50 of the Best

Fri 20 Aug 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on 50 of the Best | Posted by: Gavin

We’re delighted to see Sofia Samatar’s two Olondria novels included in NPR’s big fun list — how many have you read?

We Asked, You Answered: Your 50 Favorite Sci-Fi And Fantasy Books Of The Past Decade

In Olondria, you can smell the ocean wind coming off the page, soldiers ride birds, angels haunt humans, and written dreams are terribly dangerous. “Have you ever seen something so beautiful that you’d be content to just sit and watch the light around it change for a whole day because every passing moment reveals even more unbearable loveliness and transforms you in ways you can’t articulate?” asks judge Amal El-Mohtar. “You will if you read these books.”

Which reminds me it was also on a big list last year:  Time Magazine 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time

“This slowly-unraveling, exquisitely-detailed novel made the poet Sofia Samatar a World Fantasy Award winner and a Nebula Award finalist. It follows Jevick, a young writer who is obsessed with the fantastical, distant world of Olondria, where his father is a merchant. But when Jevick is called there after he inherits the family business, he becomes haunted by a ghost—and is unwittingly pulled into Olondria’s power struggle. The novel unfolds in waves of A Game of Thrones-level twists, all while its fantastical world-building pulls from South Asian, Middle Eastern and African cultures to offer a welcome departure from Eurocentric fantasy.”


Vandana Singh, Climate Imagination Fellow

Tue 17 Aug 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Vandana Singh, Climate Imagination Fellow | Posted by: Gavin

I was delighted to see via Locus that Vandana Singh (author of Ambiguity Engines among others) is one of 4 new Climate Imagination Fellows, hosted by the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University. The fellowship “seeks to inspire a wave of narratives about what positive climate futures might look like for communities around the world.”

I have Xia Jia’s collection from the Clarkesworld Kickstarter but the other 2 writers are new to me:

  • Libia Brenda is a writer, editor and translator based in Mexico City. She writes speculative fiction as well as nonfiction and criticism about science fiction and fantastic literature. Her work has been translated from Spanish into English, Italian and Portuguese. She is one of the co-founders of the Cúmulo de Tesla collective, a multidisciplinary working group that promotes dialogue between the arts and sciences, with a special focus on science fiction; and Mexicona: Imagination and Future, a series of Spanish-language conversations about the future and speculative literature from Mexico and other planets. She was the first Mexican woman to be nominated for a Hugo Award for the bilingual and bicultural anthology “A Larger Reality/Una realidad más amplia.” After that, she was so excited that she edited “A Timeline in Which We Don’t Go Extinct,” a bilingual anthology that is also a video game, which is free to download and play. She edited the Mexico special issue of the speculative fiction magazine “Strange Horizons,” published in November 2020.
  • Xia Jia is a speculative fiction author and associate professor of Chinese literature at Xi’an Jiaotong University in Xi’an, a city in the Shaanxi province in northwest China. Seven of her short stories have won the Galaxy Award, China’s most prestigious science fiction award. She has published a fantasy novel, “Odyssey of China Fantasy: On the Road” (2009), and four collections of science fiction stories: “The Demon-Enslaving Flask” (2012), “A Time Beyond Your Reach” (2017), “Xi’an City Is Falling Down” (2018), and “A Summer Beyond Your Reach” (2020), her first collection in English. Her stories have appeared in English translation in Nature and Clarkesworld magazine. Her nonfiction academic collection, “Coordinates of the Future: Discussions on Chinese Science Fiction in the Age of Globalization,” was published in 2019. She is also involved in science fiction research, translation, screenwriting, editing and teaching creative writing and is currently working on a new science fiction book, titled “Chinese Encyclopedia.”
  • Hannah Onoguwe is a writer of fiction and nonfiction based in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State in southern Nigeria, a region famous for its oil industry. Her short stories have been published in the anthologies “Imagine Africa 500” (2016), from Pan African Publishers, and “Strange Lands Short Stories” (2020), from Flame Tree Press. Her work has appeared in publications including Adanna, The Drum Literary Magazine, Omenana, Brittle Paper, The Stockholm Review and Timeworn Literary Journal. In 2014, “Cupid’s Catapult,” her collection of short stories, was one of 10 manuscripts chosen to kick off the Nigerian Writers Series, an imprint of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA). She won the ANA Poetry Competition in 2016 and was shortlisted for the Afritondo Short Story Prize in 2020. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Ibadan and a master’s degree in organizational psychology from the University of Jos. She works at a software company, providing support for the Nigeria Immigration Service.
  • Vandana Singh is an author of speculative fiction, a professor of physics at Framingham State University and an interdisciplinary researcher on the climate crisis. She is the author of two short story collections, “The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories” (2014) and “Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories” (2018), the second of which was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award. In 2014, she traveled to the Alaskan North Shore to create a case study on climate change for undergraduate education as part of a program award from the American Association of Colleges and Universities. Her work on a justice-centered, transdisciplinary conceptualization of the climate crisis is part of a forthcoming volume from UNESCO, “Charting an SDG 4.7 Roadmap for Radical, Transformative Change in the Midst of Climate Breakdown.” Her short fiction has been widely published, including the short story “Widdam,” part of the interdisciplinary climate-themed collection “A Year Without a Winter” (2019). She was born and brought up in New Delhi and now lives near Boston.

It is quite an exciting program. The fellows will write short fiction, short flash fictions, and essays and so on to be collected in a Climate Action Almanac next year. They also will be doing workshops around the world including the countdown summit to COP 26 in Scotland later this year.

Congratulations to Vandana and all the Fellows. Looking forward to seeing what they do.


Read Liyana on Lithub

Mon 16 Aug 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Read Liyana on Lithub | Posted by: Gavin

Spirits Abroad cover - click to view full sizeLithub just dropped an excerpt from Zen Cho’s story “Liyana” — read it in the book or check it out here.

Recent notes about the book can be found in the infinite pages of Bustle

“A must-read book for any sci-fi or fantasy fan.”

and Buzzfeed:

“These 19 science fiction and fantasy short stories infused with Malaysian folklore are absolutely gorgeous. Originally published in 2014, before Zen Cho’s debut fantasy, Sorcerer to the Crown, it is now being published by Small Beer Press with nine additional stories. In her Hugo Award–winning novelette ‘If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again,’ an imugi who wishes to ascend to full dragonhood has its plan thwarted by a human girl taking a selfie. In ‘The House of Aunts,’ a teenage pontianak (sorta like a vampire) lives with her overbearing female relatives and attends school, where she tries to hide her food choices from her crush. Just as with her novels, Cho merges humor and relatable characters with delightful prose and engaging storylines.”


Here, There, and Everywhere

Tue 10 Aug 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Here, There, and Everywhere | Posted by: Gavin

Spirits Abroad cover - click to view full sizeI’ve been looking forward to this day for a while as it’s the publication day for our expanded edition of Zen Cho’s collection Spirits Abroad. The book was originally published a few years ago and was a co-winner of the Crawford Award. I hadn’t read it until more recently when it came across my desk with nine additional stories including the Hugo Award winner — and such a good story! — “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again.”

We were a bit late with getting the cover finalized but when it came in from Wesley Allsbrook we were over the moon, what a cracker! The book is about as much fun as can be with the whole gamut of stories, running from here, there, to everywhere.

The book is available everywhere in print, audio, and ebook. Dive in!


And now we ship

Tue 13 Jul 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on And now we ship | Posted by: Gavin

Don’t expect to hear too much from us as we try and organize hundreds of orders from that sale. Phew. Thank you! With luck the monthly warehouse charges will have been significantly reduced. If not, check back here.


Warehouse Clearance Sale — last day

Mon 12 Jul 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Warehouse Clearance Sale — last day | Posted by: Gavin

It has been — it is — nuts, so: thank you! Today, July 12th, is the last day of our Warehouse Clearance Sale — maybe we’ll do another next year and I’ll be better prepared for the madnesses. We’ve processed on third or so of the orders and some are shipping out. Many are being assembled. Books are moving from one warehouse to the other, being shipped from our office to the warehouse, adding a T-shirt, or another Angélica Gorodischer title.

Anyway, last day of the sale is here.


Celebrating Jeffrey Ford’s new book Big Dark Hole with a Warehouse Clearance Sale!

Tue 6 Jul 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Celebrating Jeffrey Ford’s new book Big Dark Hole with a Warehouse Clearance Sale! | Posted by: Gavin

July 6th, 2021: We are celebrating a new book, Jeffrey Ford’s Big Dark Hole, and 20 years (. . .) of Small Beer Press books with a Warehouse Clearance Sale!

It’s been 20 years since we started publishing books as Small Beer Press and we are going to celebrate in a couple of different ways beginning now and continuing later this summer — mostly by making books or sending even more books out into the world, ha!

First Thing

We are delighted to celebrate 20 years of really rather good books by publishing Jeffrey Ford’s new collection Big Dark Hole. It’s a stoater!

This is Jeff’s sixth collection — seventh, really, as there was a Best of from PS last year — and every one of them is a cracker. We’re already planning our next collection with him — who wouldn’t when you look at this list I grabbed from his site:

The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant, 2002, Golden Gryphon Press

The Empire of Ice Cream, 2005, Golden Gryphon Press

The Drowned Life, 2008, Harper Collins

Crackpot Palace, 2012, Harper Collins

A Natural History of Hell, 2016, Small Beer Press

Big Dark Hole, 2021, Small Beer Press, natch, comes out today, July the 6th, 2021, and it is a short, sharp shock of fantastic fiction.

There are a three new stories first published here in this book, “Monkey In the Woods,” “Inn of the Dreaming Dog,” and “The Match.” That third one there will have you stopping what you’re doing and making sure you read the rest of the story before someone interrupts.

You can read one of the stories, “Not Without Mercy,” online, but, really the book is shiny in surprising places and feels good in the hand. Sign up now for Readercon — online in August — where Jeffrey Ford and Ursula Vernon will be the guests of honor.

Second Thing

We’re putting on our first warehouse sale in many years. Long time readers will recognize the screenshot below from our pre-WordPress website — and now 10+ years later we’re basically doing the same thing.

The sale is going to run on the Book Moon website and will have a few rules and limitations:

  • alphabetical buying encouraged but quite difficult given the price-ordered list, but it’ll be fun, honest.
  • no buying over 5,000 books unless you really want to build something interesting out of them.
  • On second thoughts if you want to buy over 5,000 copies, you do you.
  • Discounts range from 0-94% off retail prices.
  • Order some full-price titles (such as the first one on this page,Travel Light, or Big Dark Hole) and we’ll throw free titles from the sale list.
  • Orders on this Easthampton, Massachusetts-based bookshop website will be shipped as fast as we can put them through from the Tennessee warehouse of our fabulous Minneapolis-based distributor, Consortium.
  • Gosh we love these books. We loved publishing every single one of them and right now we’re lining up some surprises and new books for the couple of years. It is true that I am an enthusiast, still, about all this and our warehouse people will tell you that, yes, I am very enthusiastic when I put the print orders in. More joy all round, says I.
  • There are a few books in the sale that are rarer and we will ship them from Book Moon.
  • This Decennial Warehouse Clearance Sale will run for one (1) week, July 6th-12th with the possibility of being extended for one (1) more week.
  • We only ship within the US & Canada.

I imagine if we keep publishing for another 10 or 20 years, we’ll have more clearance sales. Imagine that: 2030. 2040. What funny looking numbers. 2030 looks more like a time than a year. 8:30 already?

Who knows. Maybe by 2040 we’ll all be ordering small pills from Bookland that download the latest story virus into our chips. If you trust Bookland and your shipper, of course.

Anyway, please pass the word around and stock up: it’ll be Jolabokaflod before you know it.

Right, here’s that all important Warehouse Clearance Event link.

Thanks for reading, spreading the word, buying books, and keeping this Small Beer contraption on the road!


Ben Rosenbaum event Wednesday night!

Mon 28 Jun 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Ben Rosenbaum event Wednesday night! | Posted by: Gavin

Join us Wednesday night for the last Book Moon zoom of the month with 2 fabulous authors. We published Ben Rosenbaum’s absolutely fabulous collection The Ant King and Other Stories a few years ago and this novel is a leap from there. I used to read Annalee Newitz on io9.com and now I enjoy her monthly column in New Scientist. Her latest book is Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age which I’ve started and recommend. They are both lovely, smart people and I’m looking forward to listening to them (and seeing them!) build the future we want to see in conversation:

Wednesday, June 30th @ 7:00 pm ET

Join authors Benjamin Rosenbaum (The Ant King and Other Stories) and Annalee Newitz (Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age, The Future of Another Timeline) at Book Moon for a reading and discussion of Rosenbaum’s amazing first novel, The Unraveling, published this month by Erewhon.

**Register here**

Hope to see you there!


Sneaky

Tue 22 Jun 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Sneaky | Posted by: Gavin

Out goes a new zine into the world. 43rd of its line.

Most are mailed out, at least. What’s it got? A Night Farmers’ Museum, Half a Papatya, Shiny Green Floors, Mysteries, Wires, Gutter-Princes, Acting Tips, Three Favours, Poems, King Moon’s Tithe to Hell, and a Time Travel Self-Care System.

All of which can be yourn.


New Interview Series

Fri 21 May 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on New Interview Series | Posted by: Gavin

Today we’re celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month as well as short story month by kicking off our Small Beer Press Author Interview series with Franchesca Viaud’s interview with Isabel Yap which has just been posted on the Book Moon website.

Isabel’s first collection, Never Have I Ever: Stories, was published in February 2021 — we have a limited number of signed bookplates to go with it. A number of Isabel’s stories can be read online: Milagroso, Have You Heard the One About Anamaria Marquez?, & How to Swallow the Moon.

If you missed it, you can also catch up with Isabel’s Strange Light Reading Series event with Rebecca Roanhorse here.

As with all things Small Beer this series is imagined as an occasional event that will meander along in its own sweet time for many years to come. Francesca has been working at Book Moon for a while now splitting her time there between working outside on the fine weather days and working behind the scenes on the not-so-fine weather days. Her interview with Isabel is a conversational delight — as is the Strange Light event above; the common factor being Isabel, so perhaps she is just a conversational star as well as being a great writer! Read the interview here.

Author photo by Meg Whittenberger.


More Hands, More Hands

Mon 17 May 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on More Hands, More Hands | Posted by: Gavin

Being among the more cautious, I have no idea if travel will seem like a good idea or not this summer or autumn. I know millions of people are traveling right now but I’m not there yet so for travel, it’s all just books for me.

Come September, those who are armchair traveling will have 2 dark, propulsive options to carry them to Scandinavia and the south of England and the the darkest secrets at the heart of humanity. In other words, Cass Neary is coming back.

I’ve added 2 new September 2021 books to this site: Elizabeth Hand’s novels Available Dark and Hard Light, the second and third books in her can’t-look-away series of Cass Neary novels that began with Generation Loss. In the coming weeks I’ll post them on Edelweiss for reviewers and booksellers and post excerpts here to give readers a taste — here’s the the first chapter of Generation Loss.


Elle, Zen, Saving Animals on the Moon

Wed 12 May 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Comments Off on Elle, Zen, Saving Animals on the Moon | Posted by: Gavin

Alison Bechdel spotlighted the first line of Susan Stinson’s novel Martha Moody in an interview with Elle:

This “speculative western” first came out in 1995 but was just reissued. The first sentence is magnificent in the way it’s a microcosm of the whole book, as well as a glimpse at the way Stinson writes so beautifully about fat bodies: “I was crouched next to the creek baiting my hook with a hunk of fat when I heard a rustling on the bank upstream.”

This Saturday June 15th Book Moon will be part of a Cottage Street Sidewalk Sale, We’ll have books on the sidewalk. Should be interesting.

And at 3 p.m. ET/8p.m. UK on Sat. the 15th Zen Cho (England) and Kelly Link (Massachusetts) will do an online event celebrating Zen’s new novel Black Water Sister which came out this Tuesday. Register here.

Book Moon has some excellent events coming hitting up a couple of different parts of the old cerebellum:

June 1st,  6 p.m. ET: Strange Light Reading Series features Rivers Solomon (Sorrowland) and Leigh Bardugo (Shadow and Bone). UMass zoom link goes live 2 weeks before the event so will post it again then.

June 2nd , 7 p.m. ET: Join local author Elan Abrell (Saving Animals) and Alex Blanchette (Porkopolis) online for celebration of the publication of Saving Animals and an interesting conversation on same.

June 15th, 7 p.m. ET: Join NYT bestselling authors Gayle Forman (Just One Day, If I stay) and Holly Black (The Cruel Prince, Tithe) at Book Moon for a reading and discussion of Gayle Forman’s new book, We Are Inevitable, which will be published in June by Viking Books for Young Readers. Register here.


Not Without Mercy

Tue 4 May 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Not Without Mercy | Posted by: Gavin

Some days are just better if you go read a scary story: here’s Jeffrey Ford’s Not Without Mercy on Conjunctions — soon to be collected in Big Dark Hole.


Craft Capsules

Wed 14 Apr 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Craft Capsules | Posted by: Gavin

In recent weeks Susan Stinson has been writing short Craft Capsules for Poets & Writers. They’ve inspired conversation, reflection, and — no doubt — writing!

Body in the Mirror

When I was an undergraduate, I saw a call for writing about fatness for the anthology Shadow on a Tightrope: Writing by Women on Fat Oppression (Aunt Lute Books, 1983), which became a feminist classic, still in print decades later. I was a young writer who very much wanted to be published. I had been fat all my life. I knew that the shape of my body had been central in defining the shape of my life, but I had no language for how to write or even think about that. The cultural tropes for fat women were virulently dismissive. I knew that they did not represent who I was. The hate language that was regularly shouted at me on the street didn’t either, but I didn’t know how to start to say anything else.

In Praise of Italics

I love italics. They make me feel as if the author is whispering tremulous secrets to me. The words need to be worth leaning closer to take them in. That’s all I ask.

An idiosyncratic, opinionated, passionate reader who is dear to me skips passages in italics. Reading next to her was the first time I learned that some people don’t read them. It breaks my heart.

Freedom

In 1985 I was part of a fat radio program on an International Women’s Day broadcast in Boston. Cat Pausé, a fat studies scholar who is writing about the history of fat radio and podcasts, recently told me that the show and its predecessor in 1984 were likely the first ever fat-positive radio programs. During the show I read my poem “Lifting Belly Again,” which includes excerpts from Gertrude Stein’s astonishing erotic lesbian poem “Lifting Belly.”

Writing with Limitations

About a year ago I bumped my head on a low ceiling in the dark. There are few certainties in this story, but I likely got a concussion. Ever since I have endured what might be called post-concussion syndrome and/or benign paroxysmal positional vertigo and/or—the diagnosis that has proven most useful to me—vestibular migraines.

On April 20th day, Susan is giving a reading at Dickinson College in conversation with students from Fat Studies; Writing, Identity, and Queer Studies; and LGBTQ+ Literature and History. Here’s a poster. Email us if you’d like to attend.


Join Rebecca Roanhorse & Isabel Yap tonight on le Zoom

Tue 13 Apr 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Comments Off on Join Rebecca Roanhorse & Isabel Yap tonight on le Zoom | Posted by: Gavin

Join co-hosts Alexandra Manglis, Yvette Ndlovu & Nadia Saleh of the Strange Light Reading Series (originally planned to take place at Book Moon) at tonight’s event featuring Isabel Yap (Never Have I Ever) and Rebecca Roanhorse (Black Sun).

Rebecca Roanhorse is a meteor these days. Her recent novel Black Sun is a Nebula Award finalist. She’s also published a Star Wars novel (Star Wars: Resistance Reborn), a middle-grade novel in the very succesful Rick Riordan imprint (Race to the Sun), two novels in her Sixth Worldseries, and has  found the time to write for Marvel Comics, for TV, and has had projects optioned by Netflix, Paramount TV, among others. Rebecca (@RoanhorseBex) will be coming to us from Northern New Mexico.

This February Isabel Yap (@visyap) published her first short fiction collection, Never Have I Ever.Isabel started publishing short stories in 2009. Since then she has published stories in many magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and the Philippines. She wrote two new stories for the book, “A Canticle for Lost Girls” and “A Spell for Foolish Hearts” while completing her MBA — here’s her essay on her postgrad choices: MFA vs MBA. She works in the tech industry and drinks tea and will be coming to us from California.

Our events are fun. Hope to see you tonight: Tuesday, April 13 @ 8 p.m. EDT.

**Register here**


Some drawings of chickens

Wed 31 Mar 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Some drawings of chickens | Posted by: Gavin

Since last summer when Kelly got her half-dozen pandemic chickens I’ve been trying to draw them — with the expected level of success. Most of the drawings were recycled but a few (see the middle one below) I liked and kept. This last weekend, after maundering around for months of not doing it I got Ursula (below left) and Kelly (below right) to draw some chickens and at last made a tiny zine which is available here.

Chicken by Ursula Chicken by Gavin Chicken by Kelly


Tonight: Kelly Link & Kevin Brockmeier

Thu 25 Mar 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Tonight: Kelly Link & Kevin Brockmeier | Posted by: Gavin

Well, maybe you know this by now but just in case you don’t why don’t you come join us on le zume tonight:

Join authors Kevin Brockmeier (The Illumination, The Brief History of the Dead) and Kelly Link (Get in Trouble, Magic for Beginners) online for a reading and discussion of Kevin Brockmeier’s new book, The Ghost Variations: One Hundred Stories, which will be published in March by Pantheon.

**Register here**


Tonight: Alaya Dawn Johnson & C. L. Polk

Wed 10 Mar 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Tonight: Alaya Dawn Johnson & C. L. Polk | Posted by: Gavin

Join co-hosts Alexandra Manglis, Yvette Ndlovu & Nadia Saleh
of the Strange Light Reading Series
tonight, March 10 at 7:00p EST
featuring

Alaya Dawn Johnson (Reconstruction: Stories, Trouble the Saints)

and

C. L. Polk (Soulstar, The Midnight Bargain).

*Register here*


Catching up

Tue 2 Mar 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Comments Off on Catching up | Posted by: Gavin

We’ve shipped out the boxes and boxes of pre-orders for Isabel Yap’s Never Have I Ever and now it looks like stock of the book is making its way through the system: you can now get copies on Bookshop.org. If you want to wait and get a signed bookplate with one, Isabel will be doing an online event at Book Moon next month — we have all our titles at Book Moon, no matter what the website says. The inventory on the site is tied to our distributor. I’m working to change that later this spring.

In the meantime, Lit Hub has just posted a new essay by Isabel:

MFA vs. MBA? Finding Unlikely Literary Inspiration at Harvard Business School
Isabel Yap on Learning the Art of Storytelling Where She Least Expected It


Shipping updates

Wed 24 Feb 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Shipping updates | Posted by: Gavin

Never Have I Ever cover - click to view full sizeAnd while I’m posting meh news, here’s more: while we’ve been able to ship some books to the lovely readers who pre-ordered Isabel Yap’s sparkling debut collection Never Have I Ever, we’re waiting on a storm-delayed delivery from our printer before we can ship the rest. We’re sending out a free book — mostly returns from our distributor so occasionally they’re shelf worn and sometimes they’re like new — with each pre-order. We expect to complete shipping preorders on Friday or Monday, depending on the delivery. I’m happy to refund any readers who’d prefer that (email me at info at smallbeerpress).

In the meantime, you can read a story here, follow Isabel on twitter, and read this not-t0-be-missed new interview by Megan Kakimoto posted today at Full Stop.


April to August

Wed 24 Feb 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on April to August | Posted by: Gavin

Slipping a note in here that we are moving Zen Cho’s collection Spirits Abroad from April to August to better fit our printer’s schedules. In better news the book received a glowing review from Publishers Weekly:

“Powerful but subtle magic woven into the fabric of intricate worlds make Cho a sure favorite for readers of Kelly Link and Carmen Maria Machado.”

 


Shipping delays

Fri 19 Feb 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Comments Off on Shipping delays | Posted by: Gavin

We are hearing from our faithful and hard working distributor, Consortium, that their warehouses have been closed on and off all this week due to the winter weather — never mind the whole pandemic thing and the intentional destruction carried out on the USPS — so please, go ahead, order all our books but please do be patient with all those indie bookstores trying to send you your books. Thank you!

Need a lift? Have you seen this tiny video of Hugh Jackman recommend Claire G. Coleman’s Terra Nullius? Woah!

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Claire Coleman (@clairegcoleman)


Susan Stinson & Sally Bellerose in Conversation

Fri 19 Feb 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Susan Stinson & Sally Bellerose in Conversation | Posted by: Gavin

Next week — Friday Feb. 26 at 5 p.m. EST — from the comfort of your couch, hammock, kitchen table, or rooftop, you can join Susan Stinson and Sally Bellerose in conversation as part of the Gulfport, Florida, ReadOut21 Festival. The event is free and you can register here.

Susan is celebrating the recent reprint of Martha Moody and Sally is celebrating the publication of her new novel Fishwives.

ReadOut21 Festival: A Festival of Lesbian Literature runs from Feb. 26 – 28. Check it out here.


Dance on to the PKD Shortlist

Wed 20 Jan 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Dance on to the PKD Shortlist | Posted by: Gavin

Dance on Saturday cover - click to view full sizeWe’re delighted to see that Elwin Cotman’s Dance on Saturday is one of the finalists for the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award. Here’s the press release:

The judges of the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award and the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, along with the Philip K. Dick Trust, are pleased to announce the six nominated works that comprise the final ballot for the award:

FAILED STATE by Christopher Brown (Harper Voyager)
THE BOOK OF KOLI by M. R. Carey (Orbit)
DANCE ON SATURDAY by Elwin Cotman (Small Beer Press)
BONE SILENCE by Alastair Reynolds (Orbit)
ROAD OUT OF WINTER by Alison Stine (Mira)
THE DOORS OF EDEN by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit)

First prize and any special citations will be announced on Friday, April 2, 2021 at Norwescon 44 which will be held virtually this year. The link to the ceremony will be posted at https://www.norwescon.org when it is available.

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States during the previous calendar year. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the Northwest Science Fiction Society.

Last year’s winner was SOONER OR LATER EVERYTHING FALLS INTO THE SEA: STORIES by Sarah Pinsker (Small Beer Press) with a special citation to THE LITTLE ANIMALS by Sarah Tolmie (Aqueduct Press).

The 2021 judges are F. Brett Cox, Brendan A. DuBois, Cynthia Felice, Tim Pratt, and Jessica Reisman (Chair).


Big Dark Hole in July

Thu 14 Jan 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Big Dark Hole in July | Posted by: Gavin

Big Dark Hole cover - click to view full sizeSome might argue we’re at the bottom of a big dark hole now (but, really, isn’t it generally the human condition?) but just wait until July when Jeffrey Ford’s new collection Big Dark Hole drops.

The book had been scheduled for March but July, with the possibility of a slightly brighter world — and Jeff being one of the Guest of Honor at Readercon — beckoned, and the switch has been made.

Preorder here or on Bookshop (why is the cover not showing there? How uninterestingly mysterious) or at your fave indie bookstore and to keep you going Jeff has posted a new story on his own website.


Sign up for this Sofia Samatar online event

Mon 11 Jan 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Sign up for this Sofia Samatar online event | Posted by: Gavin

Sofia Samatar is part of the upcoming Living Writers Series at UC Santa Cruz — also in the series: K. Ming Chan, Lauren Groff, Valeria Luiselli, Tess Taylor and Danusha Laméris, & Tommy Orange.

Samatar will be reading from Tender on Thursday, January 14, via Zoom. The event runs from 8:20 – 9:55 Eastern time and event registration (free) is here.


Re-construction

Tue 5 Jan 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Re-construction | Posted by: Gavin

Reconstruction cover - click to view full sizeToday, despite wanting to be in home, in bed, reading a book, recovering from 2020, instead, here we go: we’re publishing our first book of 2021, a book that has been a long time coming, Alaya Dawn Johnson’s collection, Reconstruction: Stories. Is it worth getting out of bed for? Yes. Order it from your fave local bookstore (or Book Moon) on Bookshop.org and when the book arrives in the mail you will be very happy you got out of bed that day.

Alaya’s stories range far and wide moving smoothly from contemporary times to far future explorations to historical fiction and throughout they showcase her deep-seated guiding intelligence leaving the reader in no doubt that no matter where, where, or who the story is about, it is worth going down that path and turning page after page until the end.

Alaya wrote 2 stories for the book, the title story, “Reconstruction,” a tremendous story with a depth and weight not to be missed — read an excerpt on Tor.com — and “The Mirages.” Because the book was moved from November 2020 to today (for pandemic reasons) the latter story was first published in Asimov’s magazine in Nov/Dec 2020 issue.

Five of the ten stories collected here can be read online, the first on Alaya’s website, the rest as below. Dig in!

“A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i” [read]
“Their Changing Bodies” — read on Subterranean Press
“The Score” — read at Nightmare Magazine
“A Song to Greet the Sun” — read at Fantasy Magazine
“Down the Well” — read on Strange Horizons


Susan Stinson in San Miguel de Allende

Sun 3 Jan 2021 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Susan Stinson in San Miguel de Allende | Posted by: Gavin

Here’s a chance to join an interesting event:

January 7, 2021 | Prose Café


« Later Entries — Earlier Entries »