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


NPR Best of the Year

Wed 30 Dec 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Comments Off on NPR Best of the Year | Posted by: Gavin

In 2020 like everyone else in the world we rang the changes pretty hard. Our kid has been remote schooled (i.e. at home) since March, we closed Book Moon to walk-in browsing and ran it as a phone, online, and curbside pickup joint, and ran ourselves as hard as we could just to stand still.

Here’s an indented aside on Book Moon: it’s a small, local bookshop with an outsize national and international reach and those two facts kept it alive this year. We have a small staff, 4 smart and hardworking part-time booksellers, me and Kelly, and Kelly’s mother, an invaluable volunteer. We worked either as the 2 of us (plus kid doing school) or either Jed or Amanda alone in the store. On weekends in autumn and winter, Franchie worked outside as a carnival barker — although everyone has mixed feelings about actually trying to attract more people to the store. Having only one person in the store at a time was tough. I’m glad we only have one phone line and appreciate people leaving messages.

Every month at Book Moon has been our best month — but some of that is just us having fun with words. March to October sales were flat flat flat. We took out a small PPP loan which I think will be turned into a grant. Our landlords gave us a truly needed break on the rent — it was the difference between breaking even and losing money. All that aside, sure, these were our best March, April, May, June, July, August, September, and even October yet. November 2020 was 20% up on November 2019. December 2020 beat (THANKS ALL!) our actual best month so far, December 2019 — but woah what a different kind of work all these phone and internet orders are.

Book Moon is part of Bookshop.org. Do I want to only have a Bookshop site? No. Do I think it’s a good thing? People love it and if it gets them off the crappiness that is Am*zon, all the better.

I hoped and expected sales to grow this year. Easthampton has been very welcoming to having its own bookstore. But I also expected to have 1-3 booksellers in the store each day who were not Kelly or me. Covid meaning only us or 1 person at a time in the store has meant squeezing time for Small Beer pretty hard. Will it change? Yes. Soon? No.

So we ran ourselves hard because what we are doing, publishing books, running a bookshop, putting out a zine, is what we really want to keep doing. Do I want 750 Book Moons around the country or to publish 120 books a year? Not really. Do I like this what we’re doing? Yes!

So as purveyors of the written word — be it in printed book form, ebook, audiobook, zine, or T-shirt format — to readers local and far flung we are pretty damned grateful to still be around here at the end of December 2020 and to be (knock on wood, wearing a mask, washing hands) healthy. We’d like to do this for some years to come so we owe you thanks for buying books from us, borrowing them from a library, attending events, picking them up used, reviewing and sharing them.

In 2020 we published one new book (1), one TV tie-in (2), brought two books back into print (3) in new editions (as well as innumerable reprints, but that might be too much for me to go find), and published two issues of LCRW (41 — the free one, 42 — the answer, of course).

  1.  Elwin Cotman, Dance on Saturday: Stories
    — Karen Russell, “In addition to being wildly inventive, is also so goddamn funny.”
    — and the reason for the title of this post. It really is an amazing read.
  2. Nathan Ballingrud, Monsterland
    — if you watch the show on Hulu try and match the stories to the episodes.
  3. (i) Elizabeth Hand, Generation Loss
    — Danielle Trussoni, New York Times Book Review: <“Elizabeth Hand’s Cass Neary series began in 2008 with Generation Loss, a startling and addictive novel that introduced a protagonist fueled by drugs and post-punk irreverence.
    — More news on book 2 & 3 in the Cass Neary series in early 2021.
    (ii) Susan Stinson, Martha Moody
    — Karen Rigby, Foreword Reviews: “An exuberant, cheeky Western in which sensual hunger steers an offbeat homesteader toward freedom.”

Other things that happened: since a friend talked us into joining the local Hot Chocolate Walk me and the kid have joined 6,000+ people in early December on a walk to raise money for a local shelter organization, Safe Passage. This year there was no walk but of course Safe Passage still needs the funds so we put up our page and it was just beyond inspiring and so lovely to see people from all over the country donate. Thanks, all. I continue to review zines for Xerography Debt and really enjoy the different views of the world represented in zines.

Weightless Books continues along as a half decent DRM-free independent alternative ebookstore. Next year, time willing, Michael and I have a few ideas to freshen it up. But that would be after everything else gets done.

In LCRW news, a story from #40, Michael Byers’s “Sibling Rivalry” was reprinted in Best American Short Stories 2020, edited by Curtis Sittenfeld. We gave away #41 to print and electronic subscribers to provide a moment of joy for one and all. This year has been so crappy, sending out a couple of hundred free zines was a respite.

This was a year in which we writers sent us longer stories that caught us by surprise. From LCRW 42, Sarah Langan’s You Have the Prettiest Mask was excerpted on Lithub and there were 2 long stories in LCRW 41, Rachel Ayers, “Magicians & Grotesques” and David Fawkes’s “Letterghost.”

We have quite a backlog of good things to come for LCRW. Will 2021 be the year we manage 3 issues? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. I know we are publishing collections from Alaya Dawn Johnson, Isabel Yap, Jeffrey Ford, Zen Cho, and one more writer late in the year, perhaps there will be space for another LCRW in there somewhere.

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 42 cover - click to view full size Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 41 cover - click to view full size Dance on Saturday cover - click to view full size Martha Moody cover - click to view full size Generation Loss cover - click to view full size


Their power to unsettle is unmatched

Tue 22 Dec 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Their power to unsettle is unmatched | Posted by: Gavin

Never Have I Ever cover - click to view full sizeTamsyn Muir sent this along after reading Isabel Yap’s forthcoming debut collection, Never Have I Ever:

“Never Have I Ever proves Yap the master of both the grand and the everyday. In each of these hard-hitting, incredibly assured stories, Yap shows how deft her hand is by sliding effortlessly from marriages and monsters (‘A Cup of Salt Tears’), to future anxiety and food in a near-future Manila (‘Milagroso’) to the uncertain future of grown-up magical girls (‘Hurricane Heels’); her ghost stories terrify as much as they comfort (‘Asphalt, River, Mother, Child’) and are so woven into the fabric of our real and human lives that their power to unsettle is unmatched; imagine if M.R. James had known the precise 1990s desire to own a Baby G . . . But where Yap consistently dazzles is her unsentimental, tender, evocative and brutal examination of the life and interiority of young women and girls: the innate monstrousness of growing up in the shoes marked ‘woman’. A masterclass collection.” — Tamsyn Muir, author of Gideon the Ninth


Plunging you down into the murkiest depths with the gentlest touch

Mon 21 Dec 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Plunging you down into the murkiest depths with the gentlest touch | Posted by: Gavin

Never Have I Ever cover - click to view full sizeToday’s advance reader of Isabel Yap’s forthcoming collection, Never Have I Ever is Cadwell Turnbull who sent this:

“Never Have I Ever is a showcase of Isabel Yap’s many enviable gifts: gorgeous prose, deep characterization, and exquisite ambiguity. Yap moves from humor to despair with easy confidence, plunging you down into the murkiest depths with the gentlest touch. You’ll get lost in these pages and each word will sit heavy in your chest. The best fiction does that.“


Sharp and vivid and gritty

Sun 20 Dec 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Sharp and vivid and gritty | Posted by: Gavin

Never Have I Ever cover - click to view full sizeIn February we’ll publish Isabel Yap’s debut collection, Never Have I Ever, and everyone will have a chance to read everything at once like Sam J. Miller or parcel it out, one story at a time:

“Isabel Yap’s stories are somehow sharp and vivid and gritty at the same time as they’re timeless and mythic; I’ve been a shameless strung-out addict for years now, and I’m so excited to have this splendid overdose in my hands. And to watch as a whole new audience gets hooked on these stories drenched in heartache and salt water, folklore and monsters and gorgeous prose.”  — Sam J. Miller, Nebula-Award-winning author of Blackfish City


Playful weirdness and mind-expanding terror

Sat 19 Dec 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Playful weirdness and mind-expanding terror | Posted by: Gavin

Never Have I Ever cover - click to view full sizeOne of the earliest responses to Isabel Yap’s forthcoming debut collection, Never Have I Ever, was this lovely paragraph from Charlie Jane Anders:

“Isabel Yap’s prose is a constant delight and her characters are endlessly rich and fascinating. I’m in awe of her capacity for playful weirdness and mind-expanding terror. These gorgeous stories will help you to glimpse a world that is both stranger and more immense and varied than any you’ve visited before. My head is just full of images and feelings and ideas after reading these wondrous tales. Isabel Yap is a writer to watch out for, and you need to experience her brilliance for yourself.”
— Charlie Jane Anders, The City in the Middle of the Night


Gossip over the breakfast table

Fri 18 Dec 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Gossip over the breakfast table | Posted by: Gavin

Never Have I Ever cover - click to view full sizeIn the third morning of advance reader reaction to Isabel Yap’s debut collection, Never Have I Ever, we have an early reactions from Alyssa Wong, the award-winning author of Doctor Aphra:

“Never Have I Ever is a stunning, lyrical debut by one of SFF’s brightest voices. Isabel Yap’s stories are luminous. Intimate and tender, hilarious and cruel, they cut straight to the bone. This collection is full of deft, painful portrayals of Filipino girlhood, queerness, and struggling to find a place in the world. They remind me of being in my lola’s house in Manila, listening to my titas and titos gossip over the breakfast table. Yap’s stories feel like coming home.”


Shy witches, beautiful elementals, bloody and watery monsters

Thu 17 Dec 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Shy witches, beautiful elementals, bloody and watery monsters | Posted by: Gavin

ONever Have I Ever cover - click to view full sizen February 9th everyone will get their chance to read Isabel Yap’s debut collection, Never Have I Ever. This week we have some early reactions:

“These stories of shy witches, beautiful elementals, bloody and watery monsters, miracles and tender-hearted machines, are written with color and crisp precision, and all their startling invention is firmly grounded in our own familiar and endlessly surprising world.
— Elizabeth Knox, author of The Absolute Book


Weird vitality, crossed by ghosts, monsters, and above all, stories

Wed 16 Dec 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Weird vitality, crossed by ghosts, monsters, and above all, stories | Posted by: Gavin

INever Have I Ever cover - click to view full sizen February we’ll publish Isabel Yap’s debut collection, Never Have I Ever. This week we’re going to post some early reactions from those who’ve had a chance to read an early edition:

“Isabel Yap’s fiction channels the wary energy of meeting places: schools, hospitals, offices, hotels. In her work, the spaces of everyday life brim with weird vitality, crossed by ghosts, monsters, and above all, stories.”
— Sofia Samatar, author of Tender


Mailing Deadlines

Tue 15 Dec 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Mailing Deadlines | Posted by: Gavin

If you order books from now on and choose free media mail shipping there is very little chance they will arrive before the holidays, or maybe this year. Please add Priority Mail shipping if you’d like there to a chance(!) for them to arrive this year.


LCRW Prices Rising in 2021

Mon 7 Dec 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on LCRW Prices Rising in 2021 | Posted by: Gavin

As announced in November, LCRW print and digital subscription prices will be rising on January 1, 2021, but now I have the actual numbers:

The single issue digital price will be $3.99.
The 4-issue digital subscription price will be $12.99.

The single issue print price will be $6 (USA),  $8 (Canada), and $11 (World).
The 4-issue print subscription price will be $24 (USA),  $32 (Canada), and $44 (World).

Subscribe now to get ahead of the game. Subscribe then for fun. Donate to your fave charity if you can.
Cheers!
Gavin


Welcome Back, Martha Moody

Tue 1 Dec 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Welcome Back, Martha Moody | Posted by: Gavin

IMartha Moody cover - click to view full sizet’s (re)publication day for Susan Stinson’s novel Martha Moody! Join us on Thursday at 7 p.m. for an online celebration with Susan and Elizabeth McCracken. This is the 25th anniversary of the original edition from Spinsters Ink and we’re delighted to bring this sexy historical novel to a new generation of readers.

We are shipping preorders this week. For the curious, here’s an excerpt from the first chapter:

One

I was crouched next to the creek baiting my hook with a hunk of fat when I heard a rustling on the bank upstream. I turned my head and saw Martha Moody looking into the water.
She was a heavy woman bound up with dry and perishable goods, the owner of Moody’s General Store. Her red hair was pulled into a bun and she wore a black dress with jet buttons that reflected light.
I was embarrassed to be caught fishing on Sunday with mud on my skirt, so I hid behind a cottonwood. Martha leaned over, unlaced her shoes, and rolled down her stockings. I watched as she tucked them beneath the root of a tree, then bunched her skirt up in one hand and stepped into the water.
Dirt trickled into my collar from the bank, but I stood still. I could see the white blurs of her feet as she waded towards me. She moved with calm propriety: a large, plain, respectable woman from the nape of her neck down to her knees. She dropped her skirt. It floated and plastered itself to her shins, a changed, molded thing.
Martha moved more slowly as her skirt got soaked, but she was not ponderous, the way she was behind the counter at the store. When Martha said, “Don’t lean on the glass,” even the sheriff jumped back. Now she kicked at her hem, splashing herself a little and nearly slipping on a rock.
She stopped within breathing distance of me, at a spot where the water took a drop over rocks. Fish hid in the deep place behind the falling water, and I had been luring them onto my hook. Martha tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, squatted down and went over face first. I put my mouth against the tree bark to keep from calling out as she passed me, covered with white foam and scraping sand. She came up spitting and laughing, and grabbed the bank to hold herself under the falls.
I heard her say, “Frowsy,” then laugh more. She sat in the stream bed with the water rushing down, rushing over her. The sky was blue against the hard edge of the bank. I opened my creel, seized a fish, and threw it back into the water. It skidded past her. She turned her face and another one slapped her neck, then washed on past. She got on her knees, sinking in the soft bottom, and fish after fish swam past her. Big silver, small brown.
Martha stood. I stepped into an open spot on the bank so she could see me reaching into the creel and tossing another fish into the water with a high arc. I straightened the bow at the waist of my old calico, then tilted the creel towards Martha to show her that it was empty except for a few wet rushes on the bottom.
She stared at me, dripping water, as silver flashed over her feet. “Mrs. Linger, why are you throwing fish?” Her tone was cool. I felt like a kid caught with a pocketful of lemon drops I hadn’t paid for.
I walked down the bank to her, wiping my hands on my skirt. I couldn’t think of a good lie. The truth was, I wanted to add those shining bits of life to the picture Martha Moody was making with the water. I knew when a moment was ripe, which was how I came to be fishing when most decent women were getting supper on the table. “Why are you in the creek?”
Martha touched her glistening buttons. “For the poetry of the moment.”
I nodded and reached to help her onto the bank. She grabbed my fingers so hard that I thought she was going to pull me into the water with her, but she just held on and dug her feet deeper into the mud. “I’m not ready to get out, Amanda Linger. Are you coming in?”
I pulled my hand away and stuck it in my dry pocket. I never rose to a dare. Martha stood there like she was a tree that had been bending the water around her since before Jesus walked in his own thunder and waves. I could see the outline of her corset through the fabric of her dress. I picked up my fishing pole. “I have to get to my milking.”
Martha pulled one foot loose from the mud and held it under the fall to rinse it. I could smell the wet fabric of her skirt. Her hair was still knotted away from her face. “Milk. Yes.” Her chin was soft and white. “Good day, then, Mrs. Linger.”
I climbed the bank, inspired. “Good day.”
After I left Martha Moody standing in the water, I hurried to the barn without going to the house. Miss Alice was waiting for me at the fence, bawling and looking at me with her yellow-flecked eyes. Her days had a strict rhythm, and she hated it when I was late.
I walked towards her with a cow swagger, swishing my pole behind me like a tail, bawling in answer. I opened the gate and she lowered her head to butt against my hip. “All right, Alice, yes, Pretty Alice, I know you’re hungry.”
I brought her a bucket of oats, then stood next to her with my hands in my armpits to warm them before I pulled up the stool. I rubbed my face against her hide. She smelled live and pungent.
Miss Alice gave more milk if I had a story to tell. We had been through most of the Bible, with special attention to mentions of kine and golden calves, as I squatted next to her mornings and evenings working her teats. I talked to help Miss Alice let her milk down. If she held back, it soured her bag for the next milking.
That night I told her the history of Martha Moody as I understood it from the conjectures of the ladies of the town.
Before she founded Moody, Martha had been a woman who liked a good apple pie with thick cream, but didn’t have the grass to feed a cow. She had dried milk, but never cream, and she had suffered from grasshoppers and sparseness of joy.
Martha herself had never been sparse. She had been a fat city girl with red hair, acquainted with the Bible but also with the pleasures of ices and store-bought tarts. She had eaten turtle soup. She had dressed in white to shoot a bow and arrow, and had hit the mark. Her prowess in the fashionable sport of archery pleased her father, who was a lapsed Methodist with a gold watch fob and social ambitions. But Martha had met Wilbur Moody in a dry goods store, and he had come around the counter to hand her a bolt of cornflower blue cloth. She was married to him in a dress of that material in the spring. She didn’t miss the grey city she left with Wilbur, toting dry goods, but she did miss cream. She liked the West. She nodded at the big sky. She asked nothing of the mountains, except that they keep her pointed straight away from the city and let her survive the pass. She came a good distance, then said it was enough. She was walking beside the wagon, singing to herself in a dry voice that had carried her across a lot of country. Wilbur was up on the seat, driving the oxen. They reached a creek. Water was news and a reason to stop. There were some small trees, maybe from a seed dropped by some other traveller. Martha looked at the sharp limbs and grey bark, and decided that this was enough to satisfy her need for company. She would winter here. Wilbur was gold-hungry and land-bored. He’d seen enough water in the East, although he filled every container he could find with the stuff. The rest of the party put their wagons in a circle, built fires, and spoke against leaving Martha for dead. But she had provisions, time to dig a sod house before the ground froze, and she had gone as far as she was willing to go. Wilbur knew better than to speak of love, but he did mention family honor. The sound of the water bordered the night.
She took some bolts of material, and the panes of glass she had packed with good quilts for padding, because she thought windows were worth the trouble and cold they leaked. She took a barrel of beans and a barrel of meal, and the dried milk. Wilbur poured half of each packet of seed into its own tin cup and lined them up in front of her on the ground.
“Martha,” he said, “you can’t live on seeds and water, so I hope you can live on your fat.”
“I’ll need Shakespeare and the Bible,” she said. He gave her a hand digging a hole for a shelter, shoring it up with posts that came off the siding of the wagon. The rest of the party was already a morning ahead, so he looked into her brown eyes, wishing they were cornflower blue, gave her a kiss and rode off, rattling.
Martha picked up her shovel, thinking of barrel tables and barrel chairs, without a thought of who she might be cheating in claiming this land or who she might be seeding in her dry goods store by the stream. She didn’t bother with naming, either, but people passing, and those staying, said “Moody” to tell where they were.


Against the man baby’s tantrums

Sun 29 Nov 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Against the man baby’s tantrums | Posted by: Gavin

On November 3, 2020, the US held their four year general election and in a relatively easy manner the Biden-Harris administration was voted into the White House. I look forward to having actual humanist leaders, even if I know I will disagree with some of their policies and appointments.

The election would have been all over and done with by the next morning had the mailed and early votes been allowed to be counted in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan. The “result” wasn’t agreed on (by rational beings) until four (very long) days later — and even yet the president, his lackeys, and his republican party are still trying to pretend it is worth dragging out and fighting.

Four years of Tr*mp and his rotating band of corrupt cronies, unelected family members, acting cabinet members, mealy-mouthed mouthpieces, and quiet and not-so-quiet racist and fascist supporters has been awful and I’d like every one one of those acting cabinet members and family and mouthpieces investigated — so many of them are in jail or have done time that I am sure there are a few of the others who should be doing time along with them.

The republican party, led by the nose by Tr*mp and Mitch McConnell, has been as useful a bulwark against Tr*mp’s small-minded bigotry as expected: they did nothing. A few people quit the party and occasionally Mitt Romney or literally one or two others would speak against his rotten ways but for the most part everyone in the party went along with it — the same way for eight years they followed the party’s instructions to obstruct government rather than work with the Obama-Biden administration.

So when members of the republican party start to say they, too, were anti-Tr*mp let them point to their records, let them show where they stood up against Tr*mp’s oh so terrifying twitter feed. The senators and the house members who somehow never saw the news about this terrible thing and that terrible thing and somehow never managed to answer when queried, they can go fly a kite. The world asked them to stand up as adults against a squealing man baby’s tantrums. They refused. And we won’t forget.


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