UK Twilight site giving away Pretty Monsters!

Mon 9 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Ganked wholesale from BellaandEdward.com(!):

BAE UK Book Contest: Win Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link!

Posted on 31 Oct 2009 by Jenny || 0 Comments
We at BAE know how much you guys like books, and thanks to Canongate in the UK, we have a pretty cool Halloween contest for you.

Pretty Monsters is a great collection of horror short stories, and is a good crossover book that teenagers and adults will love. I really enjoyed it!

Photobucket

UK Competition:

Canongate Books is pleased to offer BellaandEdward.com prize copies of Pretty Monsters.


What’s for dinner?

Sat 7 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book Eating Animals is causing a nice ruckus on the Huffington Post — and lots of other places. Nice to see people thinking about their impact on the world. I think it would be a great bookclub pick. For those interested in the numbers, United Poultry Concerns posted a list of the numbers of animals slaughtered for food (US only):

Chickens
Total number died for food: 8.13 billion (7.67 billion for meat, 458 million for eggs)
Average number killed per American meat-eater: 27.5 (26 for meat, 1.5 for eggs)
Average number consumed per American lifetime: 2,147 (2,028 for meat, 120 for eggs)

…

ALL ANIMALS
Total number died for food: 80 billion
Average number consumed per American meat-eater: 270
Average number consumed per American lifetime: 21,000


!

Sat 7 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

I just like exclamation points.


Read an excerpt from D*U*C*K

Thu 5 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

The good folk at BSCreview just posted an excerpt from Poppy Z. Brite’s D*U*C*K which is the second half of our new books, Second Line: Two Short Novels of Love and Cooking in New Orleans. Starring lovable chefs Rickey and G-man and their assorted crew of hard working, fun loving restaurant crew the first novel, The Value of X, introduces Rickey and Gary (as he is known in his pre-G-man years!) and tells the story of their first years together. D*U*C*K jumps past the intervening years (chronicled in the novels Liquor, Prime, and Soul Kitchen) to when the guys have their own restaurant but Rickey can’t resist a challenge and takes on an outside gig to cater the annual Ducks Unlimited banquet.

Also: we’re working on printing up a menu for the banquet for Poppy to sign and if it does work out we’ll be selling them here with or without copies of the book.

In the mean time, read on:

Everything you’ve heard about summer in New Orleans is true. The only tourists who visit during that infernal season are hardy Germans and Australians, who can weather anything, and people from Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas, who are used to it and don’t have far to drive. The deepest pits of Hades have nothing on your average August day in the Crescent City. (You can say Crescent City if you like, because the Mississippi River cups the city in a crescent shape. Say “the Big Easy,” or, worse, “N’Awlins,” and people will know you’re a tourist.)


The impish love child of Tutuola and Marquez

Wed 4 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

That’s what Nalo Hopkinson says of Karen Lord’s debut novel: “The impish love child of Tutuola and Marquez. Utterly delightful.” Yes it is, yes it is!


Interfictions 2 is made of Top 10 Stuff!

Tue 3 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

It’s publication day for Interfictions 2 (yay!) and there’s a lot going on:

Don’t despair ebook readers: the book is available as a DRM-free PDF directly from us or in many formats on Fictionwise.

This week there are readings all across the country: drop in and join the fun! These are events you won’t want to miss—readings, music, light shows, unicyclists (maybe), and so on:

NEW YORK
Friday, November 6 at 7:00 p.m.
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby Street

LOS ANGELES
Tuesday, Novemberr 10 at 8:00 p.m.
M Bar
1253 Vine (at Fountain)

BOSTON
Friday, November 13 at 7:30 p.m.
The Lily Pad
Inman Square
1353 Cambridge Street


Interfictions 2

Tue 3 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

November 2009 · 9781931520614 · 302 pp · trade paper/ebook

Q. Where do I find a book like Interfictions 2 in my local bookshop if this is a book that slips between the crevices?
A. It depends, as always, on your local booksellers. They might have chosen to shelve it in Fiction/Anthologies or Science Fiction/Anthologies. If they don’t have it, they can of course order it.

Interfictions 2 Study Guide by Delia Sherman, Christopher Barzak, and Carlos Hernandez. PDF:  Interfictions 2 Study Guide (10094 downloads ) .

Direct from the globe-spanning hive mind of the Interstitial Arts Foundation (IAF) comes the second wide-ranging, mind-melding anthology of short fiction: Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing .

Delving deeper into the genre-spanning territory explored in the first Interfictions, this anthology showcases 21 original and innovative writers. Features work by Jeffrey Ford, Brian Francis Slattery, Nin Andrews, and M. Rickert. With an introduction by Henry Jenkins and an afterword/editor interview by Colleen Mondor of Chasing Ray.

Those interested in teaching Interfictions 2 can request an exam or desk copy here.

Reviews

Best Books of 2009* Selected by Amazon.com as one of the Best Books of 2009.

“This anthology celebrates its cross-genre concept as much as its content, with a lengthy introduction, contributor notes, and afterword. Will Ludwigsen’s lovely, melancholy “Remembrance is Something Like a House” combines paranormal and true crime elements. Alaya Dawn Johnson’s dystopian “The Score” reads like a post-9/11 Twilight Zone episode. A scientist tries to prevent a world war in Elizabeth Ziemska’s winsome “Count Poniatowski and the Beautiful Chicken.” Stephanie Shaw’s strong and earthy writing grounds her story of dragons and a four-headed obstetrician in “Afterbirth.” … Fans of the first Interfictions anthology will dig it.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Some of the most experimental and formally daring genre fiction of the year.”
—Locus

“Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing performs the paradoxical feat of containing what does not want to be contained: a collection of inventive, genre-flouting stories that unnerve as much as they delight.”
—New Pages

Bibliophile Stalker | Strange Horizons | Black Gate | Fantasy Magazine |

Table of Contents

Henry Jenkins, “Introduction: On the Pleasures of  Not Belonging”
Jeffrey Ford, “The War Between Heaven and Hell Wallpaper”
M. Rickert, “Beautiful Feast”
Will Ludwigsen, “Remembrance Is Something Like a House”
Cecil Castellucci, “The Long and Short of Long-Term Memory”
Alaya Dawn Johnson, “The Score”
Ray Vukcevich, “The Two of Me”
Carlos Hernandez, “The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria”
Lavie Tidhar, “Shoes”
Brian Francis Slattery, “Interviews After the Revolution”
Elizabeth Ziemska, “Count Poniatowski and the Beautiful Chicken”
Peter M. Ball, “Black Dog: A Biography”
Camilla Bruce, “Berry Moon: Laments of a Muse”
Amelia Beamer, “Morton Goes to the Hospital”
William Alexander, “After Verona”
Shira Lipkin, “Valentines”
Alan DeNiro, “(*_*?) ~~~~ (-_-) : The Warp and the Woof”
Nin Andrews, “The Marriage”
Theodora Goss, “Child-Empress of Mars”
Lionel Davoust, “L’Ile Close”
Stephanie Shaw, “Afterbirth”
David J. Schwartz, “The 121”
Colleen Mondor, Christopher Barzak, and Delia Sherman, “Afterwords: An Interstitial Interview”


Free copies of Interfictions 2

Mon 2 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Now is probably a good time to mention that we have 5 free copies of the snazziest mind-poppingest new anthology of short stories out there, Interfictions 2, to go out to readers in the USA + Canada who will review it on blogs, websites, etc., etc.

Write Everything Down by Susan SaltzmanIf you live outside these two countries, we’d be happy to send you a PDF.

Drop us a note in the comments box and we’ll contact you to get your address.

Interfictions 2 comes out tomorrow so preorders are shipping and events are starting to happen: today the IAF are launching their online auction of pieces inspired by the stories in the book—this is just fantastic stuff, check it out.

—

Later this week there will be more free Super Special Books (!) offered up of so do come back.


In which we are awarded!

Sun 1 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Lovely news from San Jose: Gavin & Kelly have been awarded the World Fantasy Award, Special Award, Professional, for Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House: yay, we say, yay! John Kessel, whose collection we were proud to publish, was on hand to pick up the Howards which seemed appropriate as it is all about the books.

Other winners include: Jeff Ford (twice!), Margo Lanagan—Jeff and Margo: they rule this award!—Rick Bowes, Kij Johnson, Paper Cities (ed. by Ekaterina Sedia), Shaun Tan, and Michael Walsh of Old Earth Books for his two Howard Waldrop collections.

—

Don’t know that we’ll keep counting, but this year we did some gender breakdown of a few of the genre awards and back in August we posted the  World Fantasy Award nominees and the gender breakdown:

  • 26 men
  • 21 women

And the winners  (not counting the two extra Life Achievement Awards to Jane Yolen and Ellen Asher):

  • 6 men (1 AUS, 5 USA)
  • 4 women (1 AUS, 3 USA)

Hound update

Sun 1 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Brian at BSC review hit the nail on the head in a review of Vincent McCaffrey’s Hound. The titular bookhound, Henry Sullivan, is a man alone has immersed in the world of books—a world the author is worried might be passing away (or at least in a state of rapid decline)—and Hound explores one reaction to the possibility of that passing. Perhaps the novel should have been subtitled “an investigation into the possible death of the book as a physical object,” but it doesn’t roll off the tongue.

If you missed Vince’s conversation-starting posts at Powell’s (get your cup of tea and biscuits/cookies ready) you can read them here. Here’s a reaction to the reading/panel on the future of the book at Mysterious Bookshop. I think Vince knows that the paper book won’t completely disappear but he is right to wonder and to agitate and to keep the conversation going on what the future will look like and who will make it.

And, yes, you can buy Hound as an ebook. Vincent might be worried about the death of the paper book, but we’re quite aware there is a growing percentage of readers who like to read our books on other substrates.

And in case you missed his readings (there’s one TK at the Odyssey in South Hadley in January, dorp by!) he was interviewed by The L Magazine and Jamaicaway Books:

Or, of course, just start reading Hound.


Second Line shipping

Thu 29 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

We’ll be shipping out Poppy Z. Brite’s Second Line to reviewers and readers asap — contact us if you want to review it.

We may yet have a nice little surprise for collectors (give us another week after all) and a little something sort of special for regular readers…


Greenstart

Tue 27 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

In 2008 I was happy to see our home electricity through New England GreenStart came from:

  • 75% hydroelectric power
  • 20.9% biomass
  • 3% solar
  • 1.2% wind

For summer 2009 the figures had improved to:

  • 69.3% hydroelectric
  • 19.9% biomass
  • 4.7% solar
  • 6% wind

So solar and wind now make up more than 10% of our power: a good start! I think the program has changed in some way but as far as I know on it goes, happily charging a little extra to invest in alternative options.


Second Line

Tue 27 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

October 27, 2009 · 9781931520607 · 272 pages · trade paper/ebook

Selected for the inaugural ALA Over the Rainbow book list.
Read an interview with Poppy Brite in Gambit magazine.

Second Line: Two Short Novels of Love and Cooking in New Orleans starring lovable chefs Rickey and G-man from the incomparable Poppy Z. Brite. Includes: The Value of X and D*U*C*K and a new afterword by the author.

These two short novels bookend Poppy Z. Brite’s cheerfully chaotic series starring two chefs in New Orleans. The Value of X introduces G-man and Rickey, who grew up in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward and who are slowly realizing there are only two important things in life: cooking and each other. Rickey’s parents aren’t quite so taken with the boy’s plans and get him an impossible-to-resist place at the Culinary Institute of America.

Reviews

“Seeing love and passion bloom in the hearts of what seem like the most unlikely of subjects is, to me, quite a remarkable feat.  Simply put, Second Line was an excellent read that deepened my understanding of Rickey & G-Man’s relationship and left me hungry for more from this dynamic couple.  I dare you to give Second Line a try and see if you don’t become a Brite fan like me!”
—NewOrleans.com

“If I had to sum up Second Line in a few words, I would say Kitchen Confidential meets A Separate Peace. Gary and Rickey, young foodies from the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, are separated by their fearful parents after they transition from best friends to lovers. They earn their kitchen chops during their time apart. Their love story is believably tender and yet unsentimentally told. Brite has beautifully captured the voices of very young men confronting fear and love. The charm of the guys together contrasts amusingly with the gritty bitchiness of busy men in the fast-paced kitchen of a luxury joint. They have knives, and they will pluck ducks.”
—Néna Rawdah, St. Johns Booksellers, Portland, OR on NW Booklovers

“Fun foodie fiction, and readers will scarf it down.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Poppy Z. Brite lives in New Orleans, which is perhaps the best setting in the world for two novels about the chaotic world of the restaurant kitchen. The first, “The Value of X,” introduces Rickey and G-man, two chefs who love food and each other. Against the backdrop of some fabulous meals, the two must navigate the end of childhood, questions of sexuality, the challenges of family and separation, and their divergent ambitions. In “D*U*C*K,” the two have become owners and co-chefs of Liquor, one of the Big Easy’s most popular restaurants.”
—The Daily Hampshire Gazette

“The Value of X should be particularly noteworthy for teens, as it is the coming out and coming-of-age stories of two of Brite’s long time characters, future chefs (and restaurant owners) Rickey and G-Man….. Brite’s books and stories about New Orleans are some of my all time favorite comfort reading and fans of southern writing and food should not let this collection pass them by. Great stuff, for sure.”
—Guys Lit Wire

Read an excerpt from The Value of X.

In D*U*C*K, Rickey and G-man’s restaurant, Liquor, is doing well but there are the usual complications of running a kitchen: egos get bruised, people get fired . . . and then Rickey is jumped in an alley by one of their ex-waiters.

On the mend, Rickey takes a side job to cater the annual Ducks Unlimited banquet, where every course must, of course, include the ducks the hunters have bagged. Rickey’s crew are ready to meet the challenge, but Rickey’s not sure he can do it all and deal with the guest of honor—his childhood hero, former New Orleans Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert.

Originally published in limited hardcover editions by Subterranean Press, these two novels are full of the pure joy of love, hard work, and great food and are a tremendous extension (or introduction) to Brite’s series.

Poppy Z. Brite’s fiction set in the New Orleans restaurant world includes Prime, Liquor, and Soul Kitchen. She has also published five other novels and three short story collections. She lives with her husband Chris, a chef, in New Orleans.

High praise for Poppy Z. Brite’s previous books:

“A high-end restaurant is—for any competent novelist—a gift that keeps on giving. The heat, the bickerings and intrigue, the pursuit of perfection, the dodgy money keeping it all afloat: the setting spawns plots . . . Can the [Liquor] franchise sustain itself? The answer is yes.”
—New York Times

“Rickey and G-man’s venture makes for a funny, surprisingly suspenseful story informed by Brite’s sure, sympathetic eye and her in-depth understanding of the arcane subculture she describes.”
—The Washington Post


Poppy Brite fun

Tue 27 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

If all goes well tomorrow we should have a fun surprise to offer Poppy Brite fans. If all does not go well this post does not exist.


Fantasy football for books people?

Sun 25 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

So why isn’t there something like Fantasy Football or the Hollywood Stock Exchange for books? Wouldn’t it be fun to bet who was going to be #1 next week, which house would have all the NBCC winners, etc., etc.? And if game-theory peeps are to be believed, wouldn’t the simulacrum give us some sense of the real world?

Anyway, some techy-programy-bookie-type person out there: please go and make millions on this now, please, thank you.


The Ant King

Fri 23 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

LitDrift are giving away a free copy of Ben Rosenbaum’s wide-ranging and excellent story collection The Ant King this week. Drop by and leave a comment for your chance to win. They also, bravely, encourage haiku.

Congratulations to last week’s winner, Paul Ketchum, who gets a free copy of Couch!


Planner Preview + $4.95 DRM-free PDF

Fri 23 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

We have just posted the month of March here as a preview of our Working Writer’s Daily Planner which is at the printer now. (2011’s will be earlier!)

The Planner is also now available as a DRM-free PDF (emailed within 24 hours of purchase — and usually sooner) for just $4.95.

We’re selling it as a nicely-bookmarked 2MB PDF (formatting makes it harder than other books to convert into other formats) which means you can print it at any size you want: letter-sized to put in a 3-ring binder, tiny to go on index cards, or 6″ x 9″ to replicate the printed edition.

We’d love to hear about different printing and use strategies and we’re always open to suggestions for what should go into next year’s edition. (Read the table of contents for this year’s Planner here.)


If it’s Thursday, must be Portsmouth

Thu 22 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

RiverRun Books is one of the most popular Twittering Bookstores and they love Hound — you can’t miss it, it’s right there on their front table — which is great as Vince is reading there tonight.

Vince is blogging all week at Powell’s.com and is part of a great book event in New York City on Sunday.


Wed 21 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Dave Schwartz posted a fantastic photo: “Alan Deniro’s poster at the Rain Taxi Twin Cities Book Festival, handmade publicity for his imminent novel, Total Oblivion, More or Less.” Click on it and make it bigger:

Threat Level Gnosis by Snurri.


What do you think the price should be?

Mon 19 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

What should we price the pdf ebook of our upcoming A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2010? The paper version is $13.95 (and is at the printer).

The ebook will be pdf only — there is too much formatting and too many pics for anything else.

Suggestions?


Free calendar

Wed 14 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Update: Done!

We just received this promo and we won’t be ordering them (just like last year!) as we have a calendar all of our very own making that at long last is at the printer. It’s a nice enough planner, a month per page, and various handy things.

So, instead of letting it molder until next year, we’ll send it out to the very next reader to order one of our books or zines.

Not our calendar by you.


Ray Vukcevich at the movies (almost)

Mon 12 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Meet Me in the Moon RoomA couple of readers have emailed us to ask if the skippy viral thriller-chiller film Paranormal Activity is based on Ray Vukcevich’s incredibly creepy and wonderful story “Whisper” — which was collected in Meet Me in the Moon Room (and originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in January 2001).

The answer: while we haven’t seen the film at the moment we don’t think so. Ray tells us there has been a lot of film interest in “Whisper” over the years (along with a few of his other stories) but even though both “Whisper” and Paranormal Activity feature paranoid people setting up cameras to record themselves sleeping it seems that this is one of those cases of parallel evolution where the a similar idea is interpreted artistically from a couple of different points of view.

Either way, if you like creepy stories and haven’t read “Whisper,” now’s your chance.


Redemption in Indigo

Mon 12 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Karen LordSmall Beer Press are very happy to announce they have acquired the rights to Karen Lord‘s debut novel, Redemption in Indigo, which received the pre-publication BDS$10,000 Frank Collymore Award in Barbados and will be published as a trade paperback original in June 2010.

Redemption in Indigo is a clever and entrancing debut which incorporates folktales to tell the story of a woman who frees herself from a troublesome and capricious husband only to become the unwitting heroine in a fantastic struggle to reconcile the supernatural forces of fate with humanity’s free will.

Jewel Forde interviewed Karen on CBC’s “Mornin’ Barbados” and Karen’s just posted the video on Facebook.

Read the introduction after the break:

Read more


Cloud (& Ashes Lit)Drifts Free

Fri 9 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Following last week’s Hound (hope you enjoy it, James DeBruicker!) this week’s freebie at LitDrift is Greer Gilman’s intense and magical Cloud & Ashes. Email them or leave a comment to enter.


LCRW hits 25, isn’t out

Tue 6 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

The Choir Boats: Volume One of Longing for Yount Cover2 LCRW things (make that 4) about the next LCRW which is apparently number 25. Which, if we were numerically inclined would be yet another reason to celebrate. But we are too busy cutting lead type (um, no, not really) and then these:

  1. We are collecting questions for Dear Aunt Gwenda. Please send us yours!
  2. We just bought a couple of stories and if we are lucky we will have a translation (of an award winning story!) in the next issue and, separately, maybe more from a different country in the future.
  3. We are catching up a little with submissions but in the pile there are even yet and still some submissions from at least as far back as February and March of this year. Darn.
  4. I just read former LCRW contributor Daniel A. Rabuzzi’s debut novel, The Choir Boats, (Indiebound/Powell’s) a huge, inventive fantasy about 19th century London and Yount, another place,  and hope to post an interview here with him soon.

Another Hound freed

Fri 2 Oct 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Over at LitDrift.com they’ll be giving away one of our books a week all month and they’ve started things off with Hound.


Paige M. Gutenborg

Tue 29 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Today we took a wander over the river to Cambridge to see the new instant book machine at the Harvard Book Store (which has been named the Gutenborg!). Various publishing luminaries were there including our own Greer Gilman—who described her post-Harvard Library job search as looking for an iPod job in a PC world . . .—and we listened to them try and persuade us that this is the future. Well, part of it. Being historically minded, the first book they printed was the Bay Psalm Book, which was the first book printed in English on this continent,  in 1640 in Cambridge, no less.

It was at once fun and anti-climatic as the machine ran off the book in the promised four minutes and . . . that was it. Other bookshops with these machines report that they do a bang-up business, more with local authors than with out of print books. After all, why buy some scanned copy of Sense and Sensibility for $8 when you can get a decently edited one for, er, maybe about the same. Hmm. Well, luckily the Harvard Book Store has a good used section downstairs.

Our books are available on Google Books (with various levels of access) who have a deal with the manufacturer On Demand Books so at some point our books will hopefully be part of the instantprint experience.

As with everyone else who came by to see the machine in action, we’ll wait and see what happens.


Release the Hound!

Tue 29 Sep 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

It’s Publication Day for Vincent McCaffrey‘s debut novel Hound today — everyone send him flowers! We have signed copies for sale — as does the Brookline Booksmith. This Friday he’ll be in Hartford at the NEIBA trade show (along with other fave authors such as Joe Hill and Shaun Tan!) at the Author Reception and then on Oct. 9th he’ll be at Jamaicaway Books in Jamaica Plain for a reading.

And here’s a quick interview from the hitherto famously loquacious McCaffrey:

SBP: When did you start writing HOUND?

Vincent McCaffrey: 2002. Frustrated with the progress of several other projects (including the science fiction novel and a play) I started fleshing out some background ideas.

How much of Henry Sullivan is made of up bookhounds you knew?

Pretty much all of Henry is made up of book people I know–including myself, of course.

What is a bookhound?

A person who searches for books–not technically a seller, but Henry does both and the part he relishes is searching for good books.

Henry loves books (and beer, mmm) and is worried about their historical moment having passed. What do you think? Is the technical wonder that is the book dead or is there life in the old dog yet?

No, it is not dead yet. It is in danger. That is more of the point. For all the reasons I have addressed in various pieces, but mostly because of a false sense of security with ephemeral technology and a political need to quiet the book.

What made you pick the mystery form to discuss the book as object?

Because I imagined the death of the book as a political act (first degree murder) as much as a technological mistake (manslaughter). Because I carried this into a future set 250 years from now and wrote a science fiction novel based around it. Then went back to see if I could explain where it started.

Henry’s coming back next year in A Slepying Hound to Wake. Can you tell us a bit about that book?

Henry has fallen in love, and this begins to give him a purpose outside of himself and his own small world.

Do you have a routine with writing? Any superstitions?

I write for three hours every morning. I cannot reveal my superstitions otherwise I might disappear.

Did being a bookseller for 30+ years affect your writing habits?

It greatly discouraged me for the longest time. All those books. All that crap! Most of thelessons were negative until I finally took my own advice and stopped giving a damn about what other people wanted from me. Then the positive aspects such as a good sense of literature in general and what I loved about it, plus a  Calvinist work ethic about showing up on time and getting the work done proved instrumental.


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