalists for the World Fantasy Awards, especially Kathleen Jennings, whose debut collection, Kindling, is one of five finalists for Best Collection.

Kelly, the sole woman, and I — one of six men — are finalists for “Special Award – Non-Professional” for LCRW, and yay for that. However, if you’re voting this year I hope you will choose DeVaun Saunders, for Fiyah, or Steve J. Shaw, for Black Shuck Books, who are both nominated for the first time, and help keep this annual award invigorated and fresh.


Out Went LCRW 50

Mon 21 Jul 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

With world temperatures rising, and soon the seas, we talked about dropping the LCRW+chocolate option but maybe instead I can get it together and publish the two issues in November and February so that no one gets a fabulous and delicious but melted chocolate bar.

In the meantime, earlier this month we mailed out 99% of subscriber copies (I will make things complicated for me & the BKMN crew) and I got to see it pop up a few times on Bluesky and so on. Glad stories are being enjoyed, we enjoyed them, too. This being the 50th issue I might at some past point have imagined we’d throw a party. Next time, next time.

 


Cast Spells Punch Nazis

Thu 5 Jun 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Kelly and I have been talking about this one for a while and today, since the new LCRW is at the printer and I am busted because I ran an errand (woo) this morning, I put it up on Bonfire. All monies got to BINC, who do quiet and absolutely necessary work supporting book and comic shop people in times of trouble. Do I personally know people who have applied to BINC? I have no idea. The point is it’s private. I’ve definitely recommended it to people.

Cast Spells Punch Nazis, a Deep Black Allmade Organic Cotton Unisex Tee

 


Edit, Make, Mail

Thu 5 Jun 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

LCRW 50 is at the printer. How will it be mailed out? Slowly!


Stepping up the Joy

Mon 19 May 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Sharing more joy for Jennifer Hudak as her story “The Witch Trap” from LCRW 48 will be reprinted in this year’s Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Nnedi Okorafor & John Joseph Adams along with 19 stories which originally appeared in Amazon Original Stories, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld (x3), FIYAH (x2), Lightspeed (x3), Nightmare, Reactor (x2), Sunday Morning Transport, Uncanny, along with a number of stories from collections and anthologies. BASF&F will be published in October.


Running Up That Zine

Wed 7 May 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

LCRW 50, (probably — everything I do is still slower than I expect) coming out next month, is our latest celebration of writers, edited by Kelly and me, to be printed in the near-ish future by our local copy shop (who have a lovely garden and great holiday lights). Every copy comes with a free car*, a pianoforte,* an Oxford comma,** and its own 2 unique typos***.

Since the FDA will soon no longer exist we’re making the cover from a plant-based cheese which is set to melt enticingly during the time it spends in a hot van on its way to you. Open your envelope and devour the contents. Copies bought directly from Book Moon or any other direct sale outlet will be accompanied by a 2 oz (56 g) portion of Miyoko’s “cheese*” for you to replicate this experience. All fictions contained within the zine are better than any here.

* Lie.
** Probably, likely, and so on.
*** At least*v.
*v I am enjoying adding these before and after the period.


Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 50

Wed 7 May 2025 - Filed under: LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

What is time?/June/2025. What are pages? Imagine it will be about 60. Ebook ISBN: What are International Standard Book Numbers? Also, 9781618732187.

LCRW 50: a b&w stapled zine that I’m hoping democracy in the USA will outlast but I am no longer 100% confident it will.

Beginnings and still building. 50 issues in 50 years would be pretty good. But, we blew past that at top speed and accomplished 50 in barely 29 years. Why not 25 years hobgoblinned stuck-in-the-2-issues-per-year mindset ask and I’d just like to point out that there were four years in there that I bet they can’t remember either. Four stories, four poems, it has a symmetry that will be ruined when more are added.

This issue’s cover spotlights the writers whose work appeared in the first 49 issues.

Fiction

S. Woodson, Dog in a Garden
L. H. Adams, The Path to Pembroke
Jessy Randall, Remedial Kissing Class
Guan Un, White Band
Marie Vibbert, The Summer Kids and the Gemini
Shaun Cammack, Graceless Creatures

Notsofiction

Gavin J. Grant, 50 Not Quite Out
Nicole Kimberling, The Limit of Words
Some recent reads
About These Authors
Without Which Support from, &c.

Poetry

Marge Piercy,

Frost on its way south; TV was right for once; The year is new but I am not; One rabbit less
Neile Graham, The Goddess of the Deep Dive; What is Ether and What is Not

Art

Dawn Kimberling, Photo

Cover

Contributors Issues 1–49

Celebrating

Jennifer Hudak’s story from LCRW 48, “The Witch Trap,” is a Nebula Award finalist & will be reprinted in the Best American SF&F; Elwin Cotman (Dance on Saturday) received a Whiting Award; Kij Johnson’s crowdfunder for RiverBank, an RPG, raised more than twice the goal; the UK edition of Nathan Ballingrud’s North American Lake Monsters came out; Kathleen Jennings’ collection Kindling is shortlisted for the Locus & Aurealis Awards.

Masthead & colophon

Made by
Gavin J. Grant
& Kelly Link.

LCRW is (usually) published in June & November by Small Beer Press, 150 Pleasant St., #306, Easthampton, MA 01027 | info@smallbeerpress.com | smallbeerpress.com/lcrw. Printed by Paradise Copies. Subscriptions: $28/4 issues (see page 36 of this issue for options). Please make checks to Small Beer Press. Library & institutional subscriptions: EBSCO.

DRM-free ebooks available from the lovely weightlessbooks.com.

Contents © 2025 the authors. All rights reserved.

Please send fiction and poetry submissions (especially weird and interesting work from women writers and writers of color), guideline requests, &c. to the address above. Thanks authors, artists, readers.

About Yon Authors

Ms. Adams spent several decades in the environmental consulting world. She lives in North Carolina,
where the many effects of climate change are a constant presence. When not writing she stares at trees, and her work has been published in Neither Fish Nor Foul.

Shaun Cammack is a writer from Western North Carolina.

Neile Graham stepped down from writer wrangling for Clarion West Writers Workshop a few years back and is soon to retire from her university day job. She plans to spend her time taking forest and beach walks, writing more poems, and finally completing revisions of the four novels languishing on her computer. See neilegraham.com for more poems and too much info.

Nicole Kimberling has cooked so much food in her lifetime that she’s developed a philosophy around nearly every aspect of it. When she’s not putting hot meals on the table she can be found either running Blind Eye Books or procrastinating until the last possible second to finish her most recent novel. You find her on IG @the_nicole_kimberling

Marge Piercy has published 20 poetry collections, most recently, On the Way Out, Turn Off the Light, and seventeen novels including Sex Wars. PM Press reissued Vida, Dance the Eagle to Sleep; and collections The Cost of Lunch, Etc. and My Body, My Life. She has read at over 500 venues here and abroad.

Jessy Randall’s poems and stories have appeared in Asimov’s, LCRW, Nature, and Scientific American. In 2025, MIT will publish her new book, The Path of Most Resistance: Poems on Women in Science. She is a librarian at Colorado College and her website is bit.ly/JessyRandall.

Guan Un is an Australian-Chinese writer of speculative fiction based in Sydney. His work has been featured in LeVar Burton Reads, Year’s Best Fantasy Vol 2, Strange Horizons, and more. A former theology student and luggage salesman, he lives with his family, a dog named after a tiger, and a non-sentient sourdough starter, and is not currently betrothed to any celestial objects. You can find him at @thisisguan.bsky.social or guanun.com.

Hugo- and Nebula-nominated author Marie Vibbert’s short fiction has appeared over 90 times in top magazines such as Nature, Analog, and Clarkesworld, and been translated into Czech, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Her debut novel, Galactic Hellcats, was long listed by the British Science Fiction Award and her work has been called “everything science fiction should be” by the Oxford Culture Review. She also writes poetry, comics, and computer games. By day she is a computer programmer in Cleveland, Ohio.

S. Woodson lives in Virginia and was previously published in LCRW 38. You can find her older Twine games and other work at citrushistrix.itch.io.


Tell Me Something Good You Have Done

Wed 23 Apr 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

I am talking to the President, to the (nominal) political party he belongs to, as well as his cabinet.

Tell me one good thing. Not taking vaccines away, or making food and air and water and work more dangerous; not destroying a legacy of international relations (bloody as they have been); not attempting to destroy one of the world’s largest economy; not taking the rights of those most needing them; not bringing back child labor; not pardoning rapists and those who invaded the US Capitol; not firing thousands of people; not scaring the hell out of everyone on social security, medicare, and medicaid; not abducting, kidnapping, and imprisoning or renditioning immigrants; not refusing due process; not firing immigration judges; not undermining the separation of church and state; not ignoring the parts of the constitution you don’t like; not trying to cut solar and bring back fossil fuels; not put cronyism before the common weal; not hurt public schools by siphoning money to charter schools which do not provide a free appropriate public education; &c., &c. This is only what I came up with here on my couch without research.

Go on: tell me something — anything — good you’ve done for anyone but yourself.


Elwin Cotman Wins a Whiting Award

Thu 17 Apr 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Excellent news: Elwin Cotman is one of ten 2025 Whiting Award Winners. There’s a good story on it in Elwin’s hometown paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Elwin has a novel coming from Scribner, The Age of Ignorance, as well as four collections of stories, including Dance on Saturday.


Kathleen Jennings and Kij Johnson Redux

Wed 16 Apr 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Kathleen Jennings’s Kindling: Stories has been shortlisted for the Aurealis Award — “Australia’s premier speculative fiction award” — for Best Collection.

The cover for Kathleen’s next novel, Honeyeater, dropped and it is worth clicking on the link.

Also of note, Kathleen did the cover art and half-page pen-and-ink illustrations for Kij Johnson’s forthcoming RiverBank roleplaying game which is being crowdfunded right now on Backerkit and has more than doubled the original goal.


LCRW Costs, They Go Up

Sun 30 Mar 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Damn my eyes. I have seen — and ignored for a year or two too many — spreadsheets such as no zinemaker should see. I have calculated numbers no right-thinking person should know. I have stared at the Sum of all Costs and my very soul trembles before them. In the long dark tea time of the zining afternoon when considering the Fiscal Cliff I run out of Excuses and Pure and Simple Reasons and decide This Must Not Go On. The zine? Yes. Shall I go hiking? No. Shall I hike the zine price? Frustratingly enough, yes.

The USPS costs have Increas’d ($2.31 to mail just 1 zine) and even the Very Paper the zine is printed upon is More Costly in 2025 than in 2024. Or 2023. Or in 2022. Or in 2022. Wait, I am stuck. Please imagine I typed “Or in Year-1” until I hit 1996 when paper was free due to the availability of the photocopier at my temp job. We pay writers but thruppence a word, unincreas’d for Some Years. If that is to increase, and if we are to continue to send out a zine once, maybe even twice in a year, then the Price must rise.

Before The Increase, here are links for those who have the energy to order or — for those with faith the USPS will still be here in a couple of years — subscribe.

 

Chocolate $400
Writers $1,200
Printing $950
Candles $3600
Cover art $100
someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my zine is dying


Making Karen Russell Blush

Thu 27 Mar 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Karen Russell is out on tour with her new novel The Antidote wrote a great list of book recommendations for Elle. They format it so that each book is finishing the sentence “The book that . . .” and for this one the first answer was Kristen Arnett’s forthcoming novel Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One and the second part was Alaya’s story — linked below:

. . . has a sex scene that will make you blush:

Also, Alaya Dawn Johnson’s “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawa’ii” from her stunning collection, Reconstruction, is one of my favorite short stories. It’s about a prison camp where humans are harvested by vampires. (I can imagine some readers might have a lively debate with me here about what qualifies as a sex scene.) “Blush” is too mild a verb for what happens when I reread it. I don’t know what verb to use for a horror-blush. It’s definitely more of a “run for your eternal life” flush than a dewy glow. More meaty red than Maybelline.<


Nebula Award finalist: Jennifer Hudak’s, The Witch Trap

Wed 26 Mar 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Sending our congratulations and sharing the joy that Jennifer Hudak’s story “The Witch Trap” from LCRW 48 is one of six fine finalists for the short story Nebula Award.


Reverting Rights

Tue 25 Mar 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

This is to note that we’re reverting — by Angélica Gorodischer’s estate’s request — rights on two of the three of her books that we have in print: Kalpa Imperial (translated by Ursula K. Le Guin) and Prodigies (translated by Sue Burke). The contract for Trafalgar (translated by Amalia Gladhart), which I had already extended once, runs until March 2026. At that point I expect the estate will ask for those rights to be reverted, too.

This means our ebook edition will stop being available soon. The print editions will still be available at a few excellent stores — such as Alienated Majesty in Austin, TX, and Moon Palace in Minneapolis, MN — but bookshops will no longer be able to order them. We’ll have copies for the foreseeable future — I don’t like to run out so I have a good amount of stock on hand . . . ) which will be available here and in Book Moon.

We’ve loved publishing these books and helping to bring Angélica’s books to Anglophone readers and I am only sorry now not to be able to bring any more into print. But as a reader I’m very happy the estate is focused on getting more of Angélica’s books published here.

I expect I will have more posts along these lines this year as my condition hasn’t changed much since last year.


Late March Shipping Update

Mon 24 Mar 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

We’ve been working (as slowly as I ever do these days) with Maple Press on getting shipping re-started on our limited edition of Kelly’s novel The Book of Love and the good news is that it should begin again next week.

We have two Character Editions available — Maryanne and Caitlyn Hightower — along with the Lettered. The final count of the Numbered edition will end up being less than 500 copies.

Otherwise we’re continuing to ship LCRW from Book Moon and most Small Beer books from our distro, Consortium/Ingram in Jackson, TN. We’re all caught up with everything there — bar one new subscription which came in this morning, ha!


Ayize @ Harvard

Mon 3 Mar 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Ayize Jama-Everett will be at this Harvard conference on Wednesday and Thursday Psychedelics in Monotheistic Traditions: Sacramental Practice and Legal Recognition.

His film A Table of Our Own  is showing at Harvard Law School Room WCC 2004 on Wed. 3/5 @ 8pm & is free & open to the public.


Free Sticker Templates

Mon 24 Feb 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

This Wednesday our newest batch of Read Books Punch Nazis square and bumpers stickers will arrive at Book Moon from Rockin’ Stickers. Also dropped the price of the square stickers from $2 to a single dollar. (Previously I’d ordered from Sticker Mule but I won’t be doing that again.)

We sell quite a lot of these stickers at Book Moon but should you be outside the US or need your own now you can download them.

I’m also adding some pdfs of NO NAZIS labels and stickers which are again free.

Our stickers are licensed under Creative Commons by 4.0 for personal and/or commercial use.

Sheet of b&w “NO NAZIS” Avery 8164 labels, 6 per sheet:
(Also compatible with these labels: 15264, 32134, 48464, 48864, 5164, 5264, 55164, 5524, 55464, 58164, 6436, 8254, 8464, 8564, 95905, 95940.)

No Nazis Avery 8164 labels/stickers (1733 downloads )

Sheet of b&w “NO NAZIS” Avery 8160 labels, 30 per sheet:
(Also compatible with these labels: 15509, 15660, 15700, 15960, 16460, 16790, 18160, 18260, 18660, 22837, 28660, 38260, 45160, 48160, 48260, 48460, 48860, 48960, 5136, 5160, 5260, 55160, 5520, 55360, 5620, 5630, 5660, 58160, 58660, 5960, 6240, 6521, 6525, 6526, 6585, 80509, 8215, 8250, 8460, 85560, 8620, 8660, 88560, 8860, 8920, 95520, 95915, Presta 94200, Presta 97180.)

No Nazis Avery 8160 labels/stickers (1803 downloads )

Read Books Punch Nazis b&w 3″ square sticker:

Square Read Books Punch Nazis (1831 downloads )

Read Books Punch Nazis b&w bumper sticker:

Read Books Punch Nazis bumper sticker (1889 downloads )

No Nazis b&w square sticker

No Nazis square sticker (1842 downloads )

 


Meal of Thorns Podcast on Fire Logic

Mon 17 Feb 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

I enjoyed listening to Benjamin Rosenbaum guest on the Ancillary Review of Books podcast with Jake Casella Brookins as they took a deep look at Fire Logic, the first book of Laurie J. Marks’s Elemental Logic series.

A Meal of Thorns 17 – FIRE LOGIC with Benjamin Rosenbaum


NALM 7

Wed 12 Feb 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

North American Lake Monsters cover - click to view full sizeJust got a notification from the printer that the seventh paperback printing of Nathan Ballingrud’s collection North American Lake Monsters is ready to ship and will be heading over to our distributor and from there out to bookstores all over.

I need to update the international edition list, too, as — happily — we have a couple more to add to this lisst:

Agave, Hungary. Edizioni Hypnos, Italy. MAG, Poland. Russia. Spain. Ithaki, Turkey.


The Positive Side of Mail Theft

Mon 10 Feb 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Over on Locus, Paula Guran’s column from the January issue of the magazine covers LCRW along with:

Nightmare 10/24
Uncanny 11/12-24
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 9/24
Reactor (10/2/24 – 11/20/24)

and she writes that “Four tales in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #48 piqued [her] readerly interest.”


“A wild mixture of Italo Calvino . . . Grace Paley . . . Fay Weldon . . . and Jorge Luis Borges . . . but no. . . . She isn’t like anybody.”

Wed 29 Jan 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

I was going through Ursula K. Le Guin’s Words Are My Matter the other day and was caught (again) by this lovely dartboard-throwing description of Carol Emshwiller’s writing in Le Guin’s review of Ledoyt:

Most reviewers prefer pigeons that fit in holes and rabbits that redux. Emshwiller’s like a wild mixture of Italo Calvino (intellectual games) and Grace Paley (perfect honesty) and Fay Weldon (outrageous wit) and Jorge Luis Borges (pure luminosity), but no—her voice is perfectly her own. She isn’t like anybody. She’s different.
Before I get to Ledoyt (which is different) I want to talk a little about the other Emshwiller books (which are all different).

I had a half memory that it was online and ta da here it is on Strange Horizons along with a couple of extra footnotes.


Read Books Punch Nazis

Tue 21 Jan 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

I made a new thing today somewhat along the lines of things I’ve done before but, unlike this sentence, much clearer in what is being done!

For the last few years various bookshops (and many other groups) have run fundraisers and plain just sold t-shirts on Bonfire.com.

The advantages are the shirts are print on demand and include many sizes, colors, and styles. When we order Small Beer or Book Moon shirts, we have to guesstimate how many of each size and color. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes you know how this goes. More advantages: they ship worldwide and have a set up where the proceeds go directly to nonprofits.

The disadvantages are that the prices are high and 2/3+ of the price is just covering cost which leaves $6-10 for the seller and that we don’t get to work with our fab local printer.*

Yesterday while I was not watching TV and staying offline I decided I should try raising money for favorite nonprofits that support all the people who the meh government are going to try and step on.

So today I started a new Read Books Punch Nazis campaign on Bonfire and I’m trying to spread the word. There are new colors, new options (tank, hoodie, sweatshirt) as well as a couple of styles of T-shirts. Many of the options are 100% cotton as we reduce our plastic (including rayon/polyester blends) use. These first 100 shirts support CCATE, a lively and bighearted Philadelphia organization that we’ve supported for years. I’m open to suggestions (in the comments or by email) for more nonprofits to support in the future.

Delighted to be able to add something positive to the world in these cold dark times.

Black folded t-shirt with Read Books Punch Nazis in white ink on the front.

 

* Good news there, Ruth at the store tells me we need to reprint our own RBPNazis shirts, too.


Shipping News

Thu 16 Jan 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Books are shipping from our distro, Consortium (albeit they are slowed down by winter storms). Zines and so on are going out slowly (due to me!) from Book Moon.


Who Reads Lit Mags?

Fri 3 Jan 2025 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

tl;dr Jessica Dylan Miele.

Admittedly this is on Substack, which I generally skip due to their Nazi Bar problem, but everyone should see the cover of the Bennington Review. There may indeed be “lit mags that refuse to publish anything but conventional and uninspiring work” which might be an access problem as I’ve found there are lit mags for a wide range of tastes. Ok: Ninth Letter, Greensboro Review, A Public Space, American Short Fiction, Gooseberry Pie, One Story. Without having to think too hard there are half-a-dozen broad-ranging mags. If you want a much wider range, just click this Quimby’s link.

Anyway, love to see LCRW out there being read. Most of the stories in LCRW come in over the transom* and finding Dora Holland’s story and getting to publish it was a treat. Sending it out with chocolate bars is a hassle but, since I’m the chocolate sampler as well as the publisher, I can only blame myself.

* Piled into the overflow mail box at the office that Kelly or I clear out every now and then.