There are two 2005 Best of the Year lists on Locus that include Magic for Beginners: Claude Lalumiere and Matt Cheney. Some good books (and other things) on those lists.

Nancy Pearl

Thu 19 Jan 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Maureen F. McHugh| Posted by: Gavin

On Morning Edition today Nancy Pearl (the action-figure’d Librarian! and author of Book Lust) in her regular NPR feature, “Librarian’s Picks,” chose some “Books for a Rainy Day” including Maureen F. McHugh‘s Mothers & Other Monsters. She called it “fabulous” and so on. Whee!

(Nancy, email us if you want any more books!)

Faery film

Sun 15 Jan 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin

Well, that’s a first: FILM RIGHTS: Kelly Link’s Hugo Award-Winning short story “The Faery Handbag,” included in her collection Magic for Beginners, optioned to David Kirschner of David Kirschner Productions, by Sarah Self at The Gersh Agency, on behalf of Renee Zuckerbrot.

Storyteller ebook

Mon 9 Jan 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kate Wilhelm| Posted by: Gavin

Added another ebook: Storyteller, Kate Wilhelm’s book on writing and the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. Will get some more of these books added to Fictionwise at somepoint soon.

PreliminNebs

Fri 6 Jan 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Jennifer Stevenson, Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin

Congratulations to Jennifer Stevenson! Her debut novel Trash Sex Magic made the preliminary Nebula Ballot. We have a signed copies if you like that sort of thing or you can get an ebook edition. All this commerce. Or, the lack of it.

Congrats also to Kelly Link whose “novelette” (long story!) “The Faery Handbag” and “novella” (longer story) “Magic for Beginners” also made the ballot. Congrats and good luck to all the peeps on the ballot (inc. Small Beer authors Carol Emshwiller, Ben Rosenbaum, and Ray Vukcevich). The jury will add some booksto the young adult category but it’s groovy to see Holly Black’s dark and tasty YA novel Valiant sitting in the Norton Award catbird seat.

Tiptree

Tue 3 Jan 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., To Read Pile| Posted by: Gavin

A book for yous to read: The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2, edited by Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith. So why do you need it?

• One of the best short stories of the previous decade: “Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation” by Raphael Carter.
• An essay by Nalo Hopkinson.
• Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, and Eileen Gunn & Leslie What.

All of that (and more) would have been enough to make this an anthology worth your while. But what really makes it a must read is a second essay and a letter.

The essay, “Talking Too Much: About James Tiptree, Jr.”, is by Julie Phillips, author of this summer’s big biography: James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. Why do I say “big”? Because the letter is by James Tiptree, Jr. (aka Alice Sheldon) and it’s great. It’s the kind of letter that should give any writer pause when next they dash of an email. It’s not that long but it was enough to make me look forward to this 480 page bio. Making space on the calendar now.

The Tiptree Award anthology series is a great idea, well executed, with beautiful design by John Berry. This one’s just hitting the stores now: go on, start the new year off right.

Happy new year.

Tue 3 Jan 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Books| Posted by: Gavin

Another slow start. Just the usual, then. No switch to WordPress yet. Maybe later. (Hmm!)

– Happy new year.

– Pictorial list of SBP 2005 publications:

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 17

Tue 1 Nov 2005 - Filed under: LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

$5 · 60 pages

Gavin J. Grant: Allergic to you. Yes, you.
Kelly Link: Catches birds.
Jedediah Berry: Leaves bootprints in loam.
Gwyneth Merner: Says it on the radio.
Erik Gallant: Orchestral arrangements, handclaps.

fiction
Seana Graham — The Pirate’s True Love
Philip Raines and Harvey Welles — All The Things She Wanted
Christien Gholson — You Accept What You Get When You’re Eating with Death
Alette J. Willis — Daylighting the Donwell River
Deborah Roggie — The Mushroom Duchess
David Connerley Nahm — “Discrete Mathematics” by Olaf and Lemeaux; Or, the Severed Hand
Diana Pharaoh Francis — Native Spinsters
John Brown — Bright Waters

poetry
Marly Youmans — The Fire Girl
Peter Dabbene — SHH

nonfiction
A Lack — Throughout
You Could Do This Too — Marginalia

cover photos Sam Grant

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Small Beer Press Chapbook Series
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people

John Brown wrote the first draft of “Bright Waters” in Orson Scott Card’s Literary Bootcamp. Having lived in the Netherlands, he has a particular affection for the hero of this story. John won first prize in the Writers of the Future (13) under the name Bo Griffin. He is currently at work on an epic fantasy novel about a boy, a girl, and a wayward monster. He now lives in the hinterlands of Utah.

Peter Dabbene is a Trenton, NJ-based writer. Several of his short plays have been produced in Philadelphia theaters. Most recently, some of his short stories have been published online at Parenthetical Note and Eyeshot. He has also published two collections of short stories, Prime Movements and Glossolalia, as well as a novel, Mister Dreyfus’ Demons.

Diana Pharaoh Francis is the author of fantasy novels Path of Fate (nominated for the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award) and Path of Honor. Path of Blood, which will complete the trilogy, will be published May 2006 by NAL/Roc. Diana is an assistant editor for The Broadsheet. She holds a BA & MA in creative writing, and a PhD in Literature and Theory. She currently teaches at the University of Montana-Western and is madly at work on her next novel.

Christien Gholson‘s stories, poems and translations (of Rimbaud’s Illuminations) have appeared in Hanging Loose, The Sun, Big Scream, Blue Mesa Review, etc. He grew up in Southern Belgium and Northern Florida — places where the creatures inside a Bosch painting are very comfortable. A book of prose-poems (Faces in the Gallery) is forthcoming from Hanging Loose Press, along with a chapbook (Phenomenology) from March Street Press.

Seana Graham is a bookseller in Santa Cruz, California and a closet scribbler of long standing. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Red Wheelbarrow Literary Magazine and Eclipse. LCRW is the first zine she’s been published in, and she believes appearing here will significantly help her ‘coolness quotient’ — that is, if anything actually can.

How do we get our stories? We start with the set of people who read. Then we split out those who write with a butter knife (or some other blunt instrument). From these we filter out those who write well (and can hold their breath under water). Lastly we ask our neighbors to bury the stories in the garden for at least one season. We print whatever stories might still be legible.

David Connerley Nahm lives in Carrboro, NC. He has a wife with a cat named Typee, a band named Audubon Park, and is halfway to a law degree. Sometimes, he performs stand-up comedy. His story “Sitting on a Bench in the Park” appeared in LCRW #14. Please visit the Tropic of Food if so inclined.

On Selling Out: Yes, we will, thank you. Would we take the opportunity of having a larger platform to throw our zine (re-imagined as glossy with chocolate-bar pullouts and ads for the latest solar cars) out from into the reading masses? Offers to the usual address.

Phil Raines and Harvey Welles have had stories published in Albedo One, Leading Edge, On Spec, Aurealis and New Genre as well as the recent collection of new Scottish fantastic fiction, Novia Scotia. Their stories have been anthologised in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, including “The Fishie,” which was published in LCRW no. 12. Philip lives in Glasgow, Scotland, and is a member of the Glasgow Science Fiction Writers Circle. Harvey lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Deborah Roggie writes fantasy and lives in New Jersey with her husband and 15-year-old son. Her story “The Enchanted Trousseau” first appeared in LCRW no. 14 and was selected for the anthology Fantasy: The Best of 2004. Forthcoming stories include “Thievery,” in the anthology Eidolon, and “Swansdown” (Realms of Fantasy). She is currently working on a novel.

Marly Youmans is the author of six books. The most recent are Ingledove (FSG), a young adult/crossover fantasy set in the Southern Appalachians, and Claire, a book of poetry (Louisiana State UP). Her novel, The Wolf Pit (FSG), won the Michael Shaara Award. Marly, her husband, and three children live in a snow castle mere spitting distance from the Baseball Hall of Fame and the grave of James Fenimore Cooper in the semi-fictional Yankee village of Cooperstown.

Alette J. Willis writes from Canada.

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet looks at the number 17, November 2005, and decides it probably will go on. This zine goes out June-ish and November-ish from Small Beer Press. info@lcrw.net www.lcrw.net/lcrw $5 per single issue or $20/4. Various other money-laundering offers available by the dollar, pound, kilo, etc. Contents © the authors. All rights reserved. We reserve the right to squander the opportunities presented by quarterly publication. We reserve the right to live up to the Occasional Outburst subtitle which seems to have been tossed in the rejection pile somewhere along the way. Submissions, requests for guidelines, &c all good things should be sent to the address above. No SASE: no reply. Thanks for reading. These days what we have. Are we doing as much as we could? Of course we’re all busy, but is it just makework? What’s the overall contribution to the Actual and Perceived Contentment Index? Printed by Paradise Copies, 30 Craft Ave., Northampton, MA01060 413-585-0414

Mockingbird

Thu 15 Sep 2005 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

Also Available: Perfect Circle

“Witty, wicked, and wise. Wonderful!”
— Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“A wonderfully vivid and unexpected blend of magic realism and finely-observed contemporary experience.”
— William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

Sometimes you have to go back home.

Elena Beauchamp used magic the way other people used credit cards, and now that she’s dead, her daughters Toni and Candy have a debt to pay. Set in modern-day Houston, Texas, this is a funny and moving novel of voodoo, pregnancy, and family ties. While Toni sorts out the mess that Elena left behind, she must also come to terms with her childhood and with the supernatural and dangerous gift that she has inherited from her mother.

Mockingbird: A novel of voodoo, pregnancy, and Houston.

With a new Afterword by the author · A New York Times Notable Book · World Fantasy and Nebula Award Finalist

Reviews

“Sally started [reading Mockingbird] first, and realized right away that she was onto something good. When she finished, she confiscated the book I was reading at the time and put Mockingbird in my hands. Didn’t take me long to figure out why. For a soft book year, I’ve still managed to read some good books since January, but Mockingbird is hands down the best novel I have read in 2005, and one of the best I’ve ever had the privilege to read.” — Park Road Books, Charlotte, NC

“Mockingbird is the story of a young woman who grudgingly inherits her mother’s psychic powers. This book reads like a shot of whiskey — sweet, fiery swirls in the throat that linger on.” — Mary-Jo, Powells.com

“One of the most enjoyable books of the year.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“Earthily charming and hilarious.” — Booklist

“Humor and a Southern sauciness. . . . [Stewart’s] poignant take on voodoo among middle-class women makes for delicious fun.” — Publishers Weekly

“A gentle, funny, affirming novel. . . . Stewart writes beautifully and affectionately about this family and their acquaintances, friends, and business partners. Like a poet with a cattle prod, he crafts his phrasing carefully, then rocks the reader back on his heels with an insight or an insult.” — San Diego Union-Tribune

“Stewart’s best, most perfectly balanced novel yet. . . . a small masterpiece. Stewart’s control of tone is nothing short of brilliant; Toni’s no-nonsense Texas narrative voice immediately disarms us with its tall-tale overtones and its authentic (and genuinely funny) humor. . . . A work of genuine brilliance.”
— Locus

Read this novel and for days afterward you’ll start conversations with, “I just read the strangest book.” When Elena died, her daughter, Toni, unwillingly inherited her voodoo dolls and her debts. The dolls are able to exert their supernatural effects on Toni when she least expects it which creates havoc on the lives of family and friends. Candy, the other daughter, has her own life to live and just hovers on the outer edge of Toni’s life, offering support when needed. This is a lively and highly original story which I will recommend to my reading group because it’s a good book and they’ll enjoy it.
— Andra Tracy, Out Word Bound Bookstore, Indianapolis, IN

About the Author:

Sean Stewart is the author of the I Love Bees and Beast search operas, two short stories and seven novels: Perfect Circle, The Night Watch, Nobody’s Son, Clouds End,Passion Play, Resurrection Man and Galveston. He wrote much of the innovative web game associated with the film A.I. With Jordan Weisman, he is the author of Cathy’s Book. His novels have received the Aurora, Arthur Ellis, Sunburst, Canadian Library, and World Fantasy awards. He lives in Davis, CA, with his wife and two daughters.

• Interviews: Bookselling This Week, Capital Times

• Older interviews: BookSense, Locus, Amazon, Davis Community Network, AC&S
• Novel excerpts: Mockingbird, Galveston, The Night Watch, Clouds End, &Resurrection Man
• Camera Obscura: a story written with Pat Cadigan, Kathleen Ann Goonan, and Paul Witcover
• IMDB listing
• is popular in Germany.

Author photo by Biko.
Download for print.

Cover

Photographs: “Carol Emshwiller” by Emsh.
Mockingbird painting by Elaine Chen. (Nominated for a 2006 Prix Aurora Award — Artistic Achievement.)

Travel Light – Chapters One and Two

Mon 15 Aug 2005 - Filed under: Free Stuff to Read, Novel Excerpts| Posted by: Gavin

Chapter 1
The Bears

It is said that when the new Queen saw the old Queen’s baby daughter, she told the King that the brat must be got rid of at once. And the King, who by now had almost forgotten the old Queen and had scarcely looked at the baby, agreed and thought no more about it. And that would have been the end of that baby girl, but that her nurse, Matulli, came to hear of it. Now this nurse was from Finmark, and, like many another from thereabouts, was apt to take on the shape of an animal from time to time. So she turned herself into a black bear then and there and picked up the baby in her mouth, blanket and all, and growled her way out of the Bower at the back of the King’s hall, and padded out through the light spring snow that had melted already near the hall, and through the birch woods and the pine woods into the deep dark woods where the rest of the bears were waking up from their winter sleep.

Read more

Travel Light

Mon 15 Aug 2005 - Filed under: Books, Peapod Classics| Posted by: Gavin

9781931520140, trade paper · 9781618730060, ebook
First printing: August 2005. Second: November 2016. Third: May 2021.

(New UK edition from Virago Press with a beautiful cover and introduction by Samantha Shannon.)

Travel Light is a short, fabulous book that transports readers from a cave in the forest to a dragon’s lair to the wonders of early Constantinople. It is dense yet light, happy, deep, sad, amazing, and short enough that once it’s read all at once you’ll have time to read it again.

The second novel in our Peapod Classics reprint line is the tale of a marvelous journey by Naomi Mitchison. We’ve been fans of both the author and this novel for years — although we never got to meet her. Back in June 2001 (long before this reprint line was ever imagined) Gavin J. Grant wrote a short piece for F&SF on Travel Light:

“. . . a wonderful story that will transport you into Halla’s world where a basilisk might be met in the desert, heroes are taken to Valhalla by Valkyries, and a fortune might be made with a word to the right horse.”

Read an interview with Naomi Mitchison from April 1989.

Read the new Introduction.

Read the first two chapters.

Reviews:

“Travel Light is the story of Halla, a girl born to a king but cast out onto the hills to die. She lives among bears; she lives among dragons. But the time of dragons is passing, and Odin All-Father offers Halla a choice: Will she stay dragonish and hoard wealth and possessions, or will she travel light?”
—Amal El-Mohtar, NPR, You Must Read This

“A 78-year-old friend staying at my house picked up Travel Light, and a few hours later she said, ‘Oh, I wish I’d known there were books like this when I was younger!’ So, read it now—think of all those wasted years!”
—Ursula K. Le Guin, author of A Wizard of Earthsea

“The enchantments of Travel Light contain more truth, more straight talking, a grittier, harder-edged view of the world than any of the mundane descriptions of daily life you will find in … science fiction stories.”
— Paul Kincaid, SF Site

“A gem of a book.”
— Strange Horizons

“Every page is full of magic and wonder….well worth seeking out.”— Rambles

“Full of magic and fantasy with the hard edge of reality sharp at its edges.”
— The New Review/LauraHird.com

“Disarmingly familiar, like a memory only half-recalled. You will love this book.”
— Holly Black (Valiant, The Spiderwick Chronicles)

“Really a fairy tale, and a very charming one . . . the story is told with such grace, and such delightful insight into the minds of bears, dragons, heroes, and Valkyries that it may, and should, be read as a charming fable.”
— The Times Literary Supplement

“A tale that has the impersonal, eerie, compelling fascination of a folktale or a ballad . . . its immediate charm is the imagination, humour, and simplicity of the narration and the really remarkable evocation of some of its effects . . . the book provides enjoyment of most unusual and delightful kind.”
— Manchester Guardian

“The pace and variety of the tale will hold the breathless interest of even quite young readers, but its wit and profundity of thought will delight and satisfy adults.”
— Good Housekeeping

“There is so much that is familiar about this fairy tale novel. There are dragons and heroes, and an exiled princess. There are unicorns, Valkyries, and corrupt priests. But in Mitchison’s world, the princess is better off with the dragons than with the heroes (even the tragic ones), and when the Valkyries offer to recruit her, or when she learns the truth of her lineage, she still must find her own way.
“Travel Light is a classic, but only on its own terms, as all true classics must be. It is a surprising tale and a first-rate adventure, and always thoughtful in the telling. As Halla learns and unlearns each step of her journey, Mitchison greets us with the cheering knowledge that the wandering itself is what counts.”
— Jedediah Berry, The Naming Song

Praise for Naomi Mitchison:

“No one knows better how to spin a fairy tale than Naomi Mitchison.” — The Observer

“Mitchison breathes life into such perennial themes as courage, forgiveness, the search for meaning, and self-sacrifice.”—Publishers Weekly

“She writes enviably, with the kind of casual precision which … comes by grace.” — Times Literary Supplement

“One of the great subversive thinkers and peaceable transgressors of the twentieth century. . . . We are just catching up to this wise, complex, lucid mind that has for ninety-seven years been a generation or two ahead of her time.” — Ursula K. Le Guin, author of Gifts

“Her descriptions of ritual and magic are superb; no less lovely are her accounts of simple, natural things — water-crowfoot flowers, marigolds, and bright-spotted fish. To read her is like looking down into deep warm water, through which the smallest pebble and the most radiant weed shine and are seen most clearly; for her writing is very intimate, almost as a diary, or an autobiography is intimate, and yet it is free from all pose, all straining after effect; she is telling a story so that all may understand, yet it has the still profundity of a nursery rhyme.”
— Hugh Gordon Proteus, New Statesman and Nation

Publication history

First published in the UK by Faber and Faber in 1952.

Reprinted: Virago Press, 1985; Penguin, 1987.

About the Author:

Naomi Mitchison, author of over 70 books, died in 1999 at the age of 101. She was born in and lived in Scotland but traveled widely throughout the world. In the 1960s she was adopted as adviser and mother of the Bakgatla tribe in Botswana. Her books include historical fiction, science fiction, poetry, autobiography, and nonfiction, the most popular of which are The Corn King and the Spring Queen, The Conquered, and Memoirs of a Spacewoman.

Read the New York Times obituary — including this hilarious correction: “An obituary on Saturday about Naomi Mitchison, the British writer and early feminist, misspelled the surname of the Labor Party leader at whom she once threw a half-plucked partridge. He was Hugh Gaitskell, not Gaitskill.”

Beccon Press: Naomi Mitchison – Towards a Bibliography

A little more on Mitchison
(This is somewhat dated as it first ran in Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop’s Annotated Browser newsletter):

Naomi Mitchison was born in Scotland in 1897 and died at the age of 101 in 1999. In the USA she isn’t too well known, but I recommend her, even if you have to search for some of her books. Judging by the number of times it’s been brought back into print, the most popular of her historical novels is The Corn King and the Spring Queen. Soho Press have put it out under their Hera Series which includes novels by Cecilia Holland and Gillian Bradshaw.

If historical fiction isn’t your thing, don’t turn up your nose quite yet, she also wrote science fiction (Solution 3, [Feminist Press], Memoirs of a Spacewoman), some of the most enjoyable autobiographies I’ve ever read (You May Well Ask, Small Talk), children’s books (including the wonderful Travel Light), plays (with Lewis Gielgud), poetry, essays, short stories, and biographies; over 70 books in all.

Mitchison was born in Scotland because her mother wanted a woman to attend her at the birth which was difficult to find outside Edinburgh. Despite her proto-feminist leanings her mother never managed to get beyond her Tory beliefs and it wasn’t until Mitchison was older that she realized that she shared her deep Socialist views with her father. Socialism has a long and respectable history in Scotland and does not carry the same negative connotations that the media and populace seem to fear in the USA.

From an early age Mitchison seems to have been very self aware. Excerpts from her early diaries in The Nine Lives of Naomi Mitchison (Virago, 1997) by Jenni Calder and in her own autobiography show her as a learned companion to her older brothers as they study science and try to keep up with their father’s work. Her family lived well. Her father, J.S. Haldane, was a respected scientist and her uncle, Richard Haldane, a cabinet minister during World War I. She lived variously in Scotland and England until moving back to Scotland in 1937 with her husband, the politician Dick Mitchison. She was politically active all her adult life and came to the USA in the 1930s to see how the working class, poor and minorities were faring. She also was well-connected in the arts and political world and put her time into campaigning in support of her beliefs. She believed in sexual freedom, women’s rights and social justice. She was successful enough in her own lifetime to be consistently published but despite that and her family, money problems plagued her well past the usual retirement age.

Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop

Mon 8 Aug 2005 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

Locus Award Winner
Hugo Award Winner

Read Excerpts:

1. Can Writing Be Taught?
2. Trivia Vs. Writing Real Stories now available at the Online Writing Workshop.
3. My Silent Partner at SF Site.

Writers on Clarion

For 27 years, Kate Wilhelm and her husband, Damon Knight, taught at the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, an intensive and ambitious six-week writing program for novice writers, known to participants as “boot camp for writers.”

Part memoir and part writing manual, Storyteller is Wilhelm’s affectionate account of the history of the program and her years there with Damon as mentors and instructors. She relates how Clarion began, explains why workshop participants fear red pencils* and rejoice at the sight of water guns, what she learned, and how she passed a love of the written word on to generations of writers. Storyteller is a gift to all writers from this generous and acclaimed teacher. It includes a special section of writing exercises and advice.

* See page 121 for the origin of “The Red Line of Death.”

Reviews:

“There are many books of writing instruction out there, but what sets Storyteller apart is the sense that Wilhelm really knows students and knows how to teach them to craft a professional story.”
— The Oregonian

“A useful, compact, and entertaining guide to writing that is neither bound to a particular genre or market.”
— Locus

“This book should be on the reference shelf of every aspiring writer. Not only is it a gift of insight and experience of a wonderful writer but it’s also a fine story of the growth of a renowned writing workshop. Highly recommended.”
— SF Revu

“Teaching writing is a balancing act between compassionate encouragement and firm, blunt criticism. Kate is a master of it. The book uses reminisces about the founding, development and running of Clarion to frame a series of practical, plainly stated lessons for the beginning (and professional) writer. I learned a great deal reading it — something that can be accomplished in a deceptively short time, for Kate is also a master of simply and clearly setting out complicated, muddy issues, a skill honed both in her award-winning fiction (Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is a personal favorite) and in her long years of teaching.”
— Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

“Oh, but this is a lovely book…. Wilhelm fills Storyteller with lessons about how to write, and just as important, how not to write.”
— Strange Horizons

“Its strength, I think, lies in some of the pointers she offers to beginning writers as to help them shorten the time it takes to get published.”
— New Pages

“If you are a budding writer, please spend $16 on this book before raising the money needed to attend Clarion. You’ll get much more out of the workshop if you do.”
— Emerald City

“For such a short book — just barely 192 pages — there is a lot here, and a lot that I’ve never found in other writing books, and it’s all on-point. It’s also delivered as part of the story of one of the most significant institutions in the history of science fiction and fantasy, as told by a true storyteller.”
— Green Man Review

“Satisfying in its own right, presenting an informative, and entertaining, blend of history, memoirs, and writing lessons.”
— Steven Silver

“This book should be on the reference shelf of every aspiring writer. Not only is it a gift of insight and experience of a wonderful writer but it’s also a fine story of the growth of a renowned writing workshop. Highly recommended.”
— SF Revu

“Full of pithy, relevant advice for writers, amusing recollections of the field’s current giants during their early days, and the fullest published account to date of how a revered program was established.”
— Scifi Dimensions

Listen to an interview.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• In the Beginning
• Can Writing Be Taught?
• Years Two and Three
• Two New Homes
• Those Cryptic Marks
• Supporters
• Delegations and Confrontations
• Let the Wild Rumpus Begin
• Who Is That Masked Man?
• Where Am I?
• What’s Going On?
• Once Upon a Time
• Body Count
• Please Speak Up
• Beyond the Five W’s
• The Days
• Notes and Lessons on Writing
• Writing Exercises

In 2005 we donated $5 from each sale of Storyteller through our website to the Clarion Foundation. In early 2006 we sent in a check for $850 — thank you readers for helping us help future Clarion Workshop attendees.

Reviews for Wilhelm’s previous books:

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang:

• Hugo Award Winner
• “Richly deserves the praise it won. . . . It richly deserves to be read—or read again—for its insights that remain startlingly fresh.” —L.D. Meagher, CNN.com
• “As well-crafted and sympathetic as it is scientifically rigorous.”—Nalo Hopkinson, scifi.com
• “The best novel about cloning written to date.”—Locus
• “Wilhelm’s cautionary message comes through loud and clear.”—The New York Times

About the Author

Kate Wilhelm (1928–2018) wrote more than thirty novels. Her short fiction appeared in landmark anthologies such as Again Dangerous Visions, Orbit, The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women, and The Norton Book of Science Fiction. Her work has been adapted for TV and film, translated into twenty languages, and received the Prix Apollo, Kurd Lasswitz, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. In 2003 she was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

Photo by Richard B. Wilhelm.

An alternate selection of the Science Fiction Book Club.

Links

Clarion. Clarion West.

Credits

Cover image © Corbis.

Previous Readings:

July 8-10, 2005 — Guest of Honor: Readercon, Burlington, MA

May 26-29, 2006 — Guest of Honor, WisCon, Madison, WI

Kate Wilhelm

Mon 8 Aug 2005 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin

Kate Wilhelm was born in 1928, is the author of more than thirty novels including Where Late the Sweet Bird Sang andThe Unbidden Truth. Her work has been adapted for TV and film and translated into twenty languages. She has been awarded the Prix Apollo, Kurd Lasswitz, Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards. In 2003, she was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Her short fiction appeared in landmark anthologies such as Again Dangerous Visions, Orbit, The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women, andThe Norton Book of Science Fiction.
A cofounder of the Clarion Writers’ Workhops, she continues to host monthly writing workshops in Eugene, Oregon.

Photo by Richard B. Wilhelm
Download for print.

Storyteller – Reviews

Mon 8 Aug 2005 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin

Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop
Kate Wilhelm

* Hugo Award Winner for Best Related Book.
* Locus Award Winner
An alternate selection of the Science Fiction Book Club

“There are many books of writing instruction out there, but what setsStoryteller apart is the sense that Wilhelm really knows students and knows how to teach them to craft a professional story.”
— The Oregonian

“A useful, compact, and entertaining guide to writing that is neither bound to a particular genre or market.”
— Locus

“Its strength, I think, lies in some of the pointers she offers to beginning writers as to help them shorten the time it takes to get published.”
— New Pages

“If you are a budding writer, please spend $16 on this book before raising the money needed to attend Clarion. You’ll get much more out of the workshop if you do.”
— Emerald City

“For such a short book — just barely 192 pages — there is a lot here, and a lot that I’ve never found in other writing books, and it’s all on-point. It’s also delivered as part of the story of one of the most significant institutions in the history of science fiction and fantasy, as told by a true storyteller.”
— Green Man Review

“Satisfying in its own right, presenting an informative, and entertaining, blend of history, memoirs, and writing lessons.”
— Steven Silver

“This book should be on the reference shelf of every aspiring writer. Not only is it a gift of insight and experience of a wonderful writer but it’s also a fine story of the growth of a renowned writing workshop. Highly recommended.”
— SF Revu

“Teaching writing is a balancing act between compassionate encouragement and firm, blunt criticism. Kate is a master of it. The book uses reminisces about the founding, development and running of Clarion to frame a series of practical, plainly stated lessons for the beginning (and professional) writer. I learned a great deal reading it — something that can be accomplished in a deceptively short time, for Kate is also a master of simply and clearly setting out complicated, muddy issues, a skill honed both in her award-winning fiction (Where Late the Sweet Birds Sangis a personal favorite) and in her long years of teaching.”
— Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

“Oh, but this is a lovely book…. Wilhelm fills Storyteller with lessons about how to write, and just as important, how not to write.”
— Strange Horizons

“Full of pithy, relevant advice for writers, amusing recollections of the field’s current giants during their early days, and the fullest published account to date of how a revered program was established.”
— Scifi Dimensions

Reviews for Wilhelm’s previous books:

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang:

• Hugo Award Winner
• “Richly deserves the praise it won. . . . It richly deserves to be read — or read again — for its insights that remain startlingly fresh.”
  — L.D. Meagher, CNN.com
• “As well-crafted and sympathetic as it is scientifically rigorous.”
  — Nalo Hopkinson, scifi.com
• “The best novel about cloning written to date.”
  —Locus
• “Wilhelm’s cautionary message comes through loud and clear.”
  —The New York Times

And the Angels Sing:

• “An outstandingly fluent, sensitive writer.

Storyteller Excerpt: Can Writing Be Taught?

Mon 8 Aug 2005 - Filed under: Free Stuff to Read, Novel Excerpts| Posted by: Gavin

One of the questions Damon and I returned to often was simply: can writing be taught? There are many writers who say emphatically that the answer is no. I see their point. High school and college creative writing classes are too often a joke, taught by non-writers without a clue about the real world of publishing and what makes for a publishable story in contemporary markets. For most writers struggling alone, the learning curve from the first attempt to write to becoming an accomplished writer is very long; years in many cases. And all the while they are being taught by rejection slips, by trial and error; they are learning what works for them and what doesn’t. Even after they have published a few stories, often they can’t see why one story was accepted and not another.

Read more

The Faery Handbag

Fri 1 Jul 2005 - Filed under: Free Stuff to Read, Short Stories| Posted by: Gavin

I used to go to thrift stores with my friends. We’d take the train into Boston, and go to The Garment District, which is this huge vintage clothing warehouse. Everything is arranged by color, and somehow that makes all of the clothes beautiful. It’s kind of like if you went through the wardrobe in the Narnia books, only instead of finding Aslan and the White Witch and horrible Eustace, you found this magic clothing world–instead of talking animals, there were feather boas and wedding dresses and bowling shoes, and paisley shirts and Doc Martens and everything hung up on racks so that first you have black dresses, all together, like the world’s largest indoor funeral, and then blue dresses–all the blues you can imagine–and then red dresses and so on. Pink-reds and orangey reds and purple-reds and exit-light reds and candy reds. Sometimes I would close my eyes and Natasha and Natalie and Jake would drag me over to a rack, and rub a dress against my hand. “Guess what color this is.”

Read more

Magic for Beginners

Fri 1 Jul 2005 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

hardcover · 9781931520157

Best of the Year: Time Magazine, Salon, Village Voice, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Times. Best of the Decade: Salon, The Onion, HTML Giant, Village Voice.

Available in hardcover from Small Beer Press and in paperback, ebook, and audio from Random House. (See here for international editions.) The limited edition is sold out. See below for more.

Link’s engaging and funny second collection — call it kitchen-sink magical realism — riffs on haunted convenience stores, husbands and wives, rabbits, zombies, weekly apocalyptic poker parties, witches, superheroes, marriage, and cannons — and includes several new stories. Link is an original voice: no one else writes quite like this.

Each story is illustrated by cover artist Shelley Jackson. The cover is modeled on Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Lady with an Ermine.”

“Her exquisite stories mix the aggravations and epiphanies of everyday life with the stuff that legends, dreams and nightmares are made of, from pop culture to fairy tales. Some of these pieces are very scary, others are immensely sad, many are funny and all of them are written in prose so flawless you almost forget how much elemental human chaos they contain.”
—Salon, Best of the Decade

Reviews

“Intricate, wildly imaginative and totally wonderful. Whether or not you think you like fantasy, if you’re a fan of inventive plots and good writing (her use of language will fill you with awe), don’t miss Kelly Link’s collection.”
—Nancy Pearl, NPR

“Link’s stories … play in a place few writers go, a netherworld between literature and fantasy, Alice Munro and J.K. Rowling, and Link finds truths there that most authors wouldn’t dare touch.”
— Time Magazine

“Link’s writing shimmers with imagination.”
— Salon

Book Sense Pick: “Kelly Link is my favorite new fantasy writer. She mixes up fairy-tale monsters and our modern world to create unique, humane stories that illuminate the joy and pain of everyday stuff. These stories are magic.” –Michael Wells, Bailey-Coy Books, Seattle, WA

Story Prize recommended reading list.
Locus Award winner.
Young Lions Award, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy Finalist.

(More reviews)

Table of Contents: The Faery Handbag : The Hortlak : The Cannon : Stone Animals : Catskin : Some Zombie Contingency Plans : The Great Divorce : Magic for Beginners : Lull.

Stories from Magic for Beginners have been published in McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, Conjunctions, The Dark, and One Story. “Stone Animals” was selected for The Best American Short Stories: 2005. “The Faery Handbag” received the Nebula, Locus, and Hugo Awards and was a finalist for the British Science Fiction Association and World Fantasy Awards. “Magic for Beginners” received the Nebula, Locus, and British Science Fiction Association Awards and was a finalist for the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, Hugo, Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Award.

The limited edition is now sold out.
Overstock, unnumbered unsigned copies are available for $70.

Hand-numbered and signed by the author and illustrator and includes two tipped-in plates: an enlargement of the title story illustration and a color reproduction of the trade dustjacket painting by Shelley Jackson which is based on “Lady with an Ermine” by Leonardo da Vinci held in The Czartoryskich Museum in Krakow. Printed by Thomson-Shore of Dexter, MI, on 70# Finch Opaque Cream White Smooth paper, with 80# Oatmeal Rainbow Endpapers, Smyth Sewn in Cobalt Blue Pearl Linen Cloth, with a ribbon to keep your place.

October 2, 2008: Released under Creative Commons.
September 30, 2013: Taken down from Creative Commons due to rights sale.

See also: KellyLink.net.

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 16

Fri 1 Jul 2005 - Filed under: LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

$5 · 60 pages

Gavin J. Grant: Still.
Kelly Link: Outtern. Tap.
Jedediah Berry: Intern. Distilled.
Gwyneth Merner: Intern. Effervescent.

Another issue of a zine. Printed in 2-point type and taped shut with duct tape to build anticipation (and microscope sales).

Actual zine hoped to have the same size front and back covers. Also, a rich creamy cover, not actually white. As with much of the information on this page, you’ll have to take it on trust unless you get a copy in your hands. Well, except for the few linked things.

Tie-in (and tie on) rosebud wristlets (made of edible rice paper) will be given out with every Veggie Delite Subway sandwich.

fiction
Eric Gregory — You and I in the Year 2012
Cara Spindler — We Lived in a House
Yoon Ha Lee — Moon, Paper, Scissors
Scott Geiger — The Pursuit of Artemisia Guile
Kat Meads — Reality Goes On Here More or Less
Eric Schaller — Three Urban Folk Tales
John Kessel — The Red Phone
Matthew Kirby — Little Apocalypse
David Lunde — The Grandson of Heinrich Schliemann
Christina Manucy — Cat Whisker Wound
Jenny Ashley — The Perfect Pair
Sean Melican — Gears Grind Down

poetry
Michaela Kahn — village of wolves, Fall Comes to the Central Valley of California
Two Poems by Sandra Lindow
Chris Fox — Scorpions, Scenes
Two Poems by Ursula K. Le Guin

nonfiction
Gwenda Bond — Dear Aunt Gwenda
Tom Berger — Berger on Books: Snow (online only)

Cover
Kevin Huizenga

people

Jenny Ashley is married to a man with beautiful feet. She lives in San Luis Obispo, CA, and teaches freshmen how to fall in love with words. Her stories and poems have appeared in The Allegheny Review, Mars Hill Review, Oxford Magazine, and The Peralta Press.

Gwenda Bond communicates to us through the local MI-5 dead letter office. She is working on a young adult novel. She is funnier than you. She did not write this bio.

Chris Fox. Aries. Born: Cincinnati, OH. Attended Appalachian State University. Resides: Greensboro, NC. Employed: Benjamin Branch, Greensboro Public Library. Fiction: The Bishop’s House Review, Slave, and the News and Observer. Poetry: Wavelength and Rosebud. Guitar: political ghoul-punk band, Crimson Spectre.

Michaela Kahn is an indentured servant tied to the slaving-meat-wheel of mindless, meaningless labor. She’s heard there’s a ritual you can perform out in the desert with a penny, a piece of yellow legal paper, sage, a fountain pen, mouse-droppings, and the recitation of a few choice phrases that will put an end to global capitalism. She’s currently searching for the correct words.

After his brief stint as the Dalai Lama, John Kessel earned his living exclusively by selling kelp to passengers of the Orange Line in the 14th Street IRT station.

Matthew Kirby lives in Brooklyn, NY. He is a frequent contributor to the film criticism journal Metaphilm.com, and his fiction has appeared in 3rd Bed, Diagram, and The Brooklyn Rail.

Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of twenty novels, ten short story collections, six books of poetry, four volumes of translation (including Angélica Gorodischer’s Kalpa Imperial), and thirteen books for children. She lives in Oregon.

Yoon Ha Lee‘s fiction and poetry have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lenox Avenue, Strange Horizons, and Star*Line. She was born in Houston but lacks the accent to prove it. She used to make her own paper dolls.

Sandra Lindow, officially past her 55th birthday, takes the responsibilities of apprentice cronehood seriously. She has published three poetry chapbooks, Rooted in the Earth, The Heroic Housewife Papers, and Revision Quest, and a longer collection, A Celebration of Bones. She is working on a chapbook, Walking the Labyrinth: Poetry of Conflict and Resolution.

Christina Manucy is directs exhibitions on the nature of light and weeble-wobbles. She has been neither to Ireland nor Egypt and is kind to cats. She lives in Baltimore among the “Hons” with her sculptor husband.

Kat Meads‘s novel, Sleep, was on the 2004 long list of works recommended by the Tiptree Award jury. She lives in California.

Cara Spindler lives in Michigan and teaches high school English. The story is for Morgan, who shot god in the sky, and asked about the netherworld dreams.

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet Iteration 16, July 2005. This zine is supposed to go out each June and November (but wasn’t this also supposed to be an occasional outburst? What’s the occasion?) from Small Beer Press. info-at-smallbeerpress.com smallbeerpress.com/lcrw $5 per single issue or $20/4. Contents © the respective authors. All rights reserved. Submissions, requests for guidelines, &c all good things should be sent to the address above. No SASE: no reply. Apologies for the lack of margin space. We keep expecting to increase the margins and page count. The economic bullet that would entail refuses to be bit. Please take your copy of this zine apart and paste on an extra inch of paper all round. This issue brought to you by reduced personal freedoms, a scandal proof monkey, and water, rising waters. Read. Revolt! As ever, thanks. Paradise Copies, 30 Craft Ave., Northampton, MA 01060 413-585-0414

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 15

Sat 1 Jan 2005 - Filed under: LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

$5 ~ 68 pages

Kelly Link: Lady.
Gavin J. Grant: Tiger.
Jedediah Berry: Drone.

Reviews

“Elegant ain’t typically an adjective you’re liable to find in Zinesville but lemme tell ya: Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet is nothing if not elegant. Just check out the Victorian-era lass riding a tiger that adorns the front cover. And it doesn’t stop there. Lady Churchill’s is a beautifully produced zine, jam-packed with poems, short stories, features, film reviews and other curiosities. There is enough variety here to satisfy the most sullen hardback and, most importantly, Lady Churchill’s cocks the hammer in favour of the reader by keeping the pieces short, sharp and easy to read. In terms of highlights, Michael Northrop’s “The Beard of God” is definitely up there. A soggy tale of a camping trip gone to piss, Northrop does a great job of balancing the cynicism of adulthood with the wonderment of youth, all while saving the sappiness for the pine trees. Lawrence Schimel’s “A Well-Dressed Wolf” is another treat-and an illustrated treat at that. Through some nifty Sara Rojo’s supplied cartoons, Schimel picks apart Aesop’s atypical wolf one snout at a time. And he’s right-why can’t a wolf be a fox–I mean, a bird–um, a broad, a dame, a jezebel. Lady Churchill’s also earns brownie points for including full bios of all contributors to close things out. It’s a little thing but it’s a damn nice thing, and a damn nice zine overall.”
—Cameron Gordon, Broken Pencil

fiction

Karen Russell — Help Wanted
Sarah Micklem — “Eft” or “Epic”
Bruce McAllister — Mary
John Trey — At the Rue des Boulangers Bridge Cafe
Benjamin Rosenbaum & Paul Melko — Collaborations . . .
Michael Northrop — The Beard of God
Ellen M. Rhudy — Crown Prince
Sarah Monette — The Half-Sister
Geoffrey Goodwin — Dear Miss Wonderment
Richard Parks — Lord Goji’s Wedding
Stepan Chapman — The Life of Saint Serena
Mark Rich — Nicholas
Amy Sisson — gray’s boadicea: unlikely patron saints, no. 4
Neal Chandler — The Truck

poetry

Nan Fry — Four Poems
Mary A. Turzillo — FAQ
Carol Smallwood — Three Poems
Suzanne Fischer — Three Poems

nonfiction

William Smith — The Film Column: The Tenant
Some Writers — Some Records
Gwenda Bond — Dear Aunt Gwenda

comic

Lawrence Schimel and Sara Rojo — The Well-Dressed Wolf

people

Also in this issue ads for books and chapbooks, Trunk Stories, Jubilat, Odyssey, a tiny thing about Bill Sikes, a tiny legal call for non-violent Jefferson-approved revolution, a plea to subscribers to send us their new address if they move, and The Future of Soul to Soul and other Sound Systems We Loved and Then Which Disappeared Or Became Somewhat Uninteresting.

people

Gwenda Bond advises the public from Lexington, KY. Despite the title of her web journally thing (Shaken & Stirred), she’d generally prefer a glass of white wine, thank you. And a book. She liked that NBA finalist Godless, have you read that yet?

Neal Chandler is a former soldier, missionary, emergency room orderly, furniture store owner, German professor, editor, and chauffeur. He teaches in the English Department at Cleveland State University, coordinates creative writing, and helped create NEOMFA, a new graduate writing program spanning four universities. He has published essays, short stories, and a story collection, Benediction. He and his wife live in Shaker Heights, OH. Their eight children live everywhere else.

Stepan Chapman, sub-chairman of research for the Institute for Further Study and manager of the Aphasia Gorge Wild Insect Preserve of Waxwall, Arizona, has published historical studies in such scholarly journals as The Baffler, Happy, and McSweeney’s Quarterly, and in such anthology series as Orbit, Leviathan, and Polyphony. His major works are The Troika and Dossier.

Suzanne Fischer lives in Minneapolis, where she bicycles all winter long. She is currently writing a dissertation on wax museums.

Nan Fry teaches in the Academic Studies Program at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C., and is the author of a book of poetry, Relearning the Dark. Her poems have also appeared in Plainsong, Calyx, and the anthologies The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and Poetry in Motion from Coast to Coast.

Sometimes the stories Geoffrey H. Goodwin touches get a little messed up.

Steve Lieber is the cover artist. His groovy comics includelots of big-company things, Family Circle with Sean Stewart, and Me and Edith Head with Sara Ryan. He’s very nice and will illustrate for you if you ask nicely and so on.

Bruce McAllister has had fiction in Omni, Asimov’s, F&SF, literary quarterlies and “year’s best” anthologies since the ’70s. He was away from writing for most of the ’90s, and is happy to be back. He has three wonderful children (Liz, Ben and Annie), is married to the choreographer Amelie Hunter, and, after an eternity in academe, now works as a writing coach and book and screenplay consultant.

Sarah Micklem worked as a graphic designer for twenty years but was pestered by the idea that she ought to write something. She wrote on and off for more years than she cares to admit before completing a novel, Firethorn. She is now working on the sequel. “Eft” or “Epic” is her first published short fiction.

After twenty-five years, Sarah Monette is no longer a student. What, she wonders, will she do with herself now?

Michael Northrop grew up in the northwestern corner of Connecticut, which is very nice, before inexplicably moving to New York City, which is fraught with peril. He works as an editor at Time Inc., and his fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Snake Nation Review and McSweeney’s (web).

Richard Parks‘ first pro sale was published in Amazing Stories in 1981. In 1994, after a 13-year hiatus, his second story appeared in Science Fiction Age. Since then his work has appeared in Asimov’s, Realms of Fantasy, Weird Tales, and Black Gate. His first collection, The Ogre’s Wife: Fairy-Tales for Grownups, was a World Fantasy Award finalist.

Ellen M. Rhudy just bought a guitar. She knows how to play three chords and spends most of her time playing these chords or fondling her guitar. Her fiction has appeared in Hanging Loose and Smokelong Quarterly. She edits a lit zine, Frothing at the Mouth, and is currently writing a zine about working in a Christian bookstore. She lives in a very very small room with some books and dirty clothes.

Mark Rich writes, “Mark Rich writes all the time but still has that basic insecurity that he is not really a real writer. He is the author of some books (Foreigners & Other Familiar Faces, Lifting, Funny Gace, Baby Boomer Toys, Toys A-Z), but that’s something different. Right now he’s writing about himself . . . a further cause of discontent. Is this what he should be doing? Is all writing this unsettling and unbalancing?” He draws pictures, too, and has little to say about that.

Karen Russell is a girl who lives in New York and likes to write about alligator wrestlers and sleep-disordered kids and the moon. She hopes you like her story. It’s the first one she’s published.

Lawrence Schimel & Sara Rojo have published over a dozen children’s books in Spanish and/or English such as No Hay Nada Como el Original, Andrés and the Copyists, & Misterio En El Jardín. They also create graphic novels for older readers, such as the full-color Mixed Blessings (Germany, Fall ’05) and the b&w romantic vampire comedy A Coffin for Two (U.S., Spring ’06). They live mostly in Madrid, except when Sara is in Cadiz or Lawrence is in New York.

Amy Sisson is a librarian of the non-shushing variety who was recently transplanted to Houston, TX, where she lives with husband Paul Abell and a collection of ex-parking-lot cats. She is a member of the Clarion West (2000). She invites you to visit her website for more about the unlikely patron saints.

Before turning to fiction and poetry, Carol Smallwood‘s books such as Michigan Authors were published by Scarecrow, Libraries Unlimited, and others. Her work has been in The Detroit News and dozens more; forthcoming in Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry 2005, Mœbius, Parnassus Literary Journal, Poetry Motel, Zillah. In 2004 she appeared in Who’s Who in America and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

John Trey attempts to exploit whatever meager talents he possesses from an old house in a suburb in the midwest, where he keeps all brooms locked safely in a closet. His fiction has appeared in LCRW, Spellbound, MarsDust, and Fortean Bureau. When not writing, reading, or critiquing, he often can be found playing with his daughter, listening to jazz, or pondering the mysteries of invisibility.

Mary A. Turzillo‘s novel, An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl, was serialized in Analog from July-November 2004. She won a Nebula for her novelette, “Mars Is No Place for Children.” If you sense an obsession with Mars, it might be because her husband, Geoff Landis, is a Mars scientist. She is also obsessed with death, but she likes Mars much better.

William Smith publishes Trunk Stories from Brooklyn, NY, where one day there will be a Grand Sichuan International. Until then, he will occasionally make the trip over the river. Besides publishing, managing a bookshop, and writing about films, he is a paper artist.

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, No.15 January 2005. This zine usually goes out each June and November from Small Beer Press. info@lcrw.net www.lcrw.net/lcrw $5 per single issue or $20/4. This time apologies for the recent US election which froze the zine solid. Much chipping and melting has led to the appearance of this in your hands. May the president be similarly chipped away. Contents © the authors. All rights reserved. Submissions, requests for guidelines, &c all good things should be sent to the address above. No SASE: no reply. For external use only. This issue suitable for vegetarians (thanks, Henry) but produced in a facility where nuts, etc. are processed. As ever, thanks. Printed by Quantum Graphix, 2130 Watterson Trail, Louisville, KY 40299 502-493-5933.

Carmen Dog

Mon 1 Nov 2004 - Filed under: Books, Peapod Classics| Posted by: Gavin

ISBN: 9781931520089 · trade paperback · ebook available

The debut title in our Peapod Classics reprint line.

“A rollicking outre satire…. full of comic leaps and absurdist genius.”
—Bitch magazine

In this dangerous and sharp-eyed look at men, women, and the world we live in, everything is changing: women are turning into animals, and animals are turning into women. Pooch, a golden setter, is turning into a beautiful woman — although she still has some of her canine traits: she just can’t shuck that loyalty thing — and her former owner has turned into a snapping turtle. When the turtle tries to take a bite of her own baby, Pooch snatches the baby and runs. Meanwhile, there’s a dangerous wolverine on the loose, men are desperately trying to figure out what’s going on, and Pooch discovers what she really wants: to sing Carmen.

Carmen Dog is the funny feminist classic that inspired writers Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler to create the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award. We are very pleased to publish it as the debut title in our new Peapod Press reprint line.

Chapter One:

“The beast changes to a woman or the woman changes to a beast,” the doctor says. “In her case it is certainly the latter since she has been, on the whole, quite passable as a human being up to the present moment. There may be hundreds of these creatures already among us. No way to tell for sure how many.”

Read on

Reviews

A first novel that combines the cruel humor of Candide with the allegorical panache of Animal Farm. . . . There has not been such a singy combination of imaginative energy, feminist outrage, and sheer literary muscle since Joanna Russ’s classic The Female Man.
—Entertainment Weekly

Carol is the most unappreciated great writer we’ve got. Carmen Dog ought to be a classic in the colleges by now . . . It’s so funny, and it’s so keen.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, author of Changing Planes

Pure essence of Emshwiller. Only she could have taken the women’s movement, opera, and a wolverine and come up with such enchantment.
— Connie Willis, author of Passage

One of my favorite books! Funny, ironic, and wonderfully true in its consideration of women and other animals.
— Pat Murphy, author of There and Back Again

With Carmen Dog, Carol Emshwiller takes her place beside Mikhail Bulgakov and his great social satire, Heart of a Dog. She is one of the premiere fantasists working today, and her fiction is always more than the sum of the parts.
— Gregory Frost, author of Fitcher’s Brides

The novel asks, in the most humorous way imaginable, where we might be as a civilization without our pets and sacrificial caretakers. The humor helps disguise the horrific implications, but never is the bite taken from the dog.
— Strange Horizons

This trenchant feminist fantasy-satire mixes elements of Animal Farm, Rhinoceros and The Handmaid’s Tale…. Imagination and absurdist humor mark [Carmen Dog] throughout, and Emshwiller is engaging even when most savage about male-female relationships.
— Booklist

Her fantastic premise allows Emshwiller canny and frequently hilarious insights into the damaging sex-role stereotypes both men and women perpetuate.
— Publishers Weekly

An inspired feminist fable…. A wise and funny book.
— The New York Times

“A fable, chock full of heroes and villains, tragedy and triumph, all complex in the way a Dali canvas is complex, and funny in the very same way.”
—Spectrum Circus

— Vector: The Critical Journal of the British Science Fiction Association
— Strange Horizons

About this book
Copyright 1990 by Carol Emshwiller. All rights reserved. First published in the USA by Mercury House 1990. This edition printed on 52.5# Enviro Edition recycled paper in Canada by Transcontinental Printing. Text set in Centaur MT. Titles set in Friz Quadrata.

Cover art by Kevin Huizenga.

About the author
Carol Emshwiller‘s stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Century, Scifiction, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, TriQuarterly, Transatlantic Review, New Directions, Orbit, Epoch, The Voice Literary Supplement, Omni, Crank!, Confrontation,and many other anthologies and magazines.
Emshwiller is a MacDowell Colony Fellow and has been awarded an NEA grant, a New York State Creative Artists Public Service grant, a New York State Foundation for the Arts grant, the ACCENT/ASCENT fiction prize, and the World Fantasy, Nebula, Philip K. Dick, Gallun, and Icon awards.
She is the author of six novels including Carmen Dog, Ledoyt, Mister Boots, The Secret City, and Leaping Man Hill, as well as collections of short fiction: Joy in Our Cause, Verging on the Pertinent, The Start of the End of It All, Report to the Men’s Club and Other Stories, I Live with You, Master of the Road to Nowhere, and two volumes of Collected Stories. She grew up in Michigan and France and lives in New York City.

Carmen Dog – Chapter One

Mon 1 Nov 2004 - Filed under: Free Stuff to Read, Novel Excerpts| Posted by: Gavin

Carol Emshwiller| Carmen Dog

Chapter 1: Outlandish Changes

There is more matter in the universe than we at first thought.
–CBS newscaster

“The beast changes to a woman or the woman changes to a beast,” the doctor says. “In her case it is certainly the latter since she has been, on the whole, quite passable as a human being up to the present moment. There may be hundreds of these creatures already among us. No way to tell for sure how many.”

The husband feigns surprise. Actually he’s seen more than he’s telling, and right in his own home.

Read more

The Rose in Twelve Petals

Fri 1 Oct 2004 - Filed under: Chapbooks| Posted by: Gavin

Sold Out

No.9 in the limited edition Small Beer Press chapbookseries is The Rose in Twelve Petals & Other Stories by Theodora Goss.Goss is one of the strongest and most distinctive voices to appear in recent years. She has very quickly made a name for herself: her stories have been reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror as well asYear’s Best Fantasy and her poem “Octavia Is Lost in the Hall of Masks” has just won the Rhysling Award. Goss’s stories reach across and through genres. She utilizes fairy-tale structures and post-modern motifs all the while building through increments a beautiful body of work.

Cover art by Charles Vess.

Reviews

“Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold” is a superb oneirism, an opportunity vouchsafed to an obscure, not overly successful academic to step through the gates of dream into — what? transcendent inspiration? death? both? Certainly out of his scholarly mediocrity. The atmosphere and invention are quite wonderful.
— Nick Gevers, Locus

One of the most impressive debuts I can recall…. Fairy tale retellings are a dime a dozen, and Sleeping Beauty ones probably as common as any, so this story has to be special to stand out, and special it is.
— Rich Horton, Locus

“The poems sing … the stories both sing and soar.”
— Matthew Cheney, Locus

“The Rapid Advance of Sorrow” could hide, camouflaged by style and subject, within the gems of J. G. Ballard’s Vermilion Sands. The story gracefully describes a bizarre aesthetic revolution in which the city and concept of “Sorrow” conquers the world in arctic stillness, with white flowers and post-modern language. The story is haunting, possessed of its own terrible beauty, and characterized by gorgeous prose and provocative thought.
— Tangent Online

A beguiling world of fantasy and adventure await he reader…. Go. Buy it. Read it.
— Zine World, 22 supplement.

Contents

The Rose in Twelve Petals
The Rapid Advance of Sorrow
Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold
Lily, With Clouds
Her Mother’s Ghosts
What Her Mother Said
Chrysanthemums
The Ophelia Cantos
That Year
The Bear’s Daughter
Bears
Helen in Sparta
By Tidal Pools
The Changeling

Advance Praise

“Theodora began publishing in 2002, and already she’s become one of my favorite writers. Her stories and poems are beautifully written, deliciously spiced with the flavors of fairy tales, folklore, myth, and 19th century gothic literature. This book is a feast — and one I intend to savor slowly, to make it last.”
— Terri Windling, author of The Wood Wife

“These stories are poetic, sad, hopeful, brave. And very, very beautiful. There’s no one, in the field or out of it, who does lyrical simplicity better, or says more about the mysterious workings of the human heart, than Theodora Goss.”
— Delia Sherman, author of The Porcelain Dove

“An original voice, and an original vision: crystalline, precise, mordant and devastating.”
— Ellen Kushner, author of Swordspoint

“By the merest chance, I had the honor to read Theodora Goss just before she broke into print. Lucky me – I’ve devoured everything she’s published since. Here’s a writer who commands the common tongue as if it were meant to serve her alone, even as her passionate stories spiral upward to surreal glory. Trust me on this: you have never read anything quite like The Rose in Twelve Petals.”
— James Patrick Kelly, author of Strange But Not a Stranger

• Another story online: “Sleeping with Bears” (Strange Horizons)
• Poems of the Fantastic and Macabre is Goss’s ongoing online poetry anthology.

About the author:

Theodora Goss was born in an imaginary city: at least, it looks nothing like she remembers. (In hers, swallows built nests under the eaves of apartment houses, and someone was always playing Liszt.) She grew up in a series of airport terminals and wonders why, wherever you go, you have to pass through Frankfurt. This may explain why most of her characters are from somewhere else, or want to go there. She’s been there, and wants you to know that the mountains are particularly fine. (She recommends the sour cherry strudel.) She lives in Boston with her husband and daughter, and the necessary number of cats. She was a lawyer, but decided it just wouldn’t do. She is now working on a PhD in English literature. She enjoys introducing unsuspecting freshmen to Lord Dunsany and Philip K. Dick, and needs more bookshelves. Her stories have appeared in Realms of Fantasy, Polyphony, Alchemy, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and online atStrange Horizons and Fantastic Metropolis. Several have been reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. Her poems have appeared in magazines such as Mythic Delirium and The Lyric. She has won a Rhysling Award for her speculative poetry.

Some of the stories in The Rose in Twelve Petals & Other Stories were previously published in the following places:

These stories and poems previously appeared in the following places: The Rose in Twelve Petals, Realms of Fantasy, April 2002; The Rapid Advance of Sorrow,Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 11, November 2002; Lily, with Clouds,Alchemy 1, December 2003; Professor Berkowitz Stands on the Threshold,Polyphony 2, April 2003; Her Mother’s Ghosts appears here for the first time. Helen in Sparta, By Tidal Pools, and Chrysanthemums, LCRW 8, June 2001; The Ophelia Cantos, LCRW 9, November 2001; What Her Mother Said will be published in The Journal of Mythic Arts, Autumn 2004; The Bear’s Daughter, The Journal of Mythic Arts, Winter 2004; The Changeling, That Year, and Bears appear here for the first time.

Reading: Oct. 16, 3-5 PM
with Vandana Singh & Greer Gilman
Pandemonium Books & Games
The Garage @ Harvard SQ
36 JFK St.
Cambridge, MA

Trash Sex Magic

Tue 15 Jun 2004 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

trade cloth (9781931520065) · trade paper (9781931520126) · ebook (9781931520911)  · 302 pages

Locus Award finalist

“This just absolutely rocks. It’s lyrical, it’s weird and it’s sexy in a very funky way. Trash Sex Magic is full of  people you would maybe be afraid to meet in real life, but once you’ve met them fictionally you are damn sorry you can’t at least have a beer with them.”
—Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife

Jennifer Stevenson’s debut novel starts with Raedawn Somershoe who lives in a trailer on the banks of the Fox River. She likes men and men like her. It runs in the family: her mother, Gelia, can seduce a man just by walking across a road. When they set their sights on a man, something magical happens.

Alexander Caebeau drives a bucketloader for a construction company. He’s lonely, homesick, tired of cutting down trees and putting up ugly buildings. He dreams of going back to the Bahamas, but when Alexander meets Raedawn Somershoe, something magical happens.

Raedawn has just lost her lover. Her mother is keeping secrets from her. Her childhood sweetheart has come home and is looking for answers. Riverfront developers want Rae and her family gone. She may just be falling in love with Alexander Caebeau. And the Fox River is beginning to rise. . . . Something magical is about to happen.

Reviews

“Engaging … deeply charming, and its best scenes lodge in the reader’s memory.” — Washington Post

“Weird in the best possible way.”
—Margo Lanagan

“It’s not often you get characters like those that appear in Jennifer Stevenson’s Trash Sex Magic. Even if you remove the oddities like the underground huts and the tree fucking, Stevenson presents men and women who feel entirely new to literature, and they’re so good you have to wonder why they’ve been missing…. It’s so refreshing to read a fantasy book that doesn’t read like it bows down to Tolkien, a book with a message that doesn’t sound preachy. Trash Sex Magic is Stevenson’s first novel, and it will be exciting to see what she comes up with next.” — Bookslut

“Jennifer Stevenson’s raunchy, funny, and disturbing first novel, Trash Sex Magic, is full of bewitching weirdness.” — Chicago Reader

“Wonderful…. Trash Sex Magic can sweep you up and leave up dazzled, miles from home.” — Locus

“Stevenson’s first novel is at once sexy, beautifully written and passing strange.” — Publishers Weekly

“Jennifer Stevenson’s sparkling wit comes through in wordplay and metaphor, and her insight and unwavering attention to detail creates a prose as marvelous as the plot while celebrating Gaia and the passionate and transcendental energy of Eros, and it does so with a profound honesty. Imagine Anne Rice with a sense of humor, or a Christopher Moore novel re-written by Anais Nin. If you are looking for a multi-layered treatise on Goddess archetypes, if you’re looking for a fantasy that isn’t quite dark, isn’t quite urban, or if you’re just looking for a funny, well-written trashy novel, this book is definitely for you. Surreal, and full of delightful weirdness, this has quickly become my most-recommended book of the year.”
— Green Man Review

Advance Praise:

“It’s to Chicago what The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is to Pittsburgh and A Winter’s Tale is to New York — a winning, touching, open-eyed love letter — but with trash, sex, and magic too. Unusual and wonderfully done.”
—John Crowley, Little, Big

“It was a proverb of the 16th Century: On Hallowmass Eve troll notte thy broomstick bye ye caravan park, for thou wottist notte who maye mount thereon. I had paid it little heed since learning it years ago, and planned to read this grand book one chapter at a time. I’d scarcely begun the second when I fell under the author’s spell.”
—Gene Wolfe, The Knight

“Ambitious, phantasmagorical, with images that burn into your brain and stay there, even when the book is off in a corner somewhere minding its own business.”
—Ellen Kushner, Swordspoint

“Jennifer Stevenson is my goddess. In this book, trash is power. Trash Sex Magic is a springtime bacchanalia of beautiful, wild women, magic trees and sexy men — love it!”
— Nalo Hopkinson, The Salt Roads

About the Author

Jennifer Stevenson lives in Chicago, Illinois with her husband of 45 years. She has washed dishes, shelved library books, repaired life-size rubber sunflowers, groomed horses, and bookkept for a living. Crows follow her car, begging for peanuts.
Trash Sex Magic is Jennifer Stevenson’s first novel. Since then, she has written four standalone romantic comedy novels and three connected fantasy series: Hinky Chicago (five novels of sexy fantasy), Slacker Demons (four novels of paranormal romcom), and Coed Demon Sluts (five novels of paranormal women’s fiction). She is currently at work on a series of thrillers.

Author photo by Beth Gwinn.

Cover

• Photographs: “Face” by Maria Daniels; “Trees” by Butch Welch
• Art: “Running Foxes” by Shelley Jackson

Perfect Circle

Tue 15 Jun 2004 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

Perfect Circle is a dark, funny, fast-moving thriller that you won’t want to put down. Stewart was the lead author behind the innovative interactive web game known as “The Beast” (inspired by the film A.I.) which became a break-out cult hit. Sean Stewart is the author (with Jordan Weisman) of Cathy’s Book: If Found Call 650-266-8233. He is the winner of the Arthur Ellis, Aurora, and World Fantasy awards, and the author of The New York Times Notable Books Mockingbird and Resurrection Man.

William “Dead” Kennedy has problems.

He’s haunted by family, by dead people with unfinished business, and by those perfect pop songs that you can’t get out of your head. He’s a 32-year-old Texan still in love with his ex-wife. He just lost his job at Pet-Co for eating cat food. His air-conditioning is broken, there’s no good music on the radio, and he’s been dreaming about ghost roads.

When Will’s cousin (“My dad married your Aunt Dot’s half-sister”) calls in the middle of the night about a dead girl haunting his garage, it seems like an easy way to make a thousand dollars. But nothing is ever that simple, especially when family is involved. Will’s mother is planning a family reunion of epic proportions. Will’s ex-wife is married to a former Marine. His twelve-year-old daughter Megan thinks Will needs someone to look after him. And recently his dead relatives seem to want something from him.

Nebula and World Fantasy Award finalist
A Book Sense Notable Book
Best of the Year: Booklist, Locus, San Francisco Chronicle
A Locus bestseller

Read it now on Salon.com:
Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four

Family Reunion: an 8-page mini-comic by Sean Stewart and Steve Lieber based on Perfect Circle.
Comes free with any order or order it here for a buck.

T-shirts and many things that are round.

Also available: Mockingbird

Interviews

Locus · Bookselling This Week · Capital Times

Reviews

* “All-around terrific.”– Booklist (starred review)

“Stewart’s quicksilver wit makes Perfect Circle perfectly hilarious. And, a supremely skilled storyteller, he saves the best for last.”
— Texas Monthly

“Stewart’s mastery of Will’s first-person narration is unflinching and unfaltering. The voice conjured here is absolutely authentic and affecting.”
— Washington Post

“Stewart’s compelling account of how DK comes to grips with his ghosts, both actual and metaphorical, is alternately poignant and hilarious, with some genuinely creepy moments and one or two powerful jolts…. Compelling … with strong potential for crossing over into the mainstream.”
— Publishers Weekly

“By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, Perfect Circle is … an impressive example of an author using genre resources to stake out a territory that, for the moment at least, no one but he occupies.
— Locus

“A read-at-one-go novel…. Everything is both stated and understated, elegant, full of the mundane horror and fear that inform a normal, frustrated life…. And it is well, well worth the reading. A highly recommended work.”
— F&SF

punk attitude: country & western life

“Perfect Circle is a perfect read, exciting, unique, everything here but the Second Coming, but, Sean Stewart himself is the prize. What a talent. Write on, my man. Write on.”— Joe Lansdale, Sunset and Sawdust

“A heartwarmingly sweet novel about what it’s really like to be haunted. Sean Stewart’s best yet.”
— Sarah Smith, Chasing Shakespeares

“Needy ghosts, bar fights, concealed weapons, R.E.M., and ramen noodles — Perfect Circle is an irreverent Texas treat. Sean Stewart is one bright, funny writer.”
— Stewart O’Nan, The Night Country

“Will Kennedy has some troublesome relatives. — Especially the dead ones. Perfect Circle is Sean Stewart at his spooky, funny, sad, and haunting best.”
— Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“Perfect Circle is a ghost story for grown-ups, frightening, funny, and finally redemptive. It kept me up way past my bedtime.”
— Harley Jane Kozak, Dating Dead Men

“I read it all in one gulp, by turns fearful and joyful for Stewart’s likable loser protagonist.”
— Cory Doctorow, Eastern Standard Tribe

“If Oprah read science fiction…This quirky, engaging novel tells the story of William “Dead” Kennedy, a thirtysomething former punk rocker and down-on-his-luck divorced dad — who sees ghosts. After a visit to his haunted cousin goes horribly wrong, “DK” finds himself getting lots of attention — mostly the wrong kind – from both the living and the dead. Funny and thought-provoking!”
— Carol Schneck Schuler Books and Music, Okemos, MI

My favorites among Sean Stewart’s books are those that hover on the edge of our reality. His characters, like William “Dead” Kennedy are much like my friends and relatives — although if any of my relatives are seeing ghosts, they haven’t mentioned this to me. Will leads a not-quite life in Texas, working in dead end jobs, and yearning to reconnect with his ex-wife, and trying to avoid ghosts. When a cousin calls with a ghost-busting request, his financial offer is more than Will can resist. But accepting the job opens Will up to a whole new level of darkness. Great prose (Stewart has some of the best metaphors going) and a melancholy mood, like music half-remembered.
— Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy Bookshop, San Diego, CA

About the Author:

Sean Stewart is the author of the I Love Bees and Beast search operas, two short stories and the novels: Mockingbird, The Night Watch, Nobody’s Son, Clouds End, Passion Play, and the New York Times Notable Books Resurrection Man and Galveston. With Jordan Weisman, he is the author of Cathy’s Book.
He wrote much of the innovative web game associated with the film A.I. His novels have received the Aurora, Arthur Ellis, Sunburst, Canadian Library, and World Fantasy awards. He lives in Davis, CA, with his wife and two daughters.

• Older interviews: BookSense, Locus, Amazon, Davis Community Network, AC&S
• Novel excerpts: Mockingbird, Galveston, The Night Watch, Clouds End, & Resurrection Man
• Camera Obscura: a story written with Pat Cadigan, Kathleen Ann Goonan, and Paul Witcover
• IMDB listing
• is popular in Germany.

Author photo by Biko.
Download for print.

Cover

• Photographs: “Eyes” by Maria Daniels; “Hand” by Jim Gipe, Pivot Media
• Hard cover art by Greg Spalenka

Jennifer Stevenson

Tue 1 Jun 2004 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin

Jennifer Stevenson: An Interview
Gabrielle Moss

What led you to start writing fiction?

I’ve always written fiction, ever since I was old enough to read. My mother and my maternal grandparents all wrote, and my father wanted to write; I guess it was just assumed I would, too. Sometimes I think I’m living out their ambitions.

What inspired you to write Trash Sex Magic? The setting is vivid and powerful, and almost a character unto itslef. Where/what did you draw from to create this world?

I started working on this book in 1986 while on jury duty. It started out as a short contemporary horror novel called Early Spring. Eighteen years and many, many revisions later, Kelly Link and I carved away everything that wasn’t Trash Sex Magic. I can’t say enough about her support, her appreciation for my vision of the book, and her writerly acuity. She talks about words in a way that awes me.

The setting for Trash Sex Magic is drawn from a place where my brother and I and our dogs played as kids: Wheeler Park in Geneva, Illinois. Natives of that area will recognize a lot of landmarks, some of which have disappeared. The trees in the park are really there, but the houses across the road, by the water, were very nice houses indeed. As a kid I never got to visit them or the river. I wanted to, though. The ridge really has a railroad track on top of it, and I wanted to sit up there at night and hear the freight train go by. I wanted to see the river smash into the ridge. I wanted to see a tornado hit the water. This book let me do all that. Nature is the truest, most powerful force on earth. I wanted to keep saying that.

Other inspirations were Carolyn Chute’s The Beans of Egypt, Maine and a Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek movie, Coal Miner’s Daughter. Without these examples before me I would never have thought I could write about this kind of life.

Why did you choose to tell your story with fantasy?

Joe Haldeman talks about a kind of progression he has noticed in veterans who write about their Vietnam War experience. First they do some very autobiographical fiction, or a straight autobiographical account. Then later they expand the scope of their stories, fictionalize their personal experience a bit, include experiences that other people had but they did not, so as to make the war more accessible to more readers. Finally, maybe 20 years later, they start writing wildly fantastical stuff with extravagant imagery and “unreal” things happening, because the fantasy element is the only way they can express the violence and extravagance of theiremotions about the war.

For me, many parts of this book describe internal experiences I had as a child that I couldn’t talk about. In fact I find it impossible to talk about them now, except by telling a wildly unreal story that illustrates these feelings in a lurid, over-the-top way.

Do you do any other kinds of writing?

I’m writing raunchy romantic comedies, erotic romantic fantasy, some short fantasy stories, some experimental short funny stuff that’s all dialogue. Terry Bisson started doing that a few years ago; his stories blew me away and inspired me to try it myself. Those all-dialogue stories are bags of fun to write.

Trash Sex Magic deals with a lot of issues pertaining to class. Did you intend to write a novel with a political message?

Kind of. I wanted to respond to a trend I saw in fantasy writing and in fantasy criticism that treated magic in fiction as if it were an extension of academia. The taller your pointy hat, the longer your white beard, the better a magician you are, right? Sure, and your full professors are smarter than everybody else. This is the Tolkein/Harry Potter model. In reality, tenure doesn’t make a person smarter. I felt that in fiction, magic ought to be treated with more respect, and not as a game whose rules must have “internal consistency”–a fantasy lit-crit phrase that drove me nuts for years–but as an extension of the mysterious and marvelous and very real natural world.

If you look back through the history of science, you find the history of magic. The dividing line falls at the point when scientists stopped thinking of nature as a lover to be wooed (Paracelsus is an example) and started thinking of nature as a wife to be mastered, plowed, and dominated (as did Roger Bacon). If you squint, you can kind of see the clash of these ideas, like a battle of mastadons in the swamp, in Trash Sex Magic.

I also wanted to point out that when the Somershoe women use magic, they are flying blind, without training, without vocabulary. “Internal consistency” aside, vocabulary is a good thing. Because they have a bone-deep belief that what they are doing is “trashy,” Rae and Gelia don’t talk about it. If they were “fantasy” heroines they would, but they’re as realistic as I could make them–irrevocably outside society and yet eternally standing at its edge, half-acknowledging its rules, unable to ignore the rules. Stupid, maybe, considering their powers. It could only strengthen them to talk. But they don’t have a pointy hat. No one has given them permission to be themselves; they feel they’ve had to steal their powers under the noses of society. They’re half-right to hesitate: they live under the constant awareness that their power is in the minority; their tree can be cut down; their land can be taken; their kids can be put in foster homes. People silence themselves all the time, and they suffer accordingly.

The worst thing these people do is call themselves trash in their secret hearts. You can overcome that if it’s from the outside, but not if you’re using that word on yourself. Am I talking about class?

What books have influenced you?

Most deeply? Rudyard Kipling, especially the Mowgli stories and Kim. Ray Bradbury. Andrew Lang’s fairy tale series. Georgette Heyer, Howard Pease, Terry Pratchett, Sax Rohmer, Clifford Simak, Rex Stout, PG Wodehouse. A handful of little-known writers whose very few books hit me hard, by luck: Jody Scott, Ruth Nichols, Lorna Novak. Later, in my adulthood, Carolyn Chute, Maxine Hong Kingston, John Crowley.

Some writers who hit all the same buttons for me, but who didn’t get to me soon enough to be major “influences”, are Terry Bisson, James Blaylock, Glen Cook, Nalo Hopkinson, Barry Hughart, Diana Wynne Jones, Tanith Lee, Dan Pinkwater, Rachel Pollack, Sherri Tepper, Gene Wolfe. I read Audrey Niffenegger’s first novel last year and flew over the moon; I’m hoping for more from her.

What are you working on now?

Two things: a romantic erotic fantasy about an incubus and a farm girl, and a raunchy romantic comedy that’s kind of a cross between a contemporary blue-collar regency romance and a Romeo and-Juliet farce. The erotic fantasy is hard; I keep having to redesign my heroine because the book gets more serious the farther in I plot it, and she needs to get stronger so she can carry that weight.

The comedy is just a blast. It’s the second in a series I’m writing about stagehands. Stagehands make wonderful alpha male heroes. They’re very physical guys, sometimes bad boys, serial monogamists with a blue-collar form of chivalry that balances their sometimes-chauvinistic ideas about women. They work in the glamorous world of show biz but they get their hands dirty. Unlike performers, they don’t wear makeup or let themselves get too skinny to be strong. They’re coarse and funny and relaxed about their masculinity. I’ve been married to a stagehand for 27 years and I’m here to testify. Ya gotta love ’em.

—

Gabrielle Moss is on a train west. Her zine is My Life as a Liar.

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 14

Tue 1 Jun 2004 - Filed under: LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

68 pages
Should you order this, you will probably receive a black & white cover due to a slight cock up on the printer front.

Kelly Link: I want to do right but not right now.
Gavin J. Grant: I do want to write but not right now.
Gabrielle Moss, Ariel Franklin-Hudson: Interns.
Avenue Victor Hugo Books: Origin point for this zine and many other wonderful things, now closed. Owner will be selling books elsewhere. Our thanks to everyone there for 10 years (out of 29) of a good place.

fiction
Douglas Lain — Music Lessons
David Nahm — Sitting on a Bench in the Park
Susan Mosser — Ragdog
James Sallis — Two Stories
Richard Butner — Pete and Earl
Jay Lake — A Conspiracy of Dentists
Matthew Latkiewicz — Felix Soutre, Puppeteer
J. Cox — The Half-Fey House
Devon Monk — Beer with a Hamster Chaser
V. Anne Arden — Sun
Bret Fetzer — Careless Liza
Deborah Roggie — The Enchanted Trousseau

poetry
David Blair — Two Poems
Trent Walters — The Coyotl
Sally Bayley — The Blue Period

nonfiction
William Smith — The Film Column: Greaser’s Palace
Matthew Latkiewicz — Felix Soutre, Puppeteer
Christoph Meyer — Projection
Gwenda Bond — Dear Aunt Gwenda

Online Extra

L. Timmel Duchamp — What’s the Story? Reading Anna Kavan’s Ice

people*

DAvId J. ShUUArtz A NOtE AbOUt thE TYpE

addendum

Recently: Miranda #10,11. Kate’s taking it to the streets, going to zine fests, and more. Quite a few zines about motherhood out now (time passes, zinesters become hipsters, homesters, momster/dadsters). This is the one we enjoy the most. [$2, K. Haas, 3510 SE Alder St., Portland, OR 97214] · Postcards from the Voodoo Sex Cult #2. Joe Strummer RIP in 28 pages. Thoughtful, heart-breaking. [$2, Veronica Schanoes (who had a story in LCRW 13), POB 2140. Phil. PA, 19103] · Space-Crime Books & Games moved! 18 Strong Ave., Northampton, MA 01060 · Berserker #3. Freebie letter-sized newspaper-print comix zine from Syracuse U. Names to remember: Matt Finley, Phil Davis, Albert Birney, Jon Moses. [berserkercomics at yahoo.com] · Monterra’s Deliciosa & Other Tales &, Anna Tambour. [Prime] · Brood X. · Cockahoop, Cerys Matthews. Catatonia lead singer no longer. Great album of covers and originals: catchy, addictive and all those other things pop’s meant to be. [Blanco y Negro] · The Growing Upheaval #8. Dark perzine about drugs, not quite connecting, diet, & college. [$? growingupheaval at yahoo.com] · Tonguecat, Peter Verhelst. An amazing feat of imaginative writing; a meditation on the nationstate, dictators, and power; a love story. Wild, fun, dark, complicated. Translated from the Dutch by Sherry Marx. [FSG] · Leeking Ink #28. Long-lived perzine which hopefully you’ve sent your $2 off to see. Davida also puts together the amazing and useful Xerography Debt (which along with The Free Press Death Ship and Zine World will have you working in a diner just to get those dollar tips to send off for more zines to read and read and read). Job-wise she keeps moving, trying different things, following her ethics and her heart. Looks good, too. [$2, D.G.Brier, POB 963, Havre de Grace, MD 21078] · Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich changing the U.S. political conversation from fear to hope. · The Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler. When good things happen to good books. [Putnam] · Doris #21. Cindy’s reached G on her alphabetical tour and recommends not reading this alone. We 2nd that. Pieces on Girl Gangs, Guatemala, and Gender and the focus throughout is on abuse. Get back issues at Quimby’s or Downtown News & Books in Asheville, NC. [$1.50, Cindy, POB 1734, Asheville, NC 28802] · White Devils, Paul McAuley & Forty Signs of Rain, Kim Stanley Robinson. You know: “Like thrillers, but good.” [Tor, Bantam] · Jamieson’s Robust Dark Chocolate — “Chocolate from Africa’s Gold Coast.” 70% cocoa solids and smooth as the day is long. Thank you for this, Lord. Claim to run small farms and use few pesticides. Perhaps fair trade will make its way from the coffee shops to the chocolate makers. · The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. Brilliant ’70s consumer satire. (Thanks, Ross.) [BBC] ·

people

V. Anne Arden has a doctorate in biology and is currently a postdoc (the way-station between student and professor). She has been telling herself stories for as long as she can remember, and is happy that other people would like to read them. She looks at the sun often, and has even seen an eclipse.

Sally Bayley has taught writing and literature in the USA and the UK. She currently teaches literature at Balliol College, Oxford. She has published poems in several literary journals and contributes regularly to the Balliol College journal. She is in the process of setting up an international literary and poetry journal. She has no illusions that one day she will be famous.

David Blair has poems forthcoming in Fence, Hotel Amerika, and The Greensboro Review. He teaches at the New England Institute of Art.

Gwenda Bond blogs with a glass of chardonnay in hand and an easy familiarity with best and worst of the silver screen.

Richard Butner is a slow-moving, tree-dwelling mammal who hangs upside down from branches and feeds on leaves and fruits. Small Beer have just published a chapbook of his short fiction, Horses Blow Up Dog City & Other Stories.

J. Cox has had poetry published in Flesh and Blood, Once Upon a World, Eclipse, and other magazines.

L. Timmel Duchamp lives in the Pacific Northwest. Her collection, Love’s Body, Dancing in Time (Aqueduct Press) is on your reading list.

Bret Fetzer writes plays and short stories. His collections of original fairy tales, Tooth & Tongue and Petals & Thorns, are available here. He wrote the narration for the documentary film Le Petomane: Fin de Siecle Fartiste, directed by Igor Vamos. He is a company member of Annex Theatre in Seattle, WA.

Douglas Lain recognizes that he is a member of the entertained public — a public that Guy Debord described in his 1978 film In Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni as “dying in droves on the freeways, and in each flu epidemic and each heat wave, and with each mistake of those who adulterate their food, and each technical innovation profitable to the numerous entrepreneurs for whose environmental developments they serve as guinea pigs.”
Last week Lain drank six Starbuck’s coffees and daydreamed about revolution 12.5 times. Douglas Lain lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, daughter, and two sons.

Jay Lake lives in Portland, OR. He is a finalist for the 2004 John W.Campbell Award for Best New Writer, as well as for the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. His stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Leviathan 4, Postscripts, and Realms of Fantasy.

Matthew Latkiewicz owns and spends a lot of time at The Lady Killigrew, a cafe/pub in Montague, MA. Personal Statistics (partial list): First CDs ever purchased: DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince He’s the DJ, I’m the Rapper, and Def Leppard’s Hysteria . . . Number of times haircut has been a “buzzcut”: one . . . Books read in one sitting (not including young adult): Jim Thompson’s A Hell of a Woman and Nicholas Mosley’s Impossible Object.

Christoph Meyer lives in a restored mill in Howard, OH with his wife and young son. He publishes a fanzine entitled Twenty-eight Pages Lovingly Bound with Twine. He doesn’t hold any degrees and has won no prestigious awards. He doesn’t have electronic mail but can reached via the good ol’ USPS at P.O. Box 106 Danville, OH 43014.

Devon Monk lives in Oregon’s microbrew country. Her short fiction has appeared in such venues as the Year’s Best Fantasy 2, Amazing Stories, Realms of Fantasy, Talebones, &c. In addition to short fiction, she is currently writing novels in which the hamster is optional.

Susan Mosser once worked in a bakery. She also once worked on a zine, Turbocharged Fortune Cookie. She still lives in Florida. Her story “Bumpship,” from the anthology Trampoline, was reprinted in The Year’s Best Science Fiction.

David Connerley Nahm, born in Kentucky, now lives in Carrboro, NC, with his wife and cat. He is in the pop band Audubon Park. He has stories forthcoming in Trunk Stories and Surgery of Modern Warfare.

Deborah Roggie has read her stories on the NYC radio program, WBAI’s “Hour of the Wolf,” and at the New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series at Dixon Place. She lives in New Jersey and is currently working on a novel. These days, she’s too busy writing to embroider much.

James Sallis lives in Phoenix, AZ, and can recommend good restaurants all around the U.S.A. (and a few other countries). He is the author of many good books.

David J. Schwartz‘s eyes hurt. He would like you to know that his fiction has appeared in Talebones, Flashquake.org, On Spec, Paradox and Grasslimb as well as in LCRW 13. He also maintains a reading journal and publishes the fiction zine The Dogtown Review. Now, if you’ll excuse him, he’s going to lie down for a little while.

William Smith is a slight, fast-moving urban dweller who shifts between analog and digital with ease. He rides a bike, presently works for a much smaller book-related business than previously, and is the publisher of Trunk Stories.

Trent Walters confesses an infamous drug addiction paralleled by none with the possible exception of Thomas DeQuincy. He edits an e-zine, quarto. Works of his have appeared in 3 AM Magazine, Carleton Arts Review, Mid-America Poetry Review, Minnesota River Review, The Pittsburgh Quarterly, &c.

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, No.14 June 2004. This basic unit of literature slips out the side door in June and November from Small Beer Press. $5 per single issue or $20/4. Apologies for the rising subscription price and slowing response times. Ignore anything you’ve heard from us or anyone else about a third annual issue. It never happened, you didn’t miss out, and that review was no doubt product of some of that delicious unpasteurized cheese. Contents © the authors. All rights reserved. Submissions, requests for guidelines, &c all good things should be sent to the address above. No SASE: no reply. For external use only. Slimming, but in no way part of a low-carbohydrate diet. This issue extensively tested (read: read) on animals, particularly pernicious spelling-obsessed squirrels. As ever, thanks. Printed by Paradise Copies, 30 Craft Ave., Northampton, MA 01060 413-585-0414
* “We think it’s so groovy now/that people are starting to get together.”

Horses Blow Up Dog City & Other Stories

Tue 1 Jun 2004 - Filed under: Books, Chapbooks| Posted by: Gavin

No.8 in the limited edition Small Beer Press chapbook series is Richard Butner’s Horses Blow Up Dog City & Other Stories. Butner’s forte is 21st-century man — just a little lost, nothing major — and his ongoing attempting to come to grips with life, love, and the ultimate enigma: woman.
There’s an immediacy to Butner’s eye for pop culture, architectural and emotionally-revealing details that places these stories in the apartment next to yours, the (good) local diner (not the crappy one), or maybe the bar around the corner.
Not everything’s going to turn out right; not everyone’s going to do well. But if you follow the path Butner’s laid out before you, maybe you’ll find the good bar, the good diner, know when to listen, know when to fold.

“Wry, caustic, calculated, impulsive…. Gems of gorgeous weirdness.”
— Asimovs

“Finely wrought fiction that earns its effects. Evocative and passionate, meaningful and filled with wonders.”
— SF Site

“Butner picks up the absurdities of high-speed America and throws them back in its face, reveling in the wild, wonderful mess he creates.”
— New Pages

Contents
Ash City Stomp (audio)
Horses Blow Up Dog City
The Rules of Gambling
Lo-Fi
Drifting

Advance Praise
“Butner’s meticulous prose lays a cool surface over some twisty terrain. Understated and profound, deft and smooth, these stories sneak up on you and then don’t let go. Boxes within boxes, wheels within wheels.”
— Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club

“If you let Richard Butner’s sideways fiction into your brain it will slice you to ribbons so quietly that you won’t even know why you’re laughing, or crying. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
— John Kessel, Good News From Outer Space

“In the work of writers who have truly burrowed in, often I’ve a sense of there being not many stories but one continuous, ongoing story, ever growing, ever increasing, turning this way and that in shifting light — which is how I feel about Richard Butner’s.”
— James Sallis, Cypress Grove

“Richard Butner writes gorgeous, heartfelt stories that are completely his own, each propelled by an inner logic that may or may not match consensus reality, each ringing utterly true. He is unafraid of tough questions and even tougher answers. His characters sweat, grieve, exult, and struggle for understanding, and even when they terrify, they never fail to touch me.”
— Lewis Shiner, Say Goodbye

• More stories online: “Other Agents” (LCRW); “House of the Future” (SciFiction)
• An interview
• The original afterword to the story “Horses Blow Up Dog City”

About the author:
Richard Butner loves you. This is his second chapbook after Mind Snakes(illustrated by Michael Carter, Barefoot Press & The Paper Plant). His stories have been published in RE Arts & Letters, Say…, …is this a cat?, Problem Child, Scream, Mind Caviar, and the anthologies Trampoline (Kelly Link, ed),Crossroads: Southern Stories of the Fantastic (F. Brett Cox and Andy Duncan, eds., Tor), Intersections (John Kessel, Mark L. Van Name, and Richard Butner, eds., Tor), and When The Music’s Over (Lewis Shiner, ed., Bantam Spectra). He occasionally comments here.

Richard Butner read Thur., Sept. 16, 8.00 PM
Internationalist Books
405 W Franklin St
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
919-942-1740

Some of the stories in Horses Blow Up Dog City & Other Stories were previously published in the following places:
“Ash City Stomp”, Trampoline, 2003; “Horses Blow Up Dog City”, Intersections,1996; “Drifting”, Say…, 2003.
“The Rules of Gambling” and “Lo-Fi” appear here for the first time.

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