Office closed

Mon 11 Feb 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Perhaps not a surprise but given the rubbish weather, our office is closed today.

---

Win a copy of A Stranger in Olondria

Wed 6 Feb 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Free books, Sofia Samatar| Posted by: Gavin

 

---

Reading Group Guide: Meeks

Thu 24 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Julia Holmes, Reading Group Guide| Posted by: Gavin

Told from four different perspectives, Julia Holmes’ Meeks is an engaging read that presents a satirical view of marriage and society. While short, it is full of thought-provoking ideas. Here are some discussion questions by Kimberly Pavlovich to get you started. And, of course, there are no right answers:

1. The theme of grief is first introduced when Ben discovers his mother is dead. He is fitted for a black suit, during which the tailor asks, “What is grief but a sudden inability to sustain belief in the story that preceded it?” (13). Do you agree? How would you define grief? How does grief play a role in the novel?
2. Marriage is highly valued in Meeks; there are consequences for those who remain unmarried. How do you think Holmes views marriage, based on the ideas in the book? Do you think the way marriage is presented in the novel reflects some of our own society’s ideas? What are your own thoughts on marriage?
3. How are each of the characters’ perspectives (Ben, Meeks, the Brother, and the Father) connected? As you read Meeks, did you find yourself wanting to hear an additional character’s story? How would the story change if characters’ viewpoints were added or omitted?
4. When Ben discovers his room at the Bachelor House is connected to another bachelor’s room, he immediately wants to switch – until he meets him. How would you describe Ben’s and Finton’s friendship? Meeks and Bedge also have an interesting bond. How would you describe their friendship?
5. What is your take on the Brothers of Mercy’s role in society?
6. What holds Ben back from becoming a “typical” bachelor? Is it his black suit, or is it something else?
7. Ben longs for a pale suit, while Meeks longs for a gun. Eventually, they steal these items from the same prone bachelor. What compels each of them? Would you have done the same?
8. In the course of the novel, Ben wears a black suit, a pale suit, and finally a gray smock; each act as a symbol to other people. How does Ben’s behavior change with his attire, as well as the behavior of the people he interacts with? Why do you think clothing has the ability to temporarily change the wearer and how the wearer is treated – not only in Ben’s society, but in our own? Have you ever felt “changed” by your clothing?
9. What is the significance of the heavens watcher’s story about “the man marooned on an island”?
10. Who is “the man in the black jacket”? Do you think Meeks made the right decision when he refused to switch costumes with him? How would the story change if he had?
11. What is your interpretation of Ben’s last line: “Let everyone see him, let them finally get it: when something is lost, it’s lost forever” (185)?
12. Were you satisfied with the ending? Did it surprise you?

 

---

Coffee? Sure. La Morenita or La Virginia?

Thu 17 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Amalia Gladhart, Angelica Gorodischer| Posted by: Gavin

Reforma gives Trafalgar a very strong recommendation (“Highly recommended for Public and Academic Libraries”), which I translate as: a book for everyone!

I suppose a good quote from the review would be “The narrative of this compilation draws the reader into the story of an ordinary man traveling to alternative worlds. Gorodischer creates an atmosphere where fascinating stories take on the ordinariness of everyday life.”

Not mentioned: Trafalgar drinks a lot of coffee. We should have partnered with an Argentinean coffee firm because this book is going to cause a lot of people to get up and put the coffee on. La Morenita! La Virginia! Coffee shops! Baristas! Call us!

How much coffee? Seven cups. Begins like this:

I was with Trafalgar Medrano yesterday. It’s not easy to find him. He’s always going here and there with that import-export business of his. But now and then he goes from there to here and he likes to sit down and drink coffee and chat with a friend. I was in the Burgundy and when I saw him come in, I almost didn’t recognize him: he had shaved off his mustache. . . .

Marcos brought him his double coffee and a glass of cold water on a little silver plate. That’s what I like about the Burgundy. . . .

Marcos brought him another double coffee before he could order it. That Marcos is a marvel: if you drink nothing but dry sherry, well chilled, like me; or orange juice—not strained—with gin, like Salustiano, the youngest of the Carreras; or seven double coffees in a row like Trafalgar Medrano, you can be sure that Marcos will be there to remember it even if it’s been ten years since you went to the Burgundy.

Marcos arrived with the third double coffee. . . .

Marcos had put down the paper—he had collected at one of the other tables—and now he was coming with the fourth double coffee. . . . 

All right, coffee, anyone?

But, wait, if you prefer it with wine, the third edition of Wine and Word Tasting at Winter’s Hill Vineyard will take place on Saturday, February 16, 11:00-5:00 in Lafayette, Oregon. Yum.

---

My fave-orite flow chart EVER

Wed 16 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

http://hoganhere.tumblr.com/post/40586465546/2-bold

(Yes, that is really a link, because you gots to go there.)

---

Around Small Beer

Mon 14 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Alasdair Gray, Ayize Jama-Everett, Elizabeth Hand, Karen Lord, Kathe Koja, Kij Johnson, LCRW, Under the Poppy| Posted by: Gavin

Just because the government tells you something doesn’t mean you have to believe it.

Tomorrow: Julie Day reads Kij Johnson’s “The Empress Jingu Fishes” on the Small Beer podcast on the tavern with beer and food.

And check out Wired.com’s Geek Mom interview with Kij. Kij is off to Oxford to give the JRR Tolkien lecture on fantastic fiction and to teach a workshop: lovely!

Ayize Jama-Everett’s The Liminal People was on the Identity Theory Holiday Reading List. Add it to all your comix-and-sf-reading lists!

I just interviewed Karen Lord, whose lovely new novel The Best of All Possible Worlds comes out from Del Rey next month, for BookPage. That should go up at the start of February.

In April it’s last chance to see Under the Poppy in Detroit. Do it!

The Village Voice gives Errantry a stormer of a review:
“With grand feeling and inventiveness, Hand writes of modern life edging just into the impossible. Her ragged modern characters, often lost or stoned or just unfixed in their lives, set out over moors or into hidden parks in search of realities less dispiriting than our own.”

Kelly’s “The Faery Handbag” is this week’s story on the Bookslinger app.

The first review has come in for the new ish of LCRW. Here’s Sam Tomaino at SF Revu on LCRW 28:
“Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet is the kind of magazine that you want to read slowly. Read a story. Put the magazine down. Absorb what you have just read. Then, after a while, read another story. Repeat. After more than a year’s absence here is issue #28 with more of their very different stories.”

Scottish Television loves Alasdair Gray almost as much as we do. He’s doing another piece of public art in Glasgow—can’t wait to go over next summer and see it all—this time at the Western Baths Club. (Ok, so I may not be able to go see this one). Here’s the video of the unveiling of his previous mural in the Glasgow subway. It’s based on the art from Old Men in Love.

That’s it, out of time.

---

Fountain of Age a PKD Award finalist

Thu 10 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Awards, Nancy Kress| Posted by: Gavin

Lovely news from the Philip K. Dick Award peeps, Nancy Kress’s latest collection Fountain of Age is a finalist for this year’s award. Congratulations to all the nominees!

Here’s the full list of nominees and various links and so on:

---

Locus Poll: All-Time Short Fiction Results, 2012

Thu 10 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ted Chiang| Posted by: Gavin

I missed this (as with so many things) while mostly offline over the new year. Neither did I vote as I always forget things I wish I had included. But maybe if I had Maureen F. McHugh, Alice Sola Kim, and some others would appear. Also there are two Karen Joy Fowler stories and I think seven Ursula K. Le Guin’s. And we published one of the top ranked stories and reprinted two in Ted’s mighty and fabulous Story of Your Life and Others. Yay, indeed!

20th Century Novella:

Rank	Author : Title (Year)
1	Chiang, Ted : Story of Your Life (1998)

21st Century Novella:

Rank	Author : Title (Year)
1	Link, Kelly : Magic for Beginners (2005)

21st Century Novelette:

Rank	Author : Title (Year)
1	Chiang, Ted : Hell Is the Absence of God (2001)

---

Clarion & Clarion West

Wed 9 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Clarion, Clarion West, workshops| Posted by: Gavin

Where will Kelly be at for 2 weeks next summer? Teaching the final two weeks of the six week Clarion Writers’ Workshop in San Diego with Karen Joy Fowler.  The 2013 writers in residence are:

Andy Duncan, Nalo Hopkinson, Cory Doctorow, Robert Crais, Karen Joy Fowler & Kelly Link

Applications are accepted until March 1st:

Applications are also due March 1st for Clarion West in Seattle where this year’s instructors are Elizabeth Hand, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Justina Robson, Ellen Datlow, and Samuel R. Delany.

---

The Faery Handbag on Bookslinger

Tue 8 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

This Friday Kelly’s story “The Faery Handbag” will be featured on the Bookslinger app. And! Some of our other fave short stories can be found there including one of the best science fiction stories of the last ten years or so, “Start the Clock” by Benjamin Rosenbaum, and Maureen F. McHugh’s amazing “Ancestor Money.”

You can download the app in the iTunes store.

And watch a video on it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySL1bvyuNUE

You can also order Pretty Monsters here now. Why didn’t we add this before? Don’t know.

---

New LCRW goes out, with little surprises

Mon 7 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Free books, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

We just finished mailing out LCRW 28 (takes us a while, doesn’t it?) and we had fun with this one. As a subscriber bonus (for US/Canada readers only . . .  sorry Lovely Rest of World Readers, the post office wanted to charge us $16.95 a shot!) we threw in a random free book for everyone. Enjoy!

(Want a free book? Subscribe!)

---

Small Beer Press Bestsellers 2012

Mon 7 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Bestsellers, Kij Johnson, Maureen F. McHugh, Ted Chiang, Three Messages, Ursula K. Le Guin| Posted by: Gavin

According to Neilsen BookScan, our top five Small Beer Press bestsellers (excluding ebooks) for 2012 were:

1. Maureen F. McHugh, After the Apocalypse
2. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin
   Ursula K. Le Guin, The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin
3. Kij Johnson, At the Mouth of the River of Bees
4. Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others
5. Eduardo Jiménez Mayo & Chris N. Brown, eds., Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Stories of the Fantastic

All short story collections or anthologies! Our publication dates all crept into the latter half of the year, really the last couple of months, so books such as Errantry and Earth and Air didn’t get much time out there in the world to see how they’d do. Also #6? Stranger Things Happen, #7? The Serial Garden. Short stories!

---

Ursula K. Le Guin @ Powell’s, Sunday, Jan. 6

Fri 4 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., events, Ursula K. Le Guin| Posted by: Gavin

Ursula K. Le Guin will be at Powell’s City of Books this Sunday evening at 7:30 PM. Would that we could be there!  But this is your chance to order your signed copy:

 Upcoming Event

---

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 28

Fri 28 Dec 2012 - Filed under: LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

8.5 x 7 · 60pp · January 2013 · Issue 28 · Available! Published! Excited! · Ebook available from Weightless.

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (a self-titled Occasional Outburst) returns either incredibly late for 2012 or incredibly early for 2014.

The latest issue of LCRW features magic, killing curses, broken lands and broken lands, a wandering octopus, a robot on the run, invisibility, neighbors, and The Book of Judgment.

What is not to love? Our cooking columnist Nicole Kimberling returns with advice on “Feeding Strays” and although we only managed one poem, it’s a good one.

Reviews

“Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet returns after taking 2012 off. The new issue is very good, with a set of stories that mostly push the SF/Fantasy envelope in engagingly strange directions. Kevin Waltman’s ‘‘Notes from a Pleasant Land Where Broken Hearts are Like Broken Hands’’ is, once decoded, a familiar enough dystopia, but the surface is strange enough to intrigue. It’s told by stolid Bolder, who thinks he lives in a utopia (because he’s been told so), until his attraction to Palmetto lures him astray. Amanda M. Pawley’s ‘‘Vanish Girl’’ is also dystopian SF, here featuring a girl with an invisible house, an invisible leg, a vicious roommate, and a state-supported addiction: again, it’s oddness that reveals itself to be somewhat familiar, but then in the end spirals strange again. My favorite story remains quite strange throughout: Krista Hoeppner Leahy’s ‘‘Killing Curses, a Caught-Heart Quest’’. This is about a curse-killer who marries a sort of walking tree, only to lose her over the question of how to raise their child – but we also have a Quixote who swears to save the hero from his death, and a Midas who isn’t sure if his curse is good or bad, and a dangerous plague. The language really sells the story in the way it reveals the strangeness of the setting.”
—Rich Horton, Locus

“Always happy to see a new issue of this occasional story outburst. I grope for a term to suggest the nature of the highly imaginative fiction here; “weird” will not do; “fabulist” is wrong; “odd” might fit, but I think I’ll settle on “strange”. Yes, these are strange stories, in which even experienced explorers of genre terrain may occasionally find themselves on uneven footing; there are few overworn trails here.”
—Lois Tilton, Locus Online

“The entire issue made me smile. I’m looking forward to the next issue, whenever it may come.”
—Fantasy Literature

“Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet is the kind of magazine that you want to read slowly. Read a story. Put the magazine down. Absorb what you have just read. Then, after a while, read another story. Repeat. After more than a year’s absence here is issue #28 with more of their very different stories.”
—SF Revu

Fiction

Michael Penkas, “Coffee with Count Presto”
Krista Hoeppner Leahy, “Killing Curses, a Caught-Heart Quest”
Kevin Waltman, “Notes from a Pleasant Land Where Broken Hearts Are Like Broken Hands”
Erica Hilderbrand, “Akashiyaki (Octopus Dumplings, serves two)”
Brian Baldi, “Springtime for the Roofer”
Andrea M. Pawley, “Vanish Girl”
Kamila Z. Miller, “Neighbors”
Helen Marshall, “The Book of Judgment”

Nonfiction

Nicole Kimberling, “Feeding Strays”
About the Authors

Poetry

John McKernan, “Prayer to Oatmeal”

Cover

Junyi Wu

---

Made by: Gavin J. Grant, Kelly Link, Jedediah Berry, and Michael J. DeLuca.

Readers: Su-Yee Lin, Samantha Guilbert, Cristi Jacques, Hannah Goldstein, Matthew Harrison, Molly Seeley, David Mitchell, Dustin Buchinski, Geoffrey Noble, Julie Day, Jennifer Terpsichore Abeles.

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 28, January 2013. ISSN 1544-7782. Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61873-067-1.Text: Bodoni Book. Titles: Imprint MT Shadow. LCRW is usully published in June and November by Small Beer Press, 150 Pleasant St., Easthampton, MA 01027 · smallbeerpress@gmail.com · smallbeerpress.com/lcrw. Subscriptions: $20/4 issues (see page 16 of the print issue for options). Please make checks to Small Beer Press. Library & institutional subscriptions are available through EBSCO & Swets.

LCRW is available as an ebook through weightlessbooks.com, &c. Contents © 2013 the authors. All rights reserved. Submissions, requests for guidelines, & all good things should be sent to the address above. No SASE: no reply. Paper edition printed by the good people at Paradise Copies, 21 Conz St., Northampton, MA 01060. 413-585-0414.

Apologies for the delay. The next issue will come sooner than you or I think. As ever, thank you for reading.

---

About These Authors

Brian Baldi’s writing has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Denver Quarterly, Fairy Tale Review, Invisible Ear, and elsewhere. He is fond of seltzer.

Erica Hildebrand has a soft spot in her heart for superheroes, dinosaurs, and the conquerors of antiquity. A graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop, her fiction has appeared in Bewere the Night, M-Brane SF, The Edge of Propinquity, and more. Her comics have appeared in Space Squid and Kaleidotrope. She lives in Pennsylvania.

Jenny Jerome was a Brooklyn girl who moved to London, married, had kids, published a literary journal, and had a fair amount of fun.

Krista Hoeppner Leahy is a writer and actor. She attended the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2007. Her work has appeared inShimmer, The Way of the Wizard, Writers of the Future, and elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn.

Kamila Zeman Miller lives with her family on small acreage in the Columbia River Gorge, where she paints and writes. She has the obligatory large number of rescued cats, as well as dogs, goats, chickens, and a very weird rabbit. If you meet her, be careful not to ask about her garden unless you’re a plant nerd with a patient ear.

Nicole Kimberling resides in Bellingham, Washington with her epically long-time partner, Dawn Kimberling, two bad cats and a rotating assortment of houseguests. Her first novel, Turnskin, won the Lambda Literary Award. Though currently the editor of Blind Eye Books, she has mostly made her money working as a professional cook.

Aurora-winning poet Helen Marshall is an author, editor, and self-proclaimed bibliophile. Her poetry and fiction have been published in ChiZine, Paper Crow, Abyss & Apex and Tesseracts among others. Her of poems have been collected in Skeleton Leaves and her short stories in Hair Side, Flesh Side. Currently, she is pursuing a Ph.D in medieval studies at the University of Toronto.

John McKernan—who grew up in Omaha Nebraska—is now retired after teaching 41 years at Marshall University. He lives—mostly—in West Virginia where he edits ABZ Press. His most recent book is a selected poems Resurrection of the Dust.  He has published poems in many places from The Atlantic Monthly to Zuzu’s Petals.

Andrea Pawley is a state of mind. No, make that several states of mind all going at once. Raised under curious circumstances, she now lives in the long shadow of the Washington Monument with a man and a plan, neither of which is perturbed by her nocturnal habits, her odd diet or her devotion to dead presidents. (Not money, actual dead presidents.)

Michael Penkas has lived in Chicago since 2004. He’s had a half-dozen short stories published, most recently in War of the Worlds: Frontlines.

Kevin Waltman has an MFA from the University of Alabama, and has published two young adult novels, Nowhere Fast and Learning the Game. He has also published short fiction with Six Bricks Press, Esquire.com, the Emerson Review, and the Connecticut Review. He lives in Coker, Alabama, with his wife Jessica and their magical dog Henry.

Junyi Wu is an illustrator from Los Angeles who likes pops of color, weathered textures, and pools of light, and likes to draw, arrange shapes, and be outdoors.

---

Happy Holidays

Fri 21 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Our office is closed from today, December 21, through until December 29th. We wish you the peace and joy for you and yours for the holidays.

---

Updates: Dickinson, Le Guin, Hand, more

Mon 17 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Elizabeth Hand, Lydia Millet, Maureen F. McHugh, Peter Dickinson, Ursula K. Le Guin| Posted by: Gavin

This weekend the Wall Street Journal picked Peter Dickinson’s new collection of short stories, Earth and Air, as one of the 10 best books of fiction of 2012:

“Much modern fantasy draws upon myth and folklore, but not many authors can enter wholly into the surprising and novel logic of myth. In this brilliant collection of stories, Peter Dickinson recasts Beowulf and Orpheus, investigates tales of earth-spirits, explains the footwear of Mercury and accounts for the survival of Athena’s owls in Christian Byzantium. These beautiful stories, our reviewer believed, ‘deserve to become classics of the genre.'”

Look! Peter has a shiny new website with tons of extra stuff. (Including another new book!) There are gems everywhere, including this from the news section: “Most Tuesdays I bike up into the town to have tea with a 92-year-old friend.  Week before last we laughed ourselves into hiccups talking about funerals.  Did us both a power of good.” Ha!

You can listen to Ursula K. Le Guin on BBC’s The World. It’s all about language. I know you’ll love it.

Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe chat with Maureen F. McHugh about writing, games, online and TV things, writing for TV and other media, the Chinese economy, writing collaboratively, and more on the Coode Street Podcast.

Coming tomorrow, we have Julie Day’s final Small Beer podcast of 2012, an extra special edition featuring Lydia Millet reading the first chapter of The Shimmers in the Night.

Elizabeth Hand’s Errantry gets a lovely review in her sort-of-local paper, the Maine Sunday Telegram: “No writer has cornered the market on darkly beautiful, unsettling stories. But it’s a niche that Elizabeth Hand inhabits with uncanny ease.”

I haven’t seen the new Hobbit movie but I loved these Tove Jansson illustrations for the Swedish edition that someone on Twitter (thank you, Tweetee!) posted.

Ellen Datlow has a Kickstarter! Also, Red Emma’s in Baltimore is moving. Check out that timeline and help out? Also, there’s an Indiegogo for a student film version of Kelly’s story “Survivor’s Ball.”

Short story lovers may have noticed that we are the sponsor of the current issue of One Story. We love One Story — and their new project, One Teen Story (which, you know, would make a great present for teens . . . !) — and for the last couple of years we have been very happy to be one of their sponsors. Here’s editor Hannah Tinti’s post about the story:

Issue #172: Goodbye, Bear

December 7th, 2012 3:44pm by Hannah Tinti

---

Valley gives

Wed 12 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

There’s a fascinating experiment in local giving going on here today, 12/12/12—for once, a date that works in the UK and the USA!—on Valley Gives. The three organizations who raise the most money today will receive $15K, $12K, and $10K, and the 12th gets, of course, $1200, as well as random $1,000 drawings, for, natch, 12 hours, all in all the bonuses add up to $200,000. If you live in the Happy Valley area* today’s a good day to send some people a great holiday present.

* Or even if you don’t! We have local branches of Habitat for Humanity, the Humane Society, etc.

---

Stranger Things Happen Limited Edition is here!

Tue 11 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, limited editions| Posted by: Gavin

Guess what just arrived in the office? The Subterranean Press signed and numbered limited hardcover edition of Kelly’s first collection, Stranger Things Happen. What a treat this book is. Someone asked me once why Small Beer didn’t publish it ourselves and I have the answer right here in these two books in my hands.

You can now get STH (as it goes by around the office) in a 6″x9″ hardcover with a fantastic wraparound jacket by Kathleen Jennings. I may have to sacrifice one of the dustjackets to my wall—although Kelly bought some of the art from Kathleen, so maybe that will be good enough. I’ve included two of the title-page illustrations Kathleen did for each of the stories in the book, “Shoe and Marriage” and “The Specialist’s Hat.”

As Carolyn Kellogg noted in the Los Angeles Times, “This is one of the ways that publishers can distinguish the print work they do from the e-books they issue, focusing on creating an object that’s worth having. And Link’s work seems a great place to start.”

Kelly isn’t in the office today but she will be later this week and then we will ship out the personalized copies asap.

Of course the book is still available in our paperback edition—now in its seventh printing with that iconic Shelley Jackson cover—and as an ebook, although neither of those editions include the two-story hardcover chapbook (Origin Stories: “Origin Stories” and “Secret Identity”) that comes with the Sub Press edition. Those are some crazy, beautiful books and here are some photos to prove it:

              

---

That’s Alright

Mon 10 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Off to Boston for  nonwork thing today. In the meantime, we discovered we could get the Sunday NY Times (including all digital access) for less than the price of just the digital access. It was great fun to have the total brick of paper delivered. Definitely read more than I usually do online.

Download the BookSlinger app and read this week’s story: Benjamin Rosenbaum’s “Start the Clock“—one of the best sf stories from the last 10 years—from The Ant King and Other Stories.

Over at Kirkus Reviews Elizabeth Hand chats with Jessa Crispin about Errantry and more.

On Bookslut Julie Phillips has a short essay on Ursula K. Le Guin which is full of mad, great quotes about Le Guin’s work that I completely agree with. As for will she be read in 50 years? If I’m alive: yes! If not, yes! Earthsea will outlast us all and some readers will always begin there and go on out to Searoad, Unlocking the Air, The Left Hand of Darkness, 

Look, a free magazine of International Science Fiction.

Kathleen Jennings’s American Sketchbooks: Part 1: World Fantasy and Toronto and Part 2: Illuxcon, New York and Colorado.

Stuck in my head:

---

Paradise Tales wins the Sunburst Award

Thu 6 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Awards, Geoff Ryman| Posted by: Gavin

Lovely sunny news from Canada: Geoff Ryman’s short story collection Paradise Tales has won the Sunburst Award. The winner of the 2012 YA award is All Good Children by Catherine Austen (Orca).

It is hard to believe—as he has written so many great books—but Paradise Tales is Geoff’s first short story collection. The sixteen stories include three set in Cambodia and a couple on Mars, some are contemporary and some are set in the far future. The wide-ranging nature of the collection reflects Ryman’s diverse interests in the world of today and tomorrow and how we humans will (or won’t deal with it). One of the things I wish more reviewers would point out is how funny some of Geoff’s stories are. His story “V.A.O.” (in which a retiree has to work who in his nursing home might be carrying out a string of robberies) is dark and satirical but it’s also hilarious in parts.

The most recent review I’ve seen of the book was by J. J. S. Boyce on AESciFi—the CanadianScience Fiction Review—which ended with a line I fully agree with:  “Short-form speculative fiction doesn’t get much better than this.”

---

Free copy of Trafagar

Thu 6 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

You know the drill! Remember, you can read an excerpt here.

---

Trafalgar and Josefina

Wed 5 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Amalia Gladhart, Angelica Gorodischer| Posted by: Gavin

Belletrista just posted “Trafalgar and Josefina,” an excerpt which will give you a nice sense of our forthcoming book by Angélica Gorodischer, Trafalgar. Along with the book there is a short intro—and a great picture of the two of them—by the translator, Amalia Gladhart:

Trafalgar’s adventures are curious, funny, sometimes hair-raising, always thought-provoking. His stories are sought after, traded among acquaintances, shared sparingly by those lucky enough to hear them first hand. And the importance of the storytelling process is always evident. Trafalgar loves to tell a tale—and he loves to draw it out, pausing for another cup of coffee, petting a friend’s cat, playing hard to get; his listeners prod him impatiently, but he will not be rushed.

Read on.

 

---

Ted Chiang, movie(!), and Lightspeed

Tue 4 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, Lightspeed, Ted Chiang, the movies| Posted by: Gavin

The new issue of Lightspeed Magazine just went out and besides all that new and shiny stuff it includes Kelly’s story “Catskin” and Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life.” Kelly’s story will go live on December 18th but Ted’s is exclusive to the ebook—which of course you can get on Weightless.

The other big news for Ted Chiang fans was last week’s announcement that “Story of Your Life” has been optioned for film. The source material is about as good as it gets, so fingers crossed that it will be made and be great.

---

Bookslinger Update: “Child-Empress of Mars”

Mon 3 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Interfictions 2| Posted by: Gavin

Consortium’s Bookslinger features Theodora Goss’s “Child-Empress of Mars” this week:

The Bookslinger app has been updated with a new story!

---

That’s it.

Thu 29 Nov 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ursula K. Le Guin| Posted by: Gavin

The Unreal and the Real is out of stock at the distributor. If you want copies for the holidays, order them now. (Powells have plenty.)

We think they were two of the best books published this year—no matter what other lists say! Wait a couple of years and try and see. Of course we feel the same about all the books we publish (otherwise, sang the chorus, what would beeeeee the point?) so if you miss them, may we suggest:

a deep and dark collection of strange stories . . . half a dozen stories of earth and air . . . a debut collection that Adam Roberts mentioned in the Guardian . . . that Armitage family . . . a guidebook to 26 fantastic cities . . . a first of its kind anthology of contemporary Mexican stories . . . nine stories of science, aging, and imagination . . . a pageturning science fiction thriller . . . the Sykes’s children’s find their mother and she is no longer who they thought she was!

       

---

Tomorrow in Northampton

Thu 29 Nov 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., bookshops, chuntering on, I've got to wear shades, panels, so bright| Posted by: Gavin

Did I ever post this? I’m on a panel tomorrow morning at our lovely local library (handy, I can pick up the 2 books I have on hold!) with Susan Stinson—whose Northampton novel, Spider in a Tree, we will publish next year, Nancy Felton, co-owner of one of our local bookshops, Broadside (who carry LCRW, yay!), and an amazing book artist, Daniel E. Kelms. Come on by!

The State of the Book in the Digital Age

Friday November 30, 2012
10:00 AM

---

A CHAT WITH FOUR LOCAL BOOK PEOPLE

What’s up with books these days? Books are ordered online, created on demand, and distributed in digital form to individuals and libraries. True SEO Professionals improve the search engine results that’s why people are able to find books more easily online. Sadly many bookstores have closed in recent years, and publishers have had to drastically downsize, retool or go out of business.How have individuals and businesses responded to this new environment? Are books giving a last gasp or being reinvented? An author, a book artist, a publisher and a bookstore owner will give their thoughts on the changing environment for books.

Panelists:

Susan Stinson is the author of three novels and a collection of poetry and lyric essays. Writer in Residence at Forbes Library, she is also an editor and writing coach.

Daniel E. Kelm is a book artist who enjoys expanding the concept of the book. In addition to creating his own projects he offers consultations, bindery services, and rental of his studio and equipment.

Gavin J. Grant is the publisher of Small Beer Press. He co-edits the zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet with his wife, Kelly Link, and runs an the independent press ebooksite, http://weightlessbooks.com, with a friend.

Nancy Felton is a co-owner of Broadside Bookshop, where she has worked since 1980 in a variety of capacities, including children’s book buyer, sales clerk and bookkeeper. She has been an active member of NEIBA (New England Independent Booksellers Association) and Pioneer Valley Local First.

Come to Forbes Library on Friday, Nov. 30 at 10 am to hear these local book lovers talk about their own experiences, and give their visions of what books might look like in the future.There will be plenty of time for questions from the audience.

---

The Unreal and the Real: Publication Day

Tue 27 Nov 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Publication day, Ursula K. Le Guin| Posted by: Gavin

It is amazing to sit here and think about these two books being out in the world. The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin Volume One: Where on Earth and Volume Two: Outer Space, Inner Lands.

There are many people we owe thanks to for their help and patience as this rather big book came slowly into sight: Ursula K. Le Guin, of course, and her agent, Vaughne Lee Hansen of the Virginia Kidd Agency; John D. Berry for designing the covers; Tugboat Printshop for the use of their art; and Michael J. DeLuca, Julie Day, Kelly Lagor, Anne Horowitz, Julia Patt, and Georgiana Lee for last minute help.

Should you wish signed copies, you should keep an eye on Ursula’s calendar. Her next reading is at Powell’s City of Books on January 6, 2013.

Now the books are out and getting read and reviewed widely, selling like hot cakes, and generally behaving as if, yes, it is incredibly obvious that such books would be well received, it is an immense relief and a hell of a way to end the year on.

Because, besides an upcoming issue of LCRW, this (these!) is (are!) the last book(s!) from us for 2012. (Ok, ok, so we’re well into our 2013 books and buying books for 2014, what’s your point?) Whether you read these books in their lovely hardcover editions or download them as ebooks, I hope you enjoy them as much as we have.

 

---

The Unreal and the Real: Where on Earth

Tue 27 Nov 2012 - Filed under: Books, Ursula K. Le Guin| Posted by: Gavin

Selected Stories Volume One
Second Printing: January 2013
9781618730343 · trade cloth · 281pp · $24
9781618730367 · ebook · $14.95
Audio book available here from Recorded Books.
[Volume 2.]

Now available in one volume from Simon & Schuster/Saga.
— Four Questions from Publishers Weekly

Don’t miss Ursula K. Le Guin’s acceptance speech upon receiving the 2014 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.
— Profiles in: Boston Globe · The Guardian · NPR · Los Angeles Times · New Yorker · Salon ·

Read the Paris Review interview.

Oregon Book Award winner.
World Fantasy and Locus award finalist.

“There is no better spirit in all of American letters than that of Ursula Le Guin,”wrote Choire Sicha in November. This two-volume collection of her masterful short stories – one book of science fiction, the other of the mundane – “guns from the grim to the ecstatic, from the State to the Garden of Eden, with just one dragon between.”
—Slate Top 10 Books of the Year

“Ursula K. Le Guin is a gift to the world, to the cosmos even. Her works have inspired generations of readers to imagine the endless possibilities of the universe and our own imaginations. Nowhere is the power of Le Guin’s voice more evident than in the nearly forty stories selected for these stunning collections. The first volume includes terrestrial stories full of magical realism and satirical wit. The second volume covers the celestial and the fantastical, straying to the stars and beyond. Both volumes leave the reader in awe of Le Guin’s range and craftsmanship. A perfect addition to any library.”
—Casey Stryer The Elliott Bay Book Co.

“A century from now people will still be reading the fantasy stories of Ursula K Le Guin with joy and wonder. Five centuries from now they might ask if their author ever really existed, or if Le Guin was an identity made from the work of many writers rolled into one. A millennium on and her stories will be so familiar, like myths and fairytales today, that only dedicated scholars will ask who wrote them. Such is the fate of the truly great writers, whose stories far outlive their names.”
—The Guardian

For fifty years, National Book Award winner Ursula K. Le Guin’s stories have shaped the way her readers see the world. Her work gives voice to the voiceless, hope to the outsider, and speaks truth to power. Le Guin’s writing is witty, wise, both sly and forthright; she is a master craftswoman.

This two-volume selection of almost forty stories taken from her eleven collections was made by Le Guin herself, as was the organizing principle of splitting the stories into the nominally realistic and fantastic.

Where on Earth focuses on Le Guin’s interest in realism and magic realism and includes eighteen of Le Guin’s satirical, political, and experimental earthbound stories.

Highlights include World Fantasy and Hugo Award winner “Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight,” the rarely reprinted satirical short, “The Lost Children,” Jupiter Award winner, “The Diary of the Rose,” and the title story of her Pulitzer Prize finalist collection Unlocking the Air.

Stories in this volume were originally published in venues as varied as Playboy, TriQuarterly, Orbit, Redbook, and The New Yorker. 

Companion volume Outer Space Inner Lands includes Le Guin’s best known nonrealistic stories. Both volumes include new introductions by the author.

The Unreal and the Real is a much-anticipated event which will delight, amuse, and provoke.

New: Ursula K. Le Guin interviewed on The Millions.

Listen to Ursula K. Le Guin on BBC’s The World.

Robin Morgan interviews UKL, Women’ Media Center live.

Listen to an interview with Ursula K. Le Guin on the Writer’s Voice.

Read an interview with Ursula K. Le Guin on Wired.

LA Times Holiday Gift Guide.

Reviews for Simon & Schuster’s 2016 one-volume hardcover edition

“A truly majestic collection from one of our finest writers, The Unreal and the Real includes a wide range of Le Guin’s short fiction. Filled with keen observations and splendid storytelling, Le Guin’s prose is effortless and graceful, encompassing a multitude of worlds and the people who inhabit them.” — Mary J, Powell’s Books

“Le Guin’s storytelling talent and expressive language make every character’s choices feel true and significant, and all of the stories resonate with the reader.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Reviews

“Ursula K. Le Guin is the rare writer whose fiction is equally at home in the New Yorker or in Asimov’s Science Fiction. . . . Whether her stories are set in worlds beyond this one or in the building down the street, Le Guin is an astonishing creator and chronicler of communities, and an observer of the ways in which we interact, for good and for bad. These books serve as a fine reminder of that.”
—Tobias Carroll, Minneapolis Star Tribune

From Julie Phillips essay in Bookslut:

“In an email interview, [David Mitchell] spoke of how Le Guin could dream up a nonexistent world ‘and make it feel more real than the ‘real’ here and now around me, this Worcestershire I’m growing up in. Sometimes I think my writing life is the theory, practice and emulation of that same trick.'”
—David Mitchell

“I read her nonstop growing up and read her still. What makes her so extraordinary for me is that her commitment to the consequences of our actions, of our all too human frailties, is unflinching and almost without precedent for a writer of such human optimism. She never turns away from how flinty the heart of the world is. It gives her speculations a resonance, a gravity that few writers, mainstream or generic, can match.”
—Junot Diaz

“A lot of her work is about telling stories, and what it means to tell stories, and what stories look like. She’s been extremely influential on me in that area of what I, as a beginning writer, thought a story must look like, and the much more expansive view I have now of what a story can be and can do.”
—Karen Joy Fowler

 “I feel possible with her in the world. Too much else denies who I am or who I could imagine myself to be.”
—Andrea Hairston

“Le Guin’s science fiction, including The Lathe of Heaven and the antiwar The Word for World Is Forest, ‘helped shape my way of thinking about men and women, love and war. She was and remains a central figure for me.'”
—Michael Chabon

“What can be said about Le Guin that hasn’t already been said? She is one of the most iconic of all living writers, in or out of genre. This two-volume set provides an amazing look at the sheer depth and breadth of her short fiction—and should further add to her influence and her legacy.”
—Omnivoracious: The Best Fantasy and Science Fiction Collections of 2012

“A career-spanning two-volume sampling of Ursula Le Guin’s short stories, in beautiful hardbacks, as chosen and introduced by the author herself. The stories add up to a masterclass in contemporary fiction, divided according to setting—the ones in Where On Earth all take place on some version of this planet, with Outer Space, Inner Lands visiting locations further afield. Even if, like me, you own all nine of Le Guin’s original collections, these books are too beautiful to resist.”
—New Zealand Herald, Best Books of 2012

“The Unreal and the Real guns from the grim to the ecstatic, from the State to the Garden of Eden, with just one dragon between. (Every collection needs one dragon.) In every good career-spanning collection, you can observe an author growing into her authority. Here, every story, in its own way and from its own universe, told in its own mode, explains that there is no better spirit in all of American letters than that of Ursula Le Guin.”
—Slate, “No Better Spirit”

“Le Guin has a tendency to write in a fascinating style, a hybrid of minimalism and just slightly pretentious pithiness; when the story can support that kind of emotional payload, it’s powerful stuff.”
—Nerds of a Feather

“Only ‘Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight’ and ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’ are among the author’s well-known classics. On the other hand, read ‘Hand, Cup, Shell’ or ‘The Matter of Segri.’ Then consider that there may really be no such thing as minor Le Guin, particularly if one is disposed to savor a command of the English language that remains nearly unequaled in the ranks of English-language sf and fantasy. Equally good as an introduction to the author’s short fiction or to fill in gaps that may remain in larger collections.”
—Booklist

“The first of a two-volume collection focuses on stories that are occasionally tinged with magic but remain primarily realistic…. This volume shows that SFWA Grand Master Le Guin can make as great a mark outside genre fiction as she did within it.”
—Publishers Weekly

Table of Contents

Volume One: Where on Earth

“Introduction: Choosing and Dividing”
“Brothers and Sisters”
“A Week in the Country”
“Unlocking the Air”
“Imaginary Countries”
“The Diary of the Rose” [audio; BBC Radio 7, read by Laurel Lefkow]
“The Direction of the Road”
“The White Donkey”
“Gwilan’s Harp”
“May’s Lion”
“Buffalo Gals”
“Horse Camp”
“The Lost Children”
“The Water is Wide”
“Texts”
“Sleepwalkers”
“Hand, Cup, Shell”
“Ether, OR”
“Half Past Four

Praise for Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story collections:

“An important writer. Period.”—The Washington Post

“Witty, satirical and amusing. Yet it is the author’s more serious work that displays her talents best, as she employs recurring themes and elements—cultural diversity, unlikely heroes and heroines, power’s ability to corrupt, love’s power to guide—and considers characters and types (women, children, the differently sexed and gendered) so often disenfranchised by other, more technologically oriented SF writers. . . . [A] classy and valuable collection.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Her characters are complex and haunting, and her writing is remarkable for its sinewy grace.”
—Time

“Le Guin’s prose is so luminous and simple, and she always tells the truth, and when I’m with her people, I’m with living people, on worlds as solid and real as my own. Le Guin has a gift, which is to transform words into worlds.”
—Molly Gloss

“There is no writer with an imagination as forceful and delicate as Ursula Le Guin’s.”
—Grace Paley

“[Le Guin] examines the most public of politics and the most intimate of emotions, constantly challenging her readers to reconsider what it means to be human and humane.”
—Mary Doria Russell

“Le Guin brings reality itself to the proving ground.”—Theodore Sturgeon

“[E]verything Le Guin does is interesting, believable, and exquisitely detailed.”—Los Angeles Herald Examiner

“Delicious . . . her worlds are haunting psychological visions molded with firm artistry.”—Library Journal

“There is no more elegant or discerning expositor than Le Guin.”—Kirkus Reviews

“‘Beauty’ is the word for what Ursula K. Le Guin has wrought here. She explores ways in which we can be foreign and alien to each other, yet still love. Sometimes I don’t even know why the tears had sprung to my eyes: I just knew that I was deeply moved.”—Nalo Hopkinson

“I don’t know anyone else who can do what Le Guin does. Her work is simple and brilliantly clear, like a Buddha’s laugh: joyfully serious, delighted with the joke that is life. Le Guin writes about love, pure and simple—love and all the ways in which it refuses to be bound—and she does so beautifully.”—Nicola Griffith

“Le Guin’s writing touches on something ancient in all of us—something atavistic, of folktales and sagas, that comes from deep inside.”—Carol Emshwiller

“Le Guin is a writer of enormous intelligence and wit, a master storyteller with the humor and the force of a Twain.”
—The Boston Globe

Cover by John D. Berry.
Cover art: “Wildcat” copyright 2010 by Paul Roden & Valerie Lueth, Tugboat Printshop.

Ursula K. Le Guin published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and received the Hugo, Nebula, Endeavor, Locus, Tiptree, Sturgeon, PEN-Malamud, and National Book Award and the Pushcart and Janet Heidinger Kafka prizes, among others.

In recent years she received lifetime achievement awards from Los Angeles Times, World Fantasy Awards, Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, and Willamette Writers, as well as the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Award and the Library of Congress Living Legends award. Le Guin was the recipient of the Association for Library Service to Children’s May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award and the Margaret Edwards Award.

Her recent publications include three survey collections: The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas; The Unreal and the Real: The Selected Short Stories; and The Complete Orsinia: Malafrena, Stories and Songs (Library of America) as well as a collection of poetry, Late in the Day, and a nonfiction collection, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters. Her website is ursulakleguin.com.

---

« Later Entries in — Earlier Entries in »