Book Riot Best of 2023

Mon 29 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Lost Places cover - click to view full sizeCatch up note on a best of list I missed: Sarah Pinsker’s collection Lost Places was selected as one of Book Riot’s 20 of the Best Fantasy Books of 2023. It’s a good, solid, wide-ranging list, and I completely agree with the write-up for Sarah’s book:

“All SFF fans should be reading Sarah Pinsker, and this is a great place to get started.”

Read it now and get your preorder in for her new novella, Haunt Sweet Home, coming from Tor.com in September.


Seattle Picks: LGBTQIA+ Fiction 2023

Fri 26 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

I spy with my little eye* Anya Johanna DeNiro‘s OKPsyche on the Seattle Public Library Picks for the best LGBTQIA+ Fiction 2023. There are 33 titles there, it would make a great reading list.

* DuckDuckGo


Re: Formats

Thu 25 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

I’ve updated my chart of the ratio of formats Small Beer titles (including chapbooks and LCRW) sell in.

Print books (in red on the chart) were 90% of sales in 2010 — we started selling ebooks in 2005 — and dropped to a low of 49% in 2014 (or: we sold a lot of ebooks that year).

The 2023 breakdown was 65.36% print and 34.64% ebooks. I’ve never tracked audio books, mostly because the half dozen audio book publishers all send statements at different times and they are somewhat hard to extract numbers from. I think audio sales would be about 2-3% of the total. Although I prefer print or audio, I’m format agnostic as a publisher, especially knowing how useful ebooks are for books such as ours where there are no large type editions. I’d like people to read Small Beer books and I know that people enjoy different types of books in different formats: for some fiction only works on audio or short stories only work in print, etc. Anyway, every year when I get to this point in Jul.-Dec. royalty calculations I like to stop and look at the format percentages, see if there’s anything I’m missing, any books I should be reminding people exist. Oh wait, all of them!


Sparks

Tue 23 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Kindling cover - click to view full sizeToday is the official publication day for Kathleen Jennings’s first collection of short stories, Kindling. Kathleen has illustrated many of our book covers over the last 15 years. She worked with Kij Johnson and did the cover and many interior illustrations for The River Bank; she provided covers for two issues of our zine, LCRW; and also did the cover and interior illustration for Margo Lanagan’s chapbook Stray Bats.

As a writer, she contributed comics to each of our Candlewick Press anthologies Steampunk! and Monstrous Affections, as well as two stories to LCRW. Both of those stories were reprinted in Best of the Year anthologies. And now, at last!, we are elated to publish Kathleen’s debut collection, Kindling, in both hardcover and paperback. Kindling collects a dozen fantastic tales including “Annie Coal” which is published here for the first time.

Book Riot includes the book on a list of good books out today and Charlotte’s review just went up on her Library. If you’re new to Kathleen’s writing here are two completely different stories, The Present Only Toucheth Thee published in Strange Horizons and The Heart of Owl Abbas originally published on Tor.com.


Kindling

Tue 23 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

Published simultaneously in trade cloth (9781618732170), trade paper (9781618732132), & ebook (9781618732149) · 288 pages

World Fantasy and Aurealis Award shortlists

A fabulous debut of folk tales and fantasies by an award winning author and illustrator.

Small fires start in the hearts of Kathleen Jennings’s characters and irresistibly spread to those around them. Journeys are taken, debts repaid, disguises put on, and lessons offered — although not often learned — in these fantastic tales. Jennings’s confident voice lulls readers into stepping off the known paths to find “Undine Love,” “The Heart of Owl Abbas,” and further unexpected places and people.

Read a story: Undine Love

Table of Contents

The Heart of Owl Abbas
Skull and Hyssop
Ella and the Flame
Not to Be Taken
A Hedge of Yellow Roses
The Tangled Streets
The Present Only Toucheth Thee (story; podcast)
On Pepper Creek
Annie Coal
Undine Love
Kindling
The Splendour Falls

Read Kathleen’s story notes.

Reviews

“A real treat. There is a kindling in each character’s heart throughout this collection of fantastical stories, as well as throughout Jennings’s whole oeuvre.”
— Lyndsie Manusos, Book Riot

“But sinking into each story, to delight in the rhythms of the words and the delightful worlds created: That’s giving this collection what it deserves.”
— Alexandra Pierce, Locus

“A range of strange tales, from the myth-like to settings in suburban and outback Australia.”
— Steve Pfarrer, Daily Hampshire Gazette

“If you are looking for lovely fantastical short stories, such as a perfect for savoring on a cold winter night (or hot summer day if you are antipodal), I enthusiastically recommend Kindling, by Kathleen Jennings.” — Charlotte’s Library

“Fantasy writer and illustrator Kathleen Jennings (Flyaway) offers 12 glittering, fantasy-inspired short stories in Kindling. In ‘Ella and the Flame,’ three women and one child tell each other stories to comfort themselves while their neighbors burn them alive as retribution for a mysterious crime. Flipping the fantasy script by placing a boggart rather than suspected witches at its center, ‘On Pepper Creek’ tells the story of a boggart who is brought to a new land against his will in a family trunk and who exacts his revenge in return. And while the titular ‘Kindling’ centers the unexpected intuition behind a barmaid’s observations of her clientele, ‘Splendour Falls’ shows the much more nefarious manipulations of a mysterious young woman who enchants a young man gifted with special sight.
Jennings’s plots are refreshingly never straightforward, and her tone and subject matter never the same. For example, ‘Ella and the Flame’ casts a wistful spell with its oral-storytelling conceit and angle of feminist tragedy. Meanwhile, ‘Undine Love’ is a complex balancing act between a cautionary tale and dark humor, using its narrator’s outside perspective to infuse humor in the plight of its doomed “hero.” Though recognizable folk tales and fairy tales appear in fragments — ‘Sleeping Beauty’ in ‘A Hedge of Yellow Roses’; ‘The Frog Prince’ in ‘Undine Love’; ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ in ‘Splendour Falls’ — they never play out the way readers expect. Throughout, like the scraps of old tales, characters’ motivations flicker in and out of view, making the true magic of these stories the simultaneous predictability and unknowability of the people and creatures at their centers.” — Alice Martin, Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“Women with guts and men of good fortune in search of their personal treasures.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Following her debut, Flyaway (2020), Jennings here compiles a collection of 12 of her previously published short stories. Samplings of her elegant fantasies include “The Heart of Owl Abbas,” a beautifully detailed tale of a lonely songwriter who sends anonymous compositions to a recently arrived virtuoso, which unfortunately brings her presence to the attention of their dissipated ruler. In ‘Ella and the Flame,’ three sisters and a child spin wondrous tales while awaiting their cruel neighbors’ unjustified vengeance, and in ‘Not to Be Taken,’ the survivor of a murdered family returns home after decades away intent on finding a place for her burgeoning collection of poison bottles. As a riff on ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘A Hedge of Yellow Roses’ has a fully-awake but abandoned lady faire hoping for rescue by the unwitting knight who stumbled into her thorn- encrusted compound. The title story, ‘Kindling,’ links six customer scenarios to a clumsy but intuitive barmaid and her lovelorn admirer. Offer to fans of lyrically descriptive prose.”
— Lucy Lockley, Booklist

Praise for Kathleen Jennings’s books:

“An unforgettable tale, as beautiful as it is thorny.” —The New York Times Book Review

“In spellbinding, lyrical prose Jennings lulls readers into this rich, dreamlike world. Lovers of contemporary fairy tales will find this a masterful work.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“I love the imagery, the atmosphere, the incredible tactile quality of the world as described, the structure. . . . Some of the best prose I’ve ever read.”—Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

“Part ghost story, part murder mystery and part fairy tale, Flyaway feels like a perfect combination of all Jennings’ experiences and imagination.”—Book Page

“An entrancing and unforgettable debut.” — The Southern Bookseller Review

“Jennings’s debut novella is pure, poetic Australian gothic, filled with haunting emotions, fairy-tale action, and sharp prose.” — Library Journal

“A deliciously mysterious Gothic fairy tale wrapped in elegantly descriptive prose.” — Booklist

“Half mystery, half fairy tale, all exquisitely rendered and full of teeth.” — Holly Black, author of Book of Night

“A fairytale wrapped about in riddles and other thorny bits of enchantments and stories, but none of them quite like any you’ve heard before. Kathleen Jennings’ prose dazzles, and her magic feels real enough that you might even prick your finger on it.” — Kelly Link, author of White Cat, Black Dog

“A superbly told tale of folklore-infused fantasy, full of rising dread, set in a sharply observed Australian outback town.” — Garth Nix

“A darkly enchanting and unexpected tale. A gothic Alice in Wonderland meets Picnic at Hanging Rock. With Flyaway Jennings takes old threads and weaves them into something new and exciting.” — Angela Slatter

“I feel as if a very new voice has whispered a very old secret in my ear, and I’ll never be able to un-hear it. Nor will I ever want to.” — C. S. E. Cooney

Cover art by Kathleen Jennings.

About the Author

Kathleen Jennings is an illustrator and writer based in Brisbane, Australia. As an illustrator, she has received the World Fantasy and Ditmar awards and has been shortlisted for the Hugo and Locus awards. As a writer, she has won a British Fantasy and Ditmar awards and has been shortlisted for World Fantasy, the Courier-Mail People’s Choice Book of the Year Award, the Crawford, and Aurealis awards.

Previously

Fri, 14 June, 6 p.m. AEST, Meet Kathleen Jennings, Brisbane Square Library, 266 George Street Brisbane City, QLD 4000 Australia


Howard Waldrop, R.I.P.

Mon 15 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Howard Waldrop holding a copy of his collection Night of the Cooters in 2018Brought low by the news that Howard Waldrop died yesterday, January 14, at the age of 77.

We delighted in bringing his first collection, the still well and hilariously named Howard Who?, back into print in 2006 and then publishing a later collection, Horse of a Different Color in 2013. Each of those books has at least one of my favorite stories in them: the award-winning “The Ugly Chickens” in the former and the holy grail/vaudeville mashup title story in the latter.

In 2014 we published ebooks of two selections of his works, Other Worlds, Better Lives: Selected Long Fiction and Things Will Never Be the Same: Selected Short Fiction, which were published in trade cloth and trade paper by Michael Walsh of Old Earth Books. Then in 2022 we re-released his Wheatland Press/Electric Story collection Dream Factories and Radio Pictures, his “movie (‘dream factories’) and television (‘radio pictures’) stories from his first four collections, as well as a new article and a new story.”

That’s the publishing part. More on the man himself, one of my most faithful correspondents, later. For now, he is much missed. Here’s his best known story, The Ugly Chickens.


The Book of Love Limited Edition

Thu 11 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

A limited edition of Kelly’s first novel, The Book of Love, to be published later this year by Small Beer Press, courtesy of Random House who published the novel in hardcover, audiobook, and ebook on February 13, 2024.

The Book of Love is a huge beautiful novel about love in its many forms. The Random House edition is 640 pages and 2.1 pounds in weight. Read more


OKPsyche in MN & WI

Thu 11 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Anya Johanna DeNiro just confirmed two more events for her novel OKPsyche:

(Postponed) 1/20/24 from 3 -5 p.m. at Avant Garden, 215 E. Main St., Anoka, MN 55303

and

3/25/24 at A Room of One’s Own, 2717 Atwood Ave., Madison, WI.

I haven’t been to Room for years — long enough that they’ve changed hands and location since I was last there. I hope at some point to make it over because the people who own and run it are fun, admirable, and great booksellers — they also make great maps of book recommendations which they post on social media so I recommend following them. One of these days! In the meantime, if you’re in the area, hope you can get to one of these events.


2 Weeks Until Kindling

Wed 10 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

On a very snowy, wet, dreich day it is funny to write about a book called Kindling but the spark in Kathleen Jennings’s collection is bright enough to shine even in weather like this. (I realize weather is localized and that it is incredibly hot, but still wet!, in Brisbane, Queensland where Kathleen lives.)

Warehouse-wise the book is in a liminal state — either On Hand or about to be — and hopefully not in a frozen-in-a-truck state somewhere between Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Preorders will be going out soon and those placed on this site go out with a bonus backlist title. Most likely from us, but maybe from another press if the pack and pickers at the Jackson warehouse start having fun.

Over in Portland, OR, Rachael P. has the right idea on how to read this book in Powell’s 2024 Book Preview: The First Quarter:

Kindling Kindling by Kathleen Jennings
by Kathleen Jennings

When the words “gothic” and “folk tales” come up in a book description, I will always get excited. This anthology promises the creepiness of classic folk tales and lush, dreamlike settings. I’ve seen many reviews raving about the elegance of the prose, which, fittingly for folk tales, verges into the poetic. I can’t wait to read these stories under a warm blanket this winter. — Rachael P.


Preorder The Book of Love

Mon 8 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

We just added a page on the BKMN website for preorders for signed or personalized copies of Kelly’s forthcoming debut novel The Book of Love.

If you’d like your book(s) personalized, once it’s in your cart, put the name of the person you’d like it personalized for in the “notes” field.

Every pre-order (including those before the page went up) placed by publication day — February 13, 2024 — will ship with a signed, limited edition not-for-sale specially made 5″ square broadside.

Books will be shipped Media Mail beginning February 11th. If you’d like your book to arrive sooner, please ask for a quote on Priority Mail shipping.

Kelly is doing some in-person and online events. She is tentatively planning to be at Book Moon on the afternoon of Saturday, Feb. 17, if you’d like to pick up your copy then.

More of Kelly’s book.
Kelly recommends some books.


SBP BS Bestsellers 2023

Fri 5 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

2023 was the another odd year for the press. Since I did the top 14 (BS = Bookscan, now called Circana) bestsellers last year (for a reason that eludes me now), here are the past year’s top 15 — look at all those short story collections!

North American Lake Monsters Nathan Ballingrud Lost Places: Stories Sarah Pinsker Travel Light Naomi Mitchison The Privilege of the Happy Ending: Small, Medium, and Large Stories Kij Johnson Spirits Abroad: Stories Zen Cho In Other Lands Sarah Rees Brennan Stranger Things Happen: Stories Kelly Link Never Have I Ever: Stories Isabel Yap Kalpa Imperial: the Greatest Empire That Never Was Angélica Gorodischer At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories Kij Johnson Okpsyche Anya Johanna Deniro Fire Logic: an Elemental Logic Novel Laurie J. Marks A Stranger In Olondria Sofia Samatar Tender Sofia Samatar

 


The Heart of Owl Abbas

Thu 4 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

KKindling cover - click to view full sizeathleen Jennings’s new book, Kindling, her first collection of stories, is being trucked from printer to distributor and from there on its way to shops, cafes, backpacks, bedside tables, ship’s libraries, and a few to alternate worlds. One of those worlds might be the one where her story The Heart of Owl Abbas is set:

Cautious even in despair, Excelsior shredded the gossamer spell into cheap sentiment and tramping rhythm, and sent it by nip-fingered courier below where, unintended, the words fell like fire-inches, like sparks in kindling.

The rooms of roses burn,
The lanterns are turned high.
Petty Street, long starved for light,
Lifts a ravening eye.


DeNiro on Mohanraj and Rosenbaum Are Humans

Wed 3 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

OKPsyche coverSomething good to start the new year with: Anya joins Mary Anne Mohanraj and Benjamin Rosenbaum on Mohanraj and Rosenbaum Are Humans for a conversation about her novel, OKPsyche. The conversation roves all over: on genre, gender, writing, history, poetry, and more — not to be missed.


Not the Delaware Attorney General

Thu 21 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Kindling cover - click to view full sizeNot to be missed in all of this, in January we’re publishing Kathleen Jenning’s first collection of stories, Kindling.

The printer, Maple Press in York, PA, is about to ship the hardcover and trade paperbacks to our distro, Consortium, whose main warehouse in an Ingram one in Jackson, TN. Once they’re received and sorted, Consortium will start shipping the books out to bookstores, libraries, me(! — well, Book Moon), and so on, and everyone in the whole world will get ready to celebrate the publication day, January 23rd, by setting the world on fire, overthrowing repressive governments, installing solar power and batteries, buying more bikes, and reading this collection of modern folk and fairy tales.


Halting Subs, But Going On (and On)

Thu 21 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Thank you, Vanessa Armstrong, for this news story about Small Beer on Tor.com.

The article led to a small flood of men emailing manuscript submissions and queries, showing that no matter how clear a headline is (“Small Beer Press Is Halting New Publications” is very clear), some people don’t think it applies to them.

I’m 2 years into long Covid. I’ve written updates since March 2022. I never tested positive for Covid. I’ve since had another 3 or 4 vaccines/boosters. I only see people unmasked once they’ve done a Covid test.

From my two years on this couch, I beg you to wear a mask in public/when traveling, etc. Insist on better filters at work or school. Build Corsi-Rosenthal boxes for meet-ups or home.

The Covid virus can attack many different parts of the body. This is a mass disabling event I do not want you to be part of.

I’ve added to the statement below. I realize I go on so please skip to here and pick up some books for yourself/someone you know.

We closed Small Beer to submissions in March 2023 and only published four books this year: two novels and two collections of stories. After 20+ years of reading submissions it’s been very strange to know there are good books I am missing but c’est la vie.

In December 2021 I came down with something unknown. I never tested positive for Covid but in 2022 I was diagnosed with Long Covid. I am a very different person now: I can’t carry boxes of books around, I don’t drive, I can’t read as much as I used to, I lie on the couch most of the day because walking or even sitting up for too long wipes me out. I have tried many anecdotally successful supplements and medicines — none of which have done any good. In the last two years I only see people who have are masked or have tested negative. Kelly drives me into our bookshop, Book Moon, once a week or so where people are unmasked but we run 2 Corsi-Rosenthal boxes and I am always masked. I literally would not wish this on my worst enemy — although I don’t really have one except maybe the soul crushing companies that would like to run all the small presses and indie businesses out of town.

We’d contracted our 2023 titles over the past few years. We have one more title under contract but I’m not sure if we can publish it as I think it’s too much work for me. I emailed with our authors about my limitations and occasionally talked on the phone but phone calls or zooms wipe me out and then I can’t do anything else.

In 2022 we only managed to publish two books. This year we published four and here at the end of the year I see how much these books missed the old me. Sarah Pinsker’s second collection Lost Places was selected for Slate’s Best Books of the Year which is something to celebrate. It’s always hard for small or indie presses to get coverage and no one expects to be on Best of the Year lists but I always hope our books will at least be considered for lists and awards. This year that was more difficult as I wasn’t able to send books out as widely or follow up. Publicity is part of my job and following up takes a fair amount of energy which I don’t have. So unless we want to change our habits and start being unfair to authors, we have to stop.

I haven’t even mentioned our September title, Anya Johanna DeNiro’s short, amazing, difficult, transcendent science fiction novel OKPsyche — the review I enjoyed most was Jake Casella Brookins in Locus which started off, “I was completely unprepared for how powerful Anya Johanna DeNiro’s OKPsyche is” — or our final book, Kij Johnson’s long awaited, decade in the making second collection, The Privilege of the Happy Ending. 

Kelly recently took a two-year position at Smith College so now we will get health insurance there — then we’ll have to work out what to do after that. Kelly’s novel, The Book of Love, comes out in February, and at some point next year we’ll publish a limited edition. That’s been fun to work on and if it goes ok maybe we will do more. Or maybe we will just keep our zine, LCRW, going — although even there we only managed one issue this year. I can’t mail it out anymore so it’s harder to do. I love paper zines, so the intention is there. I’ve been very lucky to have support in the past two years. It is pretty crappy to see the ground cut away from under my feet but I know it could be worse.

In 2010 a friend, Michael J. DeLuca, and I started a DRM-free ebook website, WeightlessBooks.com, and my disability meant I had to step away from that last year.

I’d thought that with cutting down on other things (we don’t travel anymore: no more book fairs and conferences; no more Weightless; a lot less Book Moon; fiction is now quite hard to write) there was a chance I could keep Small Beer going but it is too much. As long as the authors are happy, we’ll keep the books in print — or sell them on where possible: Random House just released the cover for their new 2024 edition of Karen Lord’s debut novel Redemption in Indigo. 

My expectations for Small Beer was that Kelly and I would keep publishing books we enjoyed basically until we dropped dead, preferably a long time from now. So now I have the whole anger and grief that besides not being able to go sledding (if it snows, thanks Shell/Exxon/climate change), or walk the dog more than 1.5 blocks out and back, there’s also no more dancing — I miss dancing. My inner self often has music of my own or others playing and I am often dancing. I am so slow now.

Mine is not a long Covid story where I was once a marathon runner and now I lie on the couch. I liked lying on the couch preferably with comics, champagne, and bonbons. Ok, so that didn’t happen very often, but still.

Anyway. Everyone who is wearing a mask is helping everyone else. You are the helpers and I thank you. I appreciate all the notes from friends and strangers and am replying slowly. It is much easier to be flippant on Bluesky. I keep up with long Covid news.

We have pushed some great and weird books out into the world in the last 20 years, some further than others, but never a book we thought wasn’t odd and great and worth being a physical object in the world. No one knows the impact of a book that has sold 300 or 30,000 copies — it may change the world for one reader. It happened to us time and time again. I look forward to reading more good, odd books from other publishers in the future.

 


Top 5 Bestsellers 2023

Tue 19 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Top 5 shipped from distroHere are our top 5 bestsellers so far this year by numbers shipped from our distributor:

  1. Sarah Pinsker, Lost Places
  2. Nathan Ballingrud, North American Lake Monsters
  3. Kij Johnson, The Privilege of the Happy Ending
  4. Anya Johanna DeNiro, OKPsyche
  5. Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands

In 2023 we published the Liminals series capper from Ayize Jama-Everett, Heroes from Another World. Ayize had an amazing year: he published 3 books (including a great Afrofuturistic graphic novel The Last Count of Monte Cristo) and put out a documentary, A Table of Our Own: “an extraordinary and thought-provoking documentary that delves into the rich tapestry of the African-American experience, exploring the intersection of psychedelic substance use, spirituality and the pursuit of social justice.”

We followed Ayize’s novel with Sarah Pinsker’s second collection which was included in Slate’s Best Books of the Year.

Then came Anya Johanna DeNiro’s OKPsyche — I think the review I enjoyed most was Jake Casella Brookins in Locus which started off, “I was completely unprepared for how powerful Anya Johanna DeNiro’s OKPsyche is” and leapt off into the kind of review that I alwayshope to read of a book I love.

Our final book of the year was Kij Johnson’s The Privilege of the Happy Ending. 10 years in the making, it’s a weird and wide-ranging collection and was recently reviewed in the Washington Post by Michael Dirda.

We’re shipping books & zines from our warehouse and Book Moon daily. Orders welcome!

Laurie J. Marks is Writing Again

Fri 15 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Anyone who has read the deep and excellent Elemental Logic series will rejoice with me to see that Laurie J. Marks is writing again. In a post today she writes about it, about the grueling years she and her wife Deb have gone through, the unexpected choices that she’s made, and, after a year of being retired, taking up writing again.


LeVar Burton Reads The Court Magician

Wed 13 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

LeVar Burton Reads podcast artworkLeVar Burton is variously and widely recognized as a champion of all things literary for books and one of the ways he shares his joy and love of narrative is through his podcast. He recently chose Sarah Pinsker’s story “The Court Magician” — listen here (or wherever you access Podcastia).


Never Have I Ever Polish Edition

Fri 8 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Never Have I Ever cover Good news for Polish readers: we just received the on-signing contract payment from MAG Jacek Rodek for Polish rights to Isabel Yap’s award winning debut collection Never Have I Ever. That’s the first international rights sale for that title.

In other news, Isabel and Alyssa Wong will be anchor instructors for the final two weeks of the Clarion Workshop in San Diego next summer. Applications are now open.


LibroFM Bundles

Wed 6 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Get 10% off audiobook credit bundles at LibroFM for the next couple of days — they only run this sale once a year. I use Libro and like it, easy to use, huge library, etc., etc.

 


Slate: The 10 Best Books of 2023

Wed 6 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

The covers of the 10 best books.Sarah Pinsker’s Lost Places gets lovely review in Dan Kois’s list of Slate’s 10 Best Books of 2023.

How to explain what’s so graceful about this collection of fantasy stories by the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning Pinsker? . . .  Every story is surprising, delightful, and very human, and left me excited to read more from this writer, who is both finely attuned to the language and rituals of modern life and in touch with some real deep-magic weirdness.

See the list and read the full recommendation.


Indiepubs sale

Tue 5 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Our distro’s nice, fast Indiepubs site — where you can get books from 100+ indie publishers — has a ton of our books at 50% off for one week. The discount is automagically added in cart as per the screenshots below and shipping is free for orders over $40.

More sale books! Go to the underworld in Archivist Wasp; drift away in Sofia Samatar novel;, afrofuturamazingism: The Liminal War, Down Under with a twist in Terra Nullius; a Chinese autofiction with ghosts; Appalachianesque short stories; a Wind in the Willows sequel — add books to cart for discount Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social 675 followers 635 following 437 posts Gavin J. Grant. He/him. Peely-wally Scottish immigrant. Equality, health care 4 all. BLM. Long covid 12/21, meh. smallbeerpress.com (closed to subs): Anya DeNiro, Kij Johnson, Kathleen Jennings, Zen Cho, & LCRW, a zine. bookmoonbooks.com Suggested for you Posts Posts & replies Media Likes Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 18m Who here could have expected etc etc etc Liz Bourke @hawkwinglb.bsky.social · 34m Well this is great news. www.theguardian.com/business/202... Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 33m Ha, wrong again. Free shipping at $40: indiepubs.com/search/?spag... Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 34m About half our slightly weird books are 50% off for a week on our distro's Indiepubs site. Discount automagically added in cart. Free shipping @ $50 indiepubs.com/search/?spag... ALT ALT Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 34m About half our slightly weird books are 50% off for a week on our distro's Indiepubs site. Discount automagically added in cart. Free shipping @ $50 indiepubs.com/search/?spag... ALT ALT Reposted by Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. Jesse D. Jenkins @jessejenkins.bsky.social · 2h Really important analysis from US Treasury Dept. finds the overwhelming share of clean energy investment driven by the Inflation Reduction Act is occurring in lower income communities, offering real economic opportunity across America: home.treasury.gov/news/press-r... This is as intended. 🔌💡 Reposted by Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.bsky.social · 9h This is bad. Atlanta is proposing a blanket ban on masks. (Sounds like healthcare workers & religious face coverings might be exempt) There is no evidence mask bans reduce crime. But mask bans do increase disease spread, violate free expression rights, & are misused to stop & frisk people of color. ALT ALT Reposted by Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. Sarah Weinman @sarahweinman.bsky.social · 19h At last, my favorite crime novels of 2023, all at this gift link: www.nytimes.com The Year’s Best Crime Novels Our columnist picks the year’s best. Reposted by Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. Amal El-Mohtar @amalelmohtar.com · 1d Good morning, here are the ten books I was most struck & moved by this year. www.nytimes.com The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2023 From witch stories to near-future noir, here are the year’s 10 best speculative books. Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 23h See if we can stop the rot — sign here: Alicia Spencer-Hall @aspencerhall.bsky.social · 1d Aberdeen plans to remove all degrees and research in modern languages. Utterly disgraceful. Please consider signing this petition www.change.org/p/save-langu... Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 1d Thanks everyone who supported me not doing the Hot Chocolate Walk for Safe Passage: I raised $200, our kid raised $310(!), and Safe Passage raised 25% of the annual budget: $781,930!!! Donate here if you like. THANKS friends and strangers, very much appreciated! p2p.onecause.com/hcr2023/ursu... Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 1d If Joan of Arc had a heart Would she give it as a gift? To such as me who longs to see How an angel ought to be? Lorena Hobbitt @kellylink.bsky.social · 1d Joan of Bark Closeup of saintly looking labradoodle, eyes raised toward heaven (the lunch table). ALT Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 1d "The universe owes us nothing; we, the living, must safeguard one another." Gift link from author, great stuff: Rachel Vorona Cote @rvoronacote.bsky.social · 6d I've been obsessing over Jon Klassen's delightfully dark children's books since I first started reading them to my toddler. This summer, I finally decided to write about them. Here's my Letter of Recommendation essay for the New York Times Magazine (gift link): www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/m... Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 1d Give them hell, Mary: "Al Jaber made the comments in ill-tempered responses to questions from Mary Robinson" www.theguardian.com/environment/... Reposted by Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. Tiffany @webinista.bsky.social · 1d Petting dogs and waving at babies are the key to happiness. (This is why I tend to walk to get groceries.) Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 1d Vonnegut knew Kurt Vonnegut tells his wife he's going out to buy an envelope: "Oh, she says, well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I'll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is - we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it's like we're not supposed to dance at all anymore." Let's all get up and move around a bit right now... or at least dance. ALT Reposted by Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. Ryan North @ryannorth.ca · 1d Decades ago my wife got this bear at Starbucks whose SKIN SLIDES OFF, revealing that he's not a festive holiday bear but instead showing his true form (murder bear happily wearing the skin of his slain enemies.) A holiday tradition ALT ALT ALT Reposted by Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. Lorena Hobbitt @kellylink.bsky.social · 1d Would love to know why Siri’s voice recognition has absolutely gone to shit over the last few months. It’s made asking for music impossible when at one point it was quite impressive. Reposted by Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. C.C. Finlay @ccfinlay.bsky.social · 3d Applications are open for this years Clarion Writers Workshop at UC San Diego. It's a great line-up of instructors -- Sam J. Miller, Jeffrey Ford, Matt Bell, Nalo Hopkinson, and the anchor team of Alyssa Wong and Isabel Yap. clarion.ucsd.edu#apply clarion.ucsd.edu Clarion Workshop Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 2d Never saw this show growing up in Scotland but fascinated to read this: c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 2d Let's talk about 'Hogan's Heroes'. It ran 1965-1971: A campy spy comedy set in a POW camp in Nazi Germany, which feels like a very weird choice. Maybe even in bad taste? But here's what changed my mind about it: First, every major German character was played by a Jewish actor. Hogan's Heroes cast on the set of POW barracks. ALT Reposted by Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. Molly Shah @mommunism.bsky.social · 2d The words of one of the Palestinians who were shot in Vermont Alt text bot ALT Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 2d 2023 Massachusetts minimum wage is $15/hour & should be going up from there: www.mass.gov/info-details... Lachelle 🍉 @praxiteles.bsky.social · 2d Gretchen and Michigan dems have done so many solid things here but constantly underestimate the impact it would have to simply raise the minimum wage Gavin, Small Beer Press, &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 2d I'm going to Book Moon today to help ship zome sines (hmm), zome with chocolate, some with books, some sekrit bundles. 2 more weeks of holiday shipping! smallbeerpress.com/shopping/ 2023 books! Short story collections by Sarah Pinsker & Kij Johnson, short novel (OKPsyche) by Anya Johanna DeNiro, series capper from Ayize Jama-Everett. And a zine (purposefully mis)named after a NY heiress's wrist tattoo. ALT Home Search Feeds 2 Notifications Lists Moderation Profile Settings Following Popular With Friends Blacksky LongCovid What's Hot Classic Indie bookstores & booksellers More feeds Send feedback · Privacy · Terms · Help Screenshot of some of the titles at 50% discount for 1 week on our distro’s Indiepubs site. Free shipping on orders over $50. Many many indie publisher books on this site! Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea SMALL BEER PRESS (-$8.50) $8.50 Tender SMALL BEER PRESS (-$8.50) $8.50 Air Logic SMALL BEER PRESS (-$8.50) $8.50 Taboo SMALL BEER PRESS (-$8.50) $8.50 Half-Witch SMALL BEER PRESS (-$7.48) $7.47 Dance on Saturday SMALL BEER PRESS (-$8.50) $8.50 Available Dark SMALL BEER PRESS (-$8.50) $8.50 The Adventurists SMALL BEER PRESS (-$8.50) $8.50 The Silverberg Business SMALL BEER PRESS (-$8.49)

 

All books on sale


Holiday shipping 2023

Fri 1 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Reposting:

This is an early reminder about holiday mailing dates as they’re a day or so earlier than last year. Our office has been closed this year and I’m shipping orders from either Consortium/Ingram’s warehouse or occasionally by me or, more often, the excellent booksellers of Book Moon.

I am usually a proponent of ground shipping. Don’t choose next day or 2nd day: keep stuff off planes and on trains and trucks. However, holiday shipping is a different beastie.

Media mail shipping is included free on all orders. However, there is no “last mailing date” for media mail. If the truck is full, media mail packages wait for the next one. If it’s really busy, and it usually is, those packages will arrive after the holidays. If you don’t care, yay! If you want to guarantee pre-holiday arrival, please choose Priority Mail.

These are the USPS shipping deadlines so please order by December 15th for holiday shipping, thank you!

USPS Ground Advantage™ Service Dec. 16
First-Class Mail Dec. 16
Priority Mail Dec. 18
Priority Mail Express Dec. 20

And no matter where you are, Weightless Books is always open and has all our DRM-free ebooks.


Celebrating the Visionary Stories of Kelley Eskridge

Wed 29 Nov 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Delighted to come across Dangerous, Hopeful Futures: Celebrating the Visionary Stories of Kelley Eskridge by Jonathan Thornton on Tor.com this week:

Kelley Eskridge is not a prolific author, but she has nevertheless produced a body of work remarkable for its subtlety and depth. Eskdrige’s short stories are marvels of character-focused SF, where speculations are explored through the interactions of everyday people. They frequently centre queer characters and explore ideas around gender. Similarly, her lone novel Solitaire (2002), is an underrated and pioneering work of queer cyberpunk that thoughtfully explores the potential uses of VR technology for incarceration.

Kelley is an excellent writer. We brought Solitaire back into print a few years ago. Her collection, Dangerous Space, is also available from Aqueduct. Definitely recommend if you’re looking for sf that takes on the current moment in gender, incarceration, family, politics, and more.


Room of One’s Own Holiday Catalog

Tue 28 Nov 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Page of trans fiction picks from Room: Wild Geese, Idlewild, OKPsyche, and PonyboyIn previous years we’ve celebrated books being in the NPR Best Books lists and others and I’m still somewhat optimistic that some of the books will appear here or there but with me being less able to reach out to reviewers I suspect some books sent out did not always reach their target. C’est la vie. I’ve said before I always expect our books to win every award and be in every list (“What’s the world coming to? Our book is not in [incredibly niche list the book might tangentially have fit]? Oh no!”) and sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.

We published 4 books (& a zine) this year: 2 collections, a series capping novel, and a short novel — the good news today is that two of those books (along with Kelly’s White Cat, Black Dog) are in A Room of One’s Own Holiday Catalog: Kij Johnson’s The Privilege of the Happy Ending and Anya Johanna DeNiro’s OKPsyche‘s highlighted on the trans fiction page:

“This novel tore my heart up—in the very best way. Our narrator is a semi-recently-out trans woman in her forties, she is an ex-wife, a mother separated from her son, and largely between stable work (a former writer, whose metafictions pepper the text). Friendships real and imagined provide a mirror of reflection in which our narrator turns the mundane into profound. This is a portrait of a woman who has so much love in her heart, and slowly learns to afford herself some of that love.” — Charlie


Brew & Forge Book Fair

Mon 27 Nov 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Copy of brew & forge_edited.jpgIf you have some Small Beer books on your to-read list, see if you can get them at the Brew and Forge Book Fair where multiple copies of four of our books are available. Coincidentally, if you buy 4 books at the fair, you get a free notebook . . .

The fair opened today and runs until December 8. Authors voted for the tenth book fair to benefit the Palestinian Feminist Collective which “is committed to achieving Palestinian social and political liberation by confronting systemic gendered, sexual, and colonial violence, oppression, and dispossession. Read more about their work here.“


Brindles?

Fri 24 Nov 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Discounted Bundled Books for You & Your Reader Friends:

2023: Hard year. Good weird books. ayize jama-everett, heroes of an unknown world “dive in, you will love what you discover.” —victor lavalle, author of the changeling sarah pinsker, lost places ★ “queer, hopeful, and eerie, celebrating the rebellious spirits of both immortal-feeling youth and resilient elder protagonists.” — booklist (starred review) anya johanna deniro, okpsyche “an exploration of ensoulment and embodiment, and the search for both, told by a trans woman in lush sink-into-it prose.” — nina maclaughlin, boston globe kij johnson, the privilege of the happy ending ★ “hugo and nebula award winner johnson (the river bank) returns with 14 dazzling speculative shorts. . . . these boundary- pushing, magic-infused tales are sure to wow.” — publishers weekly (starred review)


What about Small Beer?

Sat 18 Nov 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

AKindling covers a follow up to my last post, ugh, I did go on, I wanted to give a clearer idea of what is happening with the press.

Of course, since we have the obfuscatorily named zine, the story isn’t 100% clear.

There are many things I can do for the press lying here on this couch. There are many I can’t and sometimes all I can do is watch TV or read the internet.

We have one book under contract that was just delivered. Because it is a different kind of thing it would take normally about 3 years to bring to publication. I am not sure how long it will take now.

Other than that, we have Kathleen Jennings’s collection of stories, Kindling, coming in January. The proofs just arrived from the printer and when I return them I’ll find out if we’re still on schedule. I don’t think we’ve only ever had one book in that forthcoming page before. Weird to see. Glad this dictation thing is working well today.

We hope to publish a limited edition of Kelly’s novel at some point next year. There would be some kind of poetry if that were our last book. Although I’m a big fan of accessibility, so it would be sad if our last book is a limited edition.

We closed completely to submissions in March and given that I have not improved, I do not expect to reopen anytime soon. The way I am now I could not do justice to any book that we bought. It is very strange not to read submissions after 20 years.  I’m going to try and keep the zine going. However, I’m not up to mailing it, and some days I’m not up to reading. This year we managed one this year.* Next year, who knows.

 

* Rather than correct the sentence I’m going to leave it to sure the basic level of brain fog detail missing that I know have. I’ve never been the best writer (I’ve published some of them, ha!), but at least I was able to string a sentence together and I enjoyed writing fiction, nonfiction, reviews, etc. I didn’t expect to write like this until I was 85 or so. What can I say, I’m ahead of my time.

 


« Later Entries in — Earlier Entries in »