Under the Poppy wins the Gaylactic Spectrum Award!

Mon 28 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Under the Poppy cover - click to view full sizePossibly the best news we’ll get this week? We are delighted to see that Kathe Koja’s novel Under the Poppy is the recipient of the 2011 Best Novel Gaylactic Spectrum Award!

Note: the ebook is 50% off until Dec. 1.

Here’s the Gaylactic Spectrum Award 2011 handout with the shortlist and what the judges had to say about the book:

If Charles Dickens had written an alternate reality novel about war, love, sex, death and very strange puppets you would have this year’s Gaylactic Spectrum Award winner, Under the Poppy, an amazing novel by Kathe Koja. The novel offers a rich, evocative alternate reality that is close but not quite our world, an exploration of the demimonde of the theatre and the brothel, and the tale of two lovers, Rupert and Istvan, and their tortured relationship.

Decca and Rupert own The Poppy, a brothel with a reputation for the unique and sometimes bizarre. At the core of the story is a love triangle: Decca loves Rupert but Rupert is deeply in love with Decca’s brother Istvan, a puppeteer whose marionettes know more than a thing or two about decadence. The story is set against the backdrop of war and turmoil in one of the Victorian era’s most sophisticated cities. Rupert and Istvan try to escape from the seedy underworld into high society only to find themselves embroiled in another complicated relationship. Like actors in a play or marionettes, their fate seems to be determined by others who hold the power and strings.

Under the Poppy breaks a lot of rules: point-of-view shifts, convoluted mysterious plots full of violence and decadence, relationships that run the gamut from accepted to beyond forbidden, and witty graphic language. In Koja’s skillful hands, the novel engages the reader from the start, provides a way to taste and smell the world through brilliantly-crafted prose, and presents a heart-wrenching romance. A mature love story that doesn’t flinch from revealing the truth about life in the demi-monde, Under the Poppy is well worth the read


Victorian opulence

Mon 28 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

A Guest Post from Kathe Koja:

An evening of Victorian opulence with an air of genteel decay: it was Under the Poppy‘s natural terrain, and we staged the second of our on-the-road performances at District VII Detroit last Saturday evening. “Love Is a Puppet” finds Istvan closer to his destination if no closer to his goal, and in desirous company, with a young man who calls himself “Gabriel the Angel.” Our audience watched from the curtained, secluded “backroom,” they watched from the stairway above . . .

Writing these shows and their scripts—episodes not found in the novel itself, but not hard to imagine: how many nights must Istvan have spent alone, on the long road back to Rupert?—and extending the story that way, is a new way of seeing that story, as well as a great pleasure for me as a writer. And then engaging in the ongoing act of collaboration, planning the show with my co-producer, Julanne Jacobs, watching the actors give gesture and breadth—and breath!—to the words, embody them, literally—watching the audience react, laugh, flinch and gasp—oh BOY, that is fun. The intersection of the fictional and the real becomes so vivid and acute, you can practically smell the lamp oil and brandy, the reek of the mud outside . . . And aided, on this night, by the raw brick of the warehouse, the scent of the river, the very old streets just past the doors; Detroit is a city that dates to the 1700s, after all. And with our audience dressed in Victorian finery, too, it was as if the story was doubled, and the event doubly theatrical. And amazing.

So the road continues; the journey continues, on the page as on the stage. THE MERCURY WALTZ, sequel to UNDER THE POPPY, will be published in 2013, wherein Istvan and Rupert operate their own theatre, the Mercury, a nucleus of subtle insurrections and the passions and rivalries that play-acting always seems to arouse, aided by two very different acolytes, Haden St.-Mary and Frédéric Blum, and a remarkably ferocious young lady named Tilde. And our next Poppy performance will take place early in 2012, in a venue that might seem surprising . . . The puppets lead, the story goes on, and we make our own fun in the dark.


Ebook sale: 50% off!

Fri 25 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

We’re having an ebook sale! Here’s the why of it and here’s the what:

Small = 50% off all Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House titles!

WELCOME = 25% off ANYTHING!

Engines = 50% off Livia Llewellyn’s Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors

Enter the coupon exactly as above once you’ve filled your cart and you will receive your lovely discount!

The Freedom Maze After the Apocalypse A Slepyng Hound to Wake Paradise Tales

The Monkey’s Wedding and Other StoriesRedemption in IndigoMeeksWhat I Didn’t See and Other StoriesStories of Your Life and OthersThe Fires Beneath the SeaUnder the Poppy


Happy Thanksgiving!

Thu 24 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Astronaut melts humans


Plaid Friday

Wed 23 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

What with holiday shipping deadlines approaching and all the fuss about Friday, I wanted to put in a word for a fun thing the folks at the Odyssey Books in South Hadley told us about when we did our Steampunk! event there a couple of weeks ago. Apparently this Friday is being relabeled from Black Friday to Plaid Friday!

What?

“Plaid Friday celebrates the diversity and creativity of independent businesses. Plaid Friday is the fun and enjoyable alternative to the big box store “Black Friday”, and is designed to promote both local and independently owned businesses during the holidays.”

And what are Odyssey Books doing?

“This year Pioneer Valley Local First members are volunteering a portion of their sales to CISA’s Emergency Farm Fund that offers loans to local farmers affected by Hurricane Irene.”

I always recommend going to an indie store—if possible—for your books. We have links to Powell’s on our site and our book pages have links to the Broadside Bookstore here in Northampton. Last year they came to us with the idea of having a Small Beer Press section in their store where we could keep all our titles, including all the backlist, in front of readers: how awesome is that?

Why do we bother fighting the tide of huge big box stores and online behemoths? Because they’re intent on being everything to everyone and shutting down all other voices.

“Really?”

I think so, yes. They’d like us to buy one of their machines and then read, listen, and watch everything we want on it. And of course buy everything (from books to washing machines) using it. Just jack me into the mainframe now, thanks.

Every time each of us buys anything we have a choice. Sometimes that’s too much to think about. Sometimes it’s worth thinking about once and making a decision. We print all our books in the US—or occasionally Canada—on 30% post-consumer recycled paper using one of a few smaller printing firms, often C-M Books or Thomson-Shore. It was an easy decision to print domestically as we can’t be sure of the treatment the workers receive nor the environmental standards the companies are kept to abroad. Also, if we want to keep decent jobs available here, it seems worth printing books here.

This Saturday in our hometown, Northampton, was “Bag Day”—a surprisingly fun event where the town distributes a paper shopping bag in the local newspaper (shout out to the Daily Hampshire Gazette*!) and then just about every store in town gives you 20% off one item (or many items . . .). The streets were heaving, there were even more street musicians than usual, people were out doing public art, there was street food, it’s great fun as well as getting people in to shop at the local stores and keep the downtown vibrant.

Sure, we all shop at bigger stores and shops in other towns but I buy books at Broadside so that in five years time they will still be there. It’s selfish as much as altruistic. (Broadside also have a frequent buyer card which gives you a 10% discount on everything.)

I hope you’ll consider doing the same. Thanks for your time.

* Any local reader want a free subscription? I have one available!


An excerpt from The Liminal People

Tue 15 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Free Stuff to Read, Novel Excerpts| Posted by: Gavin

From The Liminal People, by Ayize Jama-Everett.

Chapter One

The Liminal People cover - click to view full sizeNordeen was right to send me. I feel three heartbeats at the ridges of the ancient crater we’re resting in. Snipers. I don’t know for sure, but their hearts are tense and their trigger fingers twitchy. As soon as I got out of the car their right eyes all zoomed in on something. If they’re not snipers then they’re one-eyed caffeine freaks with muscular dystrophy in their fingers. At least they’re smart enough to know not to shoot me right away. Their boy, my date, Omar, wants what we have. If it’s not in the car and they shoot us, they’re shit out of luck.

“Stay in the car, no matter what,” I say, leaning into the passenger side of the twelve-year-old Mercedes-Benz that has dragged me to this ancient and massive hole in the ground. The meteor that crashed here centuries ago is as cold as Fou-Fou’s response to my command. His steady sub-Saharan heartbeat is the only answer I get from the 240-pound menace. He’ll play it smart. Always does. The kid in the back is who I’m really speaking to. Nineteen, can’t pee straight, and ready to scrap, the native Moroccan looks more spooked than ready. “Understand?” I bark at him in his native Berber instead of the usual French patois we play with. Read more


The Freedom Maze

Tue 15 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Big Mouth House, Books, Delia Sherman| Posted by: Gavin

The Freedom MazeNovember 15, 2011 · 9781931520300 / 9781931520409 · $16.95 · 272 pp · trade cloth (out of print)/ebook/audio
January 7, 2014 · Paperback and new ebook edition published by Candlewick Press

Norton Award winner
Prometheus Award winner
Mythopoeic Award winner
ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults
Kirkus Reviews Best of 2011
Tiptree Award Honor List

Set against the burgeoning Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and then just before the outbreak of the Civil War, The Freedom Maze explores both political and personal liberation, and how the two intertwine.

In 1960, thirteen-year-old Sophie isn’t happy about spending summer at her grandmother’s old house in the Bayou. But the house has a maze Sophie can’t resist exploring once she finds it has a secretive and playful inhabitant.

When Sophie, bored and lonely, makes an impulsive wish inspired by her reading, hoping for a fantasy adventure of her own, she slips one hundred years into the past, to the year 1860. On her arrival she makes her way, bedraggled and tanned, to what will one day be her grandmother’s house, where she is at once mistaken for a slave.

“Forced to spend her summer at her grandmother’s Southern house in the 1960’s, Sophie unwittingly finds herself transported to the Civil War era as a slave of her ancestors.”
—ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults

“Ensnares the reader with mysteries and conundrums of many varieties: social, historical, and magical. Adroit, sympathetic, both clever and smart, The Freedom Maze will entrap young readers and deliver them, at the story’s end, that little bit older and wiser.”
—Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and Out of Oz

“The Freedom Maze is, frankly, a stunning book on every level.”
—Tor.com

“Ambitious . . . vividly evokes two historical settings, turning a glaring light on the uncomfortable attitudes and practices of earlier eras.”
—Jonathan Hunt, The Horn Book

“Delia Sherman riffs on Edward Eager’s classic The Time Garden in her deeply affecting time travel and coming-of-age novel The Freedom Maze. . . . Realistic, compelling, and not the slightest bit condescending, The Freedom Maze is all about changing your world. Well done, Ms. Sherman.”
—Colleen Mondor, Bookslut

“There are books you just know will stay with you forever. This is one of them. Rating: 10: Perfect.”
— Book Smugglers

“It’s 1960, but on the decayed Fairchild sugar plantation in rural Louisiana, vestiges of a grimmer past remain—the old cottage, overgrown garden maze, relations between white and black races.
“Stuck for the summer in the family ancestral home under the thumb of her cranky, imperious grandmother, Sophie, 13, makes a reckless wish that lands her in 1860, enslaved—by her own ancestors. Sophie’s fair skin and marked resemblance to the Fairchilds earn her “easy” employment in the big house and the resentment of her peers, whose loyalty she’ll need to survive. Plantation life for whites and blacks unfolds in compelling, often excruciating detail. A departure from Sherman’s light fantasy Changeling (2006), this is a powerfully unsettling, intertextual take on historical time-travel fantasy, especially Edward Eager’s Time Garden (1958), in which white children help a grateful enslaved family to freedom. Sophie’s problems aren’t that easily resolved: While acknowledging their shared kinship, her white ancestors refuse to see her as equally human. The framing of Sophie’s adventures within 1960 social realities prompts readers to consider what has changed since 1860, what has not—for Sophie and for readers half a century later—and at what cost.
“Multilayered, compassionate and thought-provoking, a timely read on the sesquicentennial of America’s Civil War.”
—Kirkus Reviews (*starred review*)

“Halfway through the narrative, I thought a tale like this could be improved if we can see how the transformation has changed the character—more than a glimpse given the amount of time spent developing the opening. This was exactly what Sherman did…. This is a novel worth checking out: a fine exemplar of a well-written children’s book, or of the fantastic for fans of history and especially of the Civil War, reminiscent in ways of Octavia Butler’s Kindred.”
—Trent Walters, SF Site

“While heartache thrums throughout the book–children have been sold away from their parents, bodies are worked like machines and beaten liberally, living conditions are despicable–there is the clear bell of hope, that sound in children’s literature that is too tough to destroy.”
—The Pirate Tree

“Sherman has created a finely honed work of art, a novel that deals eloquently with complex and intersecting issues of race, womanhood, class and age. In transporting the reader so fully into another time, The Freedom Maze becomes timeless. This is true magic.”
—Alaya Dawn Johnson, author of Moonshine

“A seamless blending of wondrous American myth with harsh American reality, as befits young Sophie’s coming-of-age. I think younger readers and adults alike will be completely riveted by her magical journey into her own family’s double-edged past.”
—N. K. Jemisin, author of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

“This is an absolutely fascinating story. The Freedom Maze draws you into a world of danger and mystery, of daring and change, at the dawning of the Civil War. Sophie’s adventures in the history of her family’s Louisiana plantation feel real, and lead her to a real understanding of racial truths she would never have caught a glimpse of without magic. Beautifully imagined and told with satisfyingly matter-of-fact detail: pot liquor and spoon bread, whips and Spanish Moss, corset covers and vévés and bitter, healing herbs.  The Freedom Maze is deep, meaningful fun.”
—Nisi Shawl, author of Filter House

“Sherman’s antebellum story exposes a wide sweep through a narrow aperture, where the arbitrary nature of race and ownership, kindred and love, are illuminated in the harsh seeking glare of an adolescent’s coming of age.”
—Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

“A bold and sensitively-written novel about a supposed-white child, Sophie Fairchild returned magically to a time of her ancestors who were slavemaster and slaves in the old South. This book puts the lie to those today making loose political statements about happy, comfortable slave families of that brutal era while telling a strong story that will not let the young reader stop turning pages to see how things will work out for Sophie and her fellow slaves, especially the cook Africa, and house slaves Antigua and Canada. I was mesmerized.”
—Jane Yolen, author of The Devil’s Arithmetic

“A riveting, fearless, and masterful novel. I loved Sophie completely.”
—Nancy Werlin, author of Extraordinary

“A subtle and haunting book that examines what it means to be who we are.”
—Holly Black, co-author of The Spiderwick Chronicles

“The Freedom Maze is destined to become a classic of time-travel fantasy alongside Edward Eager’s Time Garden and Elizabeth Marie Pope’s The Sherwood Ring. Yes, it is thatgood. But it’s also something more: a novel that slides skillfully past all the usual stereotypes about plantation life in the ante-bellum South, encouraging young readers to look at race, gender, and American history in a deeper, more nuanced way. It is, quite simply, one of the very best books I’ve read in years. Now I want everyone to read it.”
—Terri Windling

“Vividly realized and saturated with feeling.”
—Elizabeth Knox, author of DreamHunter

“An entertaining, cracking adventure yarn, The Freedom Maze elegantly unravels many myths of the antebellum South, highlighting the resistance of the enslaved, and showing how even the kind hearted are corrupted by their exploitation of their fellow human beings.”
—Justine Larbalestier, author of Liar

“A story that says what no story has quite said before, and says it perfectly. Stuck on her family’s Louisiana plantation in 1960, adolescent Sophie Fairchild wishes for adventure—and travels magically from the beginning of Civil Rights to the beginning of the Civil War. Enslaved by her own ancestors, Sophie finds kinship among the other people secretly traveling tangled paths toward freedom and home. No matter what age you are, this is a book for the permanent shelf.”
—Sarah Smith, author of the Agatha-winning The Other Side of Dark

“A dramatic yet sensitively-written coming-of-age story that succeeds both as classic fantasy and issue-oriented children’s literature. When Sophie Martineau travels back in time from 1960 to 1860, she discovers the painful complexity of her own heritage as a descendant of both Louisiana planters and the slave women who were forced to bear their children. Sherman offers a non-sugarcoated portrayal of life for black women under slavery, and she never falls into the trap of reducing them to simple stereotypes. Instead, Sophie’s adventure becomes a window into the daily lives of the women who manage the Martineau family’s plantation, work their fields, cook their food, and even raise their children–all while their own reality as thinking, feeling human beings remains strangely invisible to their white owners. Young readers will stay up late to find out if there’s a happy ending for Sophie and Antigua. And by the time they turn the last page, they will have gained a deeper appreciation of the real human cost of slavery–and of the intelligence and resourcefulness with which generations of women struggled to protect their families under a system that denied their most basic rights as human beings.”
—Chris Moriarty

“Vivid and compelling, The Freedom Maze will transport you completely to another time.”
—Sarah Beth Durst

Small Beer Press: In your nearly twenty years of working on this book, what was the most surprising thing you found?

Delia Sherman: “The most surprising thing, really, was finding an advertisement for a runaway slave in the library of Loyola University in New Orleans that read more or less as follows: “Wanted, [name], a woman of [however many] years. Blond and blue-eyed, could pass as white.” That was the most dramatic example, but once I’d seen it, I began to notice others, for “fair-skinned” or “red-haired” slaves escaping with darker companions as slave and master or mistress. It really made me think about how race was constructed in the ante-bellum South.”

Delia Sherman was born in Japan and raised in New York City, but spent vacations between her mother’s relatives in Texas and Louisiana and her father’s relatives in South Carolina. With a PhD in Renaissance Studies, she proceeded to teach until she realized she’d rather edit and write instead. But retaining her love of history, she has set novels and short stories for children and adults in many times and places. Her work has appeared most recently in the YA anthologies The Beastly Bride, Steampunk!, and Teeth.  Her “New York Between” novels for younger readers are Changeling and The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen. Delia still enjoys teaching writing workshops, most recently at the Hollins University Masters Degree Program in Children’s Literature. After many years in Boston, she once again lives in New York City, but travels at the drop of a hat.


11/11/11

Fri 11 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin


Monday afternoon listening

Mon 7 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Couch CoverLook, a new audiobook! We love Ben Parzybok’s novel Couch and are very happy that it’s now available in audio. You can listen to a sample here:

Listen to first chapter

and we will have a sample coming up at some point soon in our podcast, too.

We’re working with Iambik on a bunch of audio books so look for more of these announcements in upcoming months.


Maureen McHugh in PW’s Top 10!

Fri 4 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

After the Apocalypse coverMaureen F. McHugh’s second collection After the Apocalypse is one of PW‘s Top Ten books of the year! The book has two starred reviews and her first collection was a Story Prize finalist. McHugh shares the Top 10 with Jeffrey Eugenides, Ann Patchett, Tina Fey, Chistopher Hitchens, et al.

There will now be a small dance of joy!

You can get a taste of the book here: “The Naturalist.”


No power, no feast, no podcast!

Wed 2 Nov 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Wow, did we get snowed under. The early snowstorm here in New England means that Julie is off doing sekrit real (saving the) world work for peeps without power which means we won’t have a podcast this week. Besides, we’re not even sure if the power will be on at the office tomorrow!

That also means all orders are a bit delayed—including pre-orders of The Freedom Maze, which should have shipped out Monday. My apologies!

It’s been pretty incredible here over the last few days and we know a lot of people without power. But everyone really is hanging together.

If all goes well, Kelly and I and Cassandra Clare will be reading and signing from Steampunk! tomorrow night at the Odyssey Bookstore in South Hadley:

Thursday, Nov. 3, 7 PM
The Odyssey Bookshop
9 College St.
S. Hadley, MA 01075

The Odyssey, one of our excellent local indie bookstores, never charges for kids’ events, so the reading & Q&A will be open to anyone who would like to attend. However, they do require that attendees purchase Steampunk! from them in order to get into the signing line. The good news is that you can bring as many other books from home as you like to have signed but you do need to purchase the new book from the bookstore.

Also! While supplies last they will be giving a free YA ARC to attendees in Steampunk attire.


Maureen F. McHugh & David Moles in conversation

Wed 26 Oct 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

After the Apocalypse cover - click to view full sizeThis week we’re very proud to publish Maureen F. McHugh’s second collection of short stories, After the Apocalypse.

To celebrate, we asked another of our favorite writers, David Moles, to interview Maureen. The two of them sat down recently in LA and then sent us the results of their chat:

David Moles: So, we’re sitting here in sunny Culver City—

Maureen McHugh: Sunny Culver City. In my little apartment, which I love.

Where should we start? I think we should talk about the book.

Probably.

At some point.

Let me see, I’ve got a copy—hold on.

Oh, that’s gorgeous.

Isn’t it gorgeous?

That’s really nice.

It’s a thin book, it’s thinner than Mothers and Other Monsters. I think it’s got about the same number of stories, but a couple of the stories were much longer in Mothers and Other Monsters.

So how did this come about?

Read more


If it’s Tuesday we must have that promised interview . . .

Wed 26 Oct 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Except it’s Wednesday, and the promised interview never ran. What happened?

Er, I completely forgot we had a trip to Boston planned for Tuesday. So off we went early in the AM and back we came late in the PM. And, oops, forgot to post the interview. So, it will be up RSN. Which I have learned from Sarah Smith means Real Soon Now.


Buy local

Wed 26 Oct 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

No, really. We’re hearing and reading about a number of bookshops that need people to think about where they put their buying monies if they’re going to be around for more than the next year or so.

If you want to be able to stop in and browse in your local bookshop—or go out and do some bookstore tourism—then put your money into a local bookstore. The gaping maws of the big boxes will still be there online or outside of town no matter what you do. All I’m asking is that if you order books online or in person, think local.

We sell our books through every channel: some of them I’m happier about dealing with than others. (If we took our books our of some channels there are some readers who would never hear about them at all. Darn it.) We link to Powell’s (a big indie) and the Broadside Bookshop—a local indie who approached us with the idea of showcasing our books so now you can get every single title we have in print, including all our backlist, there. You can even get your ebooks there. Yeah!


After the Apocalypse

Tue 25 Oct 2011 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

November 2011 (third printing: Sept. 2012) · 9781931520294 · $16 · 200pp · trade paper/ebook

Shirley Jackson Award winner
Publishers Weekly Top 10 Books of 2011
NPR Best Books of 2012
io9 Best SF&F Books of 2011
Tiptree Award Honor List
Philip K. Dick Award finalist
Story Prize Notable Book
Rights sold: Italy (Il Saggiatore), Poland (REPLIKA), Slovak (Tatran).

“After the Apocalypse is what a story collection should be: urgent, various, all of a piece. Whether she’s writing about disease or dirty bombs or refugee camps in Canada, McHugh focuses always on those people who suffer first and suffer most when things fall apart.”
—Aaron Thier, The Nation

“Each tale is a beautifully written character study. . . . McHugh’s great talent is in reminding us that the future could never be weirder — or sadder — than what lurks in the human psyche. This is definitely one of the best works of science fiction you’ll read this year, or any thereafter.”
—Annalee Newitz, NPR

The apocalypse was yesterday. These stories are today.

Following up on her first collection, Story Prize finalist Maureen F. McHugh explores the catastrophes, small and large, of twenty-first century life—and what follows after. What happens after the bird flu pandemic? Are our computers smarter than we are? What does the global economy mean for two young girls in China? Are we really who we say we are? And how will we survive the coming zombie apocalypse?

“An amazing collection.”
—Karen Russell (Vampires of the Lemon Grove)

“The stories in After the Apocalypse will catch many readers off-guard; they’re suspenseful, but they never quite go where you expect them to. The end of the world as we know it will never be the same again.”
—Salon

“Superb. . . . Against backdrops of sheer terror, Ms. McHugh’s characters insist on investing themselves in flirtations, friendships and jobs. They keep their innocent curiosity for the world even as it falls to pieces.”
—Wall Street Journal

Read a story: “The Naturalist” · “The Kingdom of the Blind” · “Useless Things” · “The Effect of Centrifugal Forces” · Read the title story on Storyville.

Interviews: Coode Street Podcast ·  WISB ·  Jessa Crispin, Kirkus Reviews · Apex Magazine · David Moles &  Maureen F. McHugh in conversation.

Find it on Scribd.

More: Maureen F. McHugh and the Earthquake Kit

“Disturbing but mesmerizing, the stories in After the Apocalypse will creep into your unconscious and haunt you for weeks.”
—NPR, Best Science Fiction of 2012

“McHugh brings a subtle grittiness to the end of days. There is no post-apocalyptic glamour in these post-apocalyptic tales.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer

“These nine stories take place in a world that has been ravaged by prion diseases and economic collapse, even as it enters a new age of artificial intelligence and green biotech. You won’t be able to forget the people you meet there.”
—io9

“One of the best short story collections I’ve read in the last decade.”
—Chris Moriarty, F&SF

“McHugh’s approach to the apocalypse is oblique, a concern with the personal, the individual or family unit, rather than the devastation that surrounds them…. [T]here are perhaps half a dozen stories that are as powerful as anything you are likely to read this year.”
—Strange Horizons

“The best stories in this mesmerizing collection from the L.A. writer are the ones that elude categorization—the struggles of a troubled doll maker in “Useless Things,” the fantasies of an impulsive man in “Going to France.” It’s the ordinary and everyday that we should be afraid of, not the prospect of big explosions and world-ending catastrophes. This is a pro stretching a genre to its limits—subverting, inverting, perverting, disturbing.”
—Los Angeles Magazine

“Almost four years ago I read Maureen McHugh’s story “Special Economics,” about the fortunes of a spunky young Chinese girl, and immediately considered it to be the ne plus ultra of hip, wired, globally aware, twenty-first-century SF. I had a chance to peruse it again, thanks to the publication of her new collection, After the Apocalypse, and found the tale just as au courant as ever. SF would not be deemed irrelevant if it were all as good as this. McHugh proves she can deliver zombie shocks (“The Naturalist”), surreal whimsy (“Going to France”), and beautiful mimesis (“Honeymoon”) as well. She’s at the top of her game in these pages.”
—Asimov’s

“Maureen F. McHugh’s collection of stories is an outstanding solo in the zeitgeist fiction chorus including Gods Without Men (Hari Kunzru) and The Truth and All Its Ugly (Kyle Minor) that at long last begins building the bridge between The Two Cultures invoked by C.P. Snow decades ago. In these stories, despite the title, destruction and despair are not the key motif: survival, even transcendence, is.”
—SF Signal

“If you haven’t discovered McHugh yet, After the Apocalypse is a must-have.”
—Charles Tan, Bibliophile Stalker

“You aren’t ready for tomorrow until you’ve seen it through McHugh’s observant gaze.”
—io9 Best SF&F Books of 2011

“McHugh’s stories function as short films in the way things could go wrong soon, focusing in on a character long enough to make us care, then moving on to the next. By the end, the stories build on each other, creating one of those collections whose theme and execution, make it greater than the sum of its parts. The near future, After the Apocalypse tells us, may be calamitous in many ways, but in the end there will still be people who fear, laugh, cry, work, play, and live.”
—SF Site

“Strong characterization, vivid description, emphasis on the mundane courage of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances: these things make all the stories in the volume ring true.”
—New York Review of Science Fiction

“Intriguing. . . . If the stories here are anything to go by, author Maureen McHugh thinks we should be very afraid of the future. What awaits us is desolation, meaninglessness, and an abnegation of all progressive values…. These stories are about the life that continues when everything is over.”
—The Future Fire

“Hugo-winner McHugh (Mothers & Other Monsters) puts a human face on global disaster in nine fierce, wry, stark, beautiful stories. . . . As McHugh’s entirely ordinary characters begin to understand how their lives have been transformed by events far beyond their control, some shrink in horror while others are “matter of fact as a heart attack,” but there is no suicidal drama, and the overall effect is optimistic: we may wreck our planet, our economies, and our bodies, but every apocalypse will have an “after” in which people find their own peculiar ways of getting by.”
—Publishers Weekly (*starred review*)

“Like George Saunders (CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, 1996), McHugh displays an uncanny ability to hook into our prevailing end-of-the-world paranoia and feed it back to us in refreshingly original and frequently funny stories. In these nine apocalyptic tales, people facing catastrophes, from a zombie plague to a fatal illness contracted from eating chicken nuggets, do their best to cope. In “Useless Things,” perhaps the most affecting story in the collection, a resourceful sculptor, worried about drought and money in a time of high unemployment and increasing lawlessness, turns her exquisite crafstmanship to fashioning sex toys and selling them on the Internet with the hope of making enough money to pay her property taxes. In “Honeymoon,” a participant in a medical trial that goes horribly wrong watches in horror as six men are hospitalzed in critical condition; she uses her payment to take a vacation because, when all was said and done, she “wanted to dance. It didn’t seem like a bad choice.” That survival instinct is what makes McHugh’s collection a surprisingly sunny read in spite of the global disasters that threaten at every turn. An imaginative homage to the human ability to endure.”
—Booklist (*starred review*)

“All our worst dystopian fears are realized.”
—Kirkus Reviews

Interview: Publishers Weekly

Audio rights sold to Recorded Books.

Table of Contents

The Naturalist
Special Economics
Useless Things
The Lost Boy: A Reporter at Large
The Kingdom of the Blind
Going to France
Honeymoon
The Effect of Centrifugal Forces
After the Apocalypse

Praise for Maureen F. McHugh:

“Gorgeously crafted stories.”—Nancy Pearl, NPR

“Hauntingly beautiful.”—Booklist

“Unpredictable and poetic work.”—The Plain Dealer

“Poignant and sometimes heartwrenching.”—Publishers Weekly

Maureen F. McHugh has lived in New York; Shijiazhuang, China; Ohio; Austin, Texas; and now lives in Los Angeles, California. She is the author of a Story Prize finalist collection, Mothers & Other Monsters, and four novels, including Tiptree Award-winner China Mountain Zhang and New York Times editor’s choice Nekropolis. McHugh has also worked on alternate reality games for Halo 2, The Watchmen, and Nine Inch Nails, among others.


Monday: chilly fingers

Mon 24 Oct 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Hmm. The heat is out at our office. Our shabby chic building—the Paragon Arts in Easthampton—has 2 furnaces. One for the 1st and 2nd floor. That one is working. The one for the 3rd floor, where, we, so sensibly are, is not. Boo hoo!

At least the electricity—and therefore the kettle—is working.

Anyway, tomorrow, when the furnace guy comes back and fixes things we’ll be celebrating publication of Maureen McHugh’s new book After the Apocalypse by posting an interview Maureen did with one of our fave writers, David Moles.

Did you see the New York Times this weekend? No? Well the best bit was this. A review by Dana Jennings of three short story collections:

PARADISE TALES
By Geoff Ryman
313 pages. Small Beer Press. $16.

TWO WORLDS AND IN BETWEEN
The Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan (Volume 1)
576 pages. Subterranean Press. $38.

THE BIBLE REPAIRMAN AND OTHER STORIES
By Tim Powers
170 pages. Tachyon Publications. $14.95.

Almost lovely enough to warm these little fingers!


We go to Boston!

Fri 14 Oct 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Tomorrow—god willing and the creek don’t rise—Kelly and I will be at the Boston Book Fair. We have a booth (#12) and will have copies of our new yet-to-be released collection: Maureen F. McHugh’s After the Apocalypse. The  fair runs 10-6 and at 11 a.m., we’ll be off for this:

Steampunk!
11:00am Boston Public Library Rabb Auditorium 700 Boylston Street

Is it a literary genre, an aesthetic style, or a way of life? It may be all of the above! Join Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, co-editors of the new Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, as well as Spiderwick Chronicles co-author Holly Black and steampunk creator Allison DeBlasio (aka Mrs. Grymm) for a discussion of all things steampunk, from goggles to gyrocopters. Wear a costume and you may win a prize or get to see the session while seated on stage. Moderated by Maya Escobar, Teen Librarian at the Cambridge Public Library.

Also attending the book fair: Karen Russell, Kate Beaton (read Kelly’s interview with her here), Francis Moore Lappe, Chris “Charlie Parker Played Be-Bop” Raschka, and, lo, the many more.

Also attending: Drawn & Quarterly, NYRB, Melville House, Godine, NESFA, Zephyr, Barefoot—or, 75 publishers and other groups of interest!

And: you can see Kelly’s panel from last year’s Book Fest (with Maria Tatar, Kate Bernheimer, and Kathryn Davis) here.


Temporary podcast starting soon

Thu 13 Oct 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Ooh! Julie Day, who came to us through the excellent offices of Jim Kelly and the Stonecoast MFA program, will be doing a podcast here for the next few weeks. Topics will be widespread!

Julie has lined up interviews with Elizabeth Hand, Michael J. DeLuca, Delia Sherman, and maybe a few others and there will be readings by them and a few others, too.

If you have questions, post them here. The podcast will be subscribable from here and (after the first one is up) on iTunes.


Delia’s doing readings

Thu 13 Oct 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

ETA: ARC giveaway!

Tonight(!) she’s on a panel as part of that fascinating Big Read series of events in New York City. Then, when The Freedom Maze comes out she has two readings arranged (and more TK we hope in Massachusetts):

Sunday, Nov. 13, 1 p.m — Multi-author reading
Books of Wonder, 18 W. 18th St., New York, NY
Delia Sherman, Tamora Pierce, John Connolly, and Rae Carson, read at the storied Books of Wonder.

Thursday, Nov. 17, 7 p.m. Young Adult Author Event
Big Blue Marble Bookstore, 551 Carpenter Lane, Philadelphia, PA 19119
Readings and Discussion with Catherine Gilbert Murdock (Wisdom’s Kiss) and Delia Sherman (The Freedom Maze).

Set in the same world as her fantasy Princess Ben, Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Wisdom’s Kiss offers a tale of adventure, plotting, angst, and romance, presented through documentary evidence — the journals of Princess Wisdom and her betrothed’s mother, Duchess Wilhelmina; the letters of the Queen Mother and the swordsman’s apprentice (but not to each other); memoirs of the swordsman and the orphaned seer Trudy; encyclopedia entries; even scenes from a play!

Delia Sherman’s The Freedom Maze takes a more serious tone. Slated to spend the summer on her family’s sugar plantation in Louisiana, 13-year-old Sophie wishes for a storybook adventure and is sent back in time by 100 years. In Sophie’s own 1960, there is no question of who is black and who is white. It has never occurred to her that in 1860, tanned and barefoot, she might be taken for a slave . . .


Thanks Steve

Thu 6 Oct 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Without him, this world would be less shiny, harder work. I’m writing this on an Apple computer—everything we’ve done at Small Beer (except some author tax forms from Staples which only worked on a pc!) has been done on a variety of Apple computers. I’ve only ever bought Apple computers because they were made with people like me in mind. I’m not the most technologically gifted person and I don’t have stacks of high powered computers available. I have tools that will do the job—and sometimes distract from the job, too. For a while the press was run off my and Kelly’s laptops. That we could do that is down to one guy.

Steve Jobs and his drive to bring the future into the present (I still like CDs!) sometimes drove me crazy but over the years the compatibility problems decreased and suddenly Apple users were everywhere. I liked that he was building a small house instead of a mansion—although maybe that was more to do with being seriously ill, than being a fan of small houses. I don’t have many of his recent machines (no iPhone, no iPad) but I love my 10-year-old iPod.

I never met him, I just miss him. He pushed and pushed and everything he did suggested that the world could be a better place. Awesome.


Library Journal says you might like this book

Fri 30 Sep 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

There was actual whooping in the office today when this came in!

Library Journal
October 1, 2011
Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic
Edited by Eduardo Jiménez Mayo and Chris N. Brown, Small Beer Press,  9781931520317

“Encompassing a definition of fantasy that includes the extraterrestrial, the supernatural, the macabre, and the spectral, these stories are set in unusual locales and deal with bizarre characters. All are very short (some just two pages), and most offer a surprise twist at the end, though occasionally the only reaction these endings may elicit from the reader is “Huh?” The universal scope of the themes transcends the Mexican provenance; for example, one detects an apocalyptic influence in Liliana V. Blum’s “Pink Lemonade,” and Argentine Julio Cortázar’s “Bestiary” influences Bernardo Fernández’s “Lions.” Most of the volume’s 34 authors, half of whom are women, are relatively unknown to American readers, and for many of them, publication in this anthology represents their first exposure to an English-reading audience. The translations, several of which were done by the editors, convey the individuality, if not idiosyncrasies, of these tales. VERDICT This collection will appeal mostly to fans of fantasy and sf and, to a lesser degree, those interested in contemporary Mexican literature.”


If this is Saturday, it must be Baltimore

Thu 22 Sep 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

We go to Baltimore. Please come by and say hello!

In fact: here are some newish events for Kelly and Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories edited by Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant . . . out now (well, Oct. 11, really): 14 stories! 4 starred reviews!

Saturday, Sept. 24, 6:30 PM: Baltimore Book Festival: Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant lead a discussion about the Steampunk genre with Michael Kirby and Eden Unger-Bowditch. Come find out what Steampunk is all about! (Eek! Their description, not ours.)

October 5, 7 PM: Center for Fiction, NYC: “Why Fantasy Matters” with Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners) Felix Gilman (The Half Made World), Naomi Novik (the Temeraire series), and Lev Grossman (The Magicians) moderated by Laura Miller, a contributor to the online magazine Salon.

October 15, 11 AM: Boston Book Festival: Steampunk! with Gavin J. Grant, Holly Black and steampunk creator Allison DeBlasio (aka Mrs. Grymm). Moderated by Maya Escobar, Teen Librarian at the Cambridge Public Library.

November 3, 7 PM: Steampunk! event with Gavin J. Grant and Cassandra Clare, Odyssey Books, South Hadley, MA


Friendly

Tue 20 Sep 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Been meaning to post something in response to this guest post by Rachel Manja Brown and Sherwood Smith at Rose Fox’s Publishers Weekly Genreville blog “Say Yes to Gay YA.” To get to the essence of it: yes, we are open to all kinds of books with all kinds of characters.

To answer a few follow on questions:

  • Yes, we are open to submissions from anyone. (Hence we are always behind on reading, sorry.)
  • No, we don’t take electronic submissions—with only Kelly and I reading if we took electronic submissions all we would do is read, we wouldn’t ever have time for anything else.
  • Yes, I and/or Kelly read everything that comes in.
  • Yes, we publish first time authors, old hands, well known and unknowns. We love books, we love the books we publish. If we love your book, we’ll publish it. We are constrained by time and budget to 10-12 books per year. (Buy our books and help us publish more!)
  • Yes, we pay advances. The highest we’ve paid is in the low five figures, so, no, you are not going to get a huge offer from us.
  • Yes, we pay industry standard royalties (although our ebook royalty is twice industry standard: 50% of net receipts).
  • Yes, our books are for sale everywhere through the good people at our distributor, Consortium.
  • Yes, all our books are available in print and ebook editions: although no doubt soon we will start adding some ebook only titles.

But all that is by the by: mostly I just wanted to make it very open and obvious that we are open to submissions from everyone.

Posted this morning after watching this video (link from Metafilter):


Freedom Maze final cover

Mon 19 Sep 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

It wraps round, see, so you need to see the whole big bright and shiny thing—now with added Gregory Maguire for joy.

Did we mention the first review it received was a starred review in Kirkus Reviews? Happy? Yes, indeedy!

Clickity click click!

https://smallbeerpress.com/images/Sherman-Freedom_Maze.gif


Oops. No Brooklyn after all.

Sun 18 Sep 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Oops. We will not be at the Brooklyn Book Fest today after all. So sad! So sorry to miss all the fun—and our panels—but Kelly isn’t well so c’est la vie.

And, we ever-so-sensibly shipped books down this year so if anyone feels like selling books, ping me!

Hope everyone there enjoys the lovely weather.


Book Fests! Baltimore

Thu 15 Sep 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Next Saturday we are doing a panel at the Baltimore Book Fest where they are also looking for people who want to dress up and partake up in steampunk fun: email Emma Casale (emma@thecbstore.com, 410-917-7262) if you’re interested!

Steampunk!: Clockwork, Invention, Adventure

September 24, 2011, 6:30PM

Location: Children’s Bookstore Stage

Kelly Link and Gavin Grant lead a discussion about the Steampunk genre with Michael Kirby and Eden Unger-Bowditch. Come find out what Steampunk is all about!

More About the Authors
Kelly Link Steampunk!
 Gavin Grant Steampunk!
Eden Unger Bowditch The Atomic Weight of Secrets or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black
Matthew Kirby The Clockwork Three



Book Fests! Brooklyn

Thu 15 Sep 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Tonight Kelly is in Brooklyn to read at the powerHouse Arena Tin House/Electric Literature party—her Steampunk! story, “The Summer People,” also appears in the new Ecstatic issue of Tin House,

Then on Sunday, Sept. 18, we will be at the Brooklyn Book Fest where we will be at table #124 and both Kelly and I have panels. Come on by and say hi! Don’t quite know if we will have the secret t-shirts we had at Readercon (maybe at some point they’ll be on sale here . . . ) or LCRW mugs but we have the new ish of LCRW, and books, books, glorious books!

12:00 P.M. Crashing Genres. Join authors whose work defies classification: crashing the genre borders of sci-fi / fantasy and the supernatural. Cory Doctorow (For The Win and NYT best-selling Little Brother), has won the Locus and Sunburst Awards, Kelly Link, author of cult favorite stories in Pretty Monsters and Magic for Beginners and best-selling author Jewell Parker Rhodes, winner of the American Book Award, uses magical realism to examine race and memory in her New Orleans vampire trilogy Seasons, Moon, and Hurricane. Moderated by Stephanie Anderson.

5:00 P.M. Epic Adventures. Have you ever wanted to travel to the other side of the world to experience new places, really learn about other cultures, and maybe even find your true love in the process? Join graphic novelist Sarah Glidden (How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less) and author/illustrator team Casey Scieszka and Steven Weinberg (To Timbuktu: Nine Countries, Two People, One True Story) as they take you on two powerful journeys that really show what is like to be entirely somewhere else. Moderated by Gavin Grant, co-editor of Steampunk!: An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories.

New Lydia Millet cover

Tue 13 Sep 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

We’ve just gotten a near final cover from Sharon McGill for Lydia Millet’s second middle grade novel, The Shimmers in the Night—the second book in the Dissenters series after The Fires Beneath the Sea. BTW, Lydia will be on a blog tour later this fall for Fires. Anyway: jacket!

https://smallbeerpress.com/images/9781931520782_big.gif


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