Jedediah Berry on Travel Light

Fri 23 Jan 2026 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin

I was looking for something and came across this note on Travel Light that Jed sent me in September 2005 for the Small Beer newsletter:

Travel Light is a book that goes places you never quite expect, even when you’re the one who’s writing it.

No, I didn’t write Travel Light. But when Small Beer Press decided to release Naomi Mitchison’s wondrous novel as part of their Peapod Classics series, it fell to me to rewrite it—retype it, to be more precise—because no electronic version of the text existed. And somewhere between the death of Halla’s adopted dragon/father and her arrival on the mean streets of medieval Constantinople with only Odin’s magic cloak to help her, I realized I had no idea what was going to happen next. And I was giddy about it, all the way through the last chapter: I couldn’t write (read) (type) fast enough.

There is so much that is familiar about this fairy tale novel. There are dragons and heroes, and an exiled princess. There are unicorns, Valkyries, and corrupt priests. But in Mitchison’s world, the princess is better off with the dragons than with the heroes (even the tragic ones), and when the Valkyries offer to recruit her, or when she learns the truth of her lineage, she still must find her own way.

Travel Light is a classic, but only on its own terms, as all true classics must be. It is a surprising tale and a first-rate adventure, and always thoughtful in the telling. As Halla learns and unlearns each step of her journey, Mitchison greets us with the cheering knowledge that the wandering itself is what counts.


Mail Call

Thu 22 Jan 2026 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin

Well, yesterday I checked the mailbox at the Small Beer office and there was a rather large stack of mail — lots of LCRW submissions, a couple of checks, a copy of GQ magazine(?), Rain Taxi, and so on — going back to late October. Darn it. That does explain why submissions seemed to drop off in the last couple of months but it also means I’m further behind than hoped.

At least it will give me a good reason not to read the news all the time. If we escape the fascist takeover, it’s not just the leaders who need to be charged, it’s all the people from there down to those organizing the paperwork and including those who every day are choosing fascism — hello Republican senators — and chose to follow orders and do nothing.


Read the Fire Safety Pamphlet First

Wed 21 Jan 2026 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin

I recently added cooking columnist Nicole Kimberling’s Cook Like a Hobo from the pre-Reckoning LCRW 33 guest edited by Michael J. DeLuca.

You can read more of Nicole’s columns here as well as in the print (or ebook) issues of LCRW. Current issue has her writing on hot water pastry which one of these days I’ll try. I love her columns. If you’re not familiar I recommend the first one on brownies and this one on How to Seduce a Vegetarian, which gave me some tips I still use, so I guess it worked on me.


2 Weeks into Q2 2000

Tue 20 Jan 2026 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin

In something I was reading the writer mentioned this year started the second quarter of the 21st-century, which gave me one of those I am living in the future frissons. So the new issue of LCRW is the first issue of a new quarter. Maybe a quarter century is the length of time we should look back at, instead of a decade, a year, three months, a fortnight, yesterday. Back to LCRW. We just bought the first story for the next issue. Despite no longer publishing books I’m still not particularly quick at reading submissions. I catch up, look away, and am months behind. Since Northampton is in the middle of a couple of snow storms, maybe I will catch up.

I think I fixed the LCRW subscription page. At some point this year I hope to move off PayPal but as ever it is low on the list, and my lists are being gone through so much slower than they used to be. I am still very amused that it took until last year — thanks to Jenny Z. for asking — for me to add the subscription option with a chapbook but without chocolate. Talk about my own blind spot.


MLK Weekend & Ayize

Sun 18 Jan 2026 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin

Meant to post this earlier and may update with a Monday event but if you are in San Francisco this looks like an event worth attending:

Ayize Jama-Everett (The Liminal People series) is part of a celebration this afternoon at the San Francisco Public Library (100 Larkin Street):

Divine Forces: Exploring the Power of the Orishas
“A transformative in-person event blending the power of Yoruba spirituality with cultural exploration and collective healing. Featuring Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Tomi Adeyemi and panels with renowned writers and scholars like Sakena Young-Scaggs, Ayize Jama-Everett, Kemi Ashing-Giwa and Clarence A. Haynes.”

3:30-4:15 PM “Black Diasporic Religions” Sakena Young-Scaggs in conversation with Ayize Jama-Everett , moderated by Dr. Stanford Carpenter.
“How the worship and understandings of Black Diasporic Religions have evolved across the African diaspora, focusing on cultural continuity, folk ways, popular understandings, media representation and transformation.”

 


Cook Like a Hobo

Fri 16 Jan 2026 - Filed under: Free Stuff to Read, | Leave a Comment| Posted by: Gavin

This is LCRW Cooking Columnist Nicole Kimberling’s seventh column for LCRW originally published in LCRW 33.

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 32 coverI think almost all of us have, at one point or other, attempted to cook with a campfire only to discover that our skills fall far below modern expectations. So, what makes the campfire so difficult? I cooked in a restaurant with a wood-fired oven for over a decade, which means I spent hundreds, perhaps even thousands of hours igniting, tending and using cooking fires.

Here are the main difficulties:

  • Fires are hot. A camp-sized fire can still singe all the hair off your arms from six feet away.
  • Fires are unpredictable. Even if you cook with a wood fire every day for years it is still hard to know how the wood will burn or what sort of bed of coals will develop.
  • Fires are time-consuming. They take ages to mature and require much more fuel that you imagine they will to maintain.
  • Fires are dangerous. They cannot be switched off and can easily extend beyond the boundaries that you, in your human hubris, have blithely decided they will be content to respect.

Read more


LCRW 51

Fri 2 Jan 2026 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Out into the daft, daft world: a zine.