PW on Spider in a Tree

Wed 21 Aug 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on PW on Spider in a Tree | Posted by: Gavin

Publishers Weekly gave a lovely review to Susan’s forthcoming (at the printer now!) novel Spider in a Tree:

“Stinson restores personhood and complexity to figures who have shriveled into caricature. . . . the payoff is not just the recovered history but the beautifully evoked sense of lives lived under the eye, not only of prying neighbors, but of God, with all the terror and possibility that entailed.”

Read the whole thing here.

If you’re in Western Mass., don’t miss Susan’s launch party/reading on October 2nd and then the her cemetery tour (tickets available at Broadside Books) on October 5th. We’re still adding events, but here’s what we have at the moment:

October 2, 7 pm, Launch party & reading, First Churches, Northampton, Mass. Sponsored by Forbes Library and Broadside Books.
October 5, 1 pm, Public Cemetery Tour. Tickets will be available this autumn.
October 8, Amherst College, Amherst, Mass.
(Late October: San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley)
December 15, 5 pm, Bloom Readings, Washington Heights, NYC



Where are they now: Michael J. DeLuca

Tue 20 Aug 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Where are they now: Michael J. DeLuca | Posted by: Gavin

Cat! the viewMy archery skills have severely deteriorated. I no longer get paper cuts. I haven’t mistakenly spent too much money mailing anything to Germany in quite some time. The mail room employees at the Easthampton post office have very likely forgotten what I look like.

I moved away from Western Mass, first to Boston, then Detroit, where I meet fewer pagans on a daily basis and not everyone agrees with my politics. I own a house now (real estate: significantly cheaper outside the Valley) and have begun accumulating books once again after a long stretch of itinerant downsizing, but despair at ever getting my house to the enviable state of the Small Beer office in 2005, where one expected any day to die of internal injuries following a tragic book cave-in.

I still write (I will always write) but am less afraid of writers. I still listen to and enjoy indie chamber-pop, but less of it. It has been years since I’ve opened a piece of mail with a tiny cutlass. Through a great stroke of luck and generosity, I once again on occasion get to look at a medicinal mushrooms poster. I still eat wild mushrooms procured from local woods and have not yet died of it. I still drink lots of quite good tea, but eat slightly less amazing chocolate. I ride 100% fewer freight elevators and no longer have much use for a pallet jack.

Otherwise, life remains much the same.

Michael J. DeLuca lives in Michigan. His short stories have been published in Urban Green ManAbyss & Apexand Beneath Ceaseless Skiesamong others.



Tyrannia, free?

Mon 12 Aug 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Tyrannia, free? | Posted by: Gavin

Good news! We have 15 copies of A. DeNiro’s excellent new collection, Tyrannia and Other Renditions to giveaway* on LibraryThing.

A.’s stories are like no one else’s.* Tyrannia—with a fab cover by Kevin Huizengahas eleven stories that have been published in Asimov’s, Caketrain, Strange Horizons, Spolia, and other fine books and magazines. This book will knock you over and if you’re lucky, it will do it for free.

Good luck!

* Yes, we used to do Mehgoodreads giveaways but since they got bought by Amazon I closed my account. Bitter? Me? No. Yes, LT are part-owned by the evil empire, too. Meh.

** Yes, I know this is true of everyone. But it’s more true of A.!



One Campus, One Book @ University of Alaska Southeast

Tue 6 Aug 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

One Campus, One Book @ University of Alaska Southeast

We’re excited to see how it goes this later this year at the University of Alaska Southeast where Kij Johnson’s At the Mouth of the River of Bees has been chosen for their One Campus, One Book program. Check out the huge rendering of Jackie Morris*’s great bee. You can keep up the university and community events on the OCOB facebook page.

Kij will be visiting the campus from November 6-8:

November 8, 2013, 7:00 pm, UAS Egan Library
An Evening with Kij Johnson
Sponsored by OCOB and UAS Evening at Egan lecture series.

November 9, 2013, 1:00-4:00 pm, Douglas Public Library
Community Fiction Writing Workshop with Kij Johnson
Sponsored by the Friends of the Juneau Public Libraries

April 2014, Location TBA
Narrative in Drawing
UAS Student Art Exhibit featuring works based on ‘At the Mouth of the River of Bees’

* Don’t miss Jackie’s pictures of her garden (which is really underselling this link). Flowers? Check. Interesting garden gate? Check. Cat? Check. Unique windows in garden wall? Check. Cornucopia of beauty? Check.



Dr. Capaldi

Mon 5 Aug 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Hey, I am a huge fan of The Thick of It, but come on, this is getting ridiculous. I thought last time the Doctor Who writers picked a new actor (er, regenerated) they’d be on the side of the rest of the world, you know, not just white guys from England and Scotland. My mistake. Instead they chose 28-year-old Matt Smith. Huh, we all said.

Surely, the world thought, next time they will go with someone who is not a young white guy.

Well, they picked Peter Capaldi of Local Hero and The Thick of It. A brilliant actor and who can blame him for taking the gig? And, note, he is almost twice Matt Smith’s age! Is that not . . . different! Ta da!

Er, no. Why did they not pick a woman and/or someone who is not white?

For a TV show that’s been running 50 years, this is getting beyond silly and into embarrassing. (Conspiracy theorists note: the next actor will be the Unlucky 13th Doctor. Ooh. Maybe they will pick me only to kill me off in my first episode?)

The Doctor—hey, I know someone will correct me if I’m wrong—is an alien with two hearts who comes from somewhere rather far away and who gets to Time Lord it all up and down the timestream. Yet, somehow, so far he can only be played by (sorry, “regenerate into”) yet another white guy?

Some alien. Blah, blah, blah.



LCRW 29 table of contents

Thu 1 Aug 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Coming next month, maybe sooner to subscribers, the latest issue of our occasional outburst, Lady Churchill’s Rather Late Wristlet. The table of contents is as below. This might even be the right order. Seems a bit farfetched to have the ToC out but not the zine. Heck, there is even a cover.

Fiction

“Smash!” Jennifer Linnaea
“The Groomsmen,” Sarah Blackman
“Fairy Skulls,” Nina Allan
“Yaga Dreams of Growing Up,” Eileen Wiedbrauk
“Dietus Interruptus,” Ian Breen
“Good Keith!,” J. Brundage
“Three Rights Make a Left,” Rhonda Eikamp
“EGGS,” Claire Hero
“Disaster Movies,” Christopher Stabback
“Four Phoebes,” Maya Sonenberg

Nonfiction

“How to Seduce a Vegetarian,” Nicole Kimberling

Poetry

“Re-load,” Kara Singletary
“Noise,” David Galef
“Ksampguiyaeps—Woman-Out-To-Sea” and “Hermitage,” Neile Graham

Cover photo

Dawn Kimberling

 

 

 



Where are they now: Christian N. Desrosiers

Tue 30 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Where are they now: Christian N. Desrosiers | Posted by: Gavin

Boorama, a city in western Somaliland.

Boorama, a city in western Somaliland

I’ve been all over the place, both geographically and career-wise—I’ll do my best to be concise and still interesting. I interned at SBP during my junior year at Amherst College. At the time, I was an English major who was solely interested in literature and making a career in literature. I went on from SBP to a summer internship at the Hudson Review and, in my senior year, I wrote a literary-historical thesis on poverty in Appalachia and applied for a Fulbright scholarship to Indonesia.

My time in Indonesia taught me a lot about myself and my interests. I wrote and published a few pieces in the Hudson Review and other publications—a major coup after a seemingly endless stream of thanks-but-no-thanks emails from journals—but also grew more interested in social justice causes. Writing took too much of my time and what I ended up with seemed like too little to justify all those hours spent writing alone and in a constant state of frustration. I traveled a bit in Southeast Asia—Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar—and subsequently found a job with an educational non-profit in Somaliland, the autonomous region in northwest Somalia. After working there for a year, I started two companies in Somaliland: a logistics company for the fisheries sector (which barely got off the ground) and a renewable energy development firm (still making headway, follow us at www.qoraxenergy.com).

After making some inroads, I’ve left most of the daily operations of Qorax Energy to my co-founders as I prepare to start a master’s program at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. A long way from what I envisioned my future only three years previous as an undergraduate. We’ll see where life takes me next . . .



The Seventh Raven

Mon 29 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on The Seventh Raven | Posted by: Gavin

Cancelled

A Notting Hill children’s opera is suddenly on the world stage when terrorists try to kidnap one of the children.

Phoenix Award Winner from the Children’s Literature Association
Going Round by the Byways” (pdf). Acceptance Speech for the Phoenix Award, Buffalo, New York, June 8, 2001

Too old to take part in the annual children’s opera, seventeen-year-old Doll Jacobs makes a place for herself as a junior member of the “opera mafia” who run the show. There are always exactly one hundred children’s roles, but an exception is made for Juan O’Grady, the son of the ambassador from a small South American country, Matteo.

When Mattean terrorists attempt to kidnap him, Juan is hidden amongst the other children and a tense standoff unfolds as the terrorists hold the cast and crew hostage and search for him. Dickinson’s philosophical investigation of whether we can defend “art for art’s sake” is also a taut thriller that will hold readers of all ages to the very end.

“This steady, sober hostage story is not quite a thriller . . . but anyone . . . can be engaged by the argument and enveloped in Dickinson’s carefully textured citadel.”—Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Peter Dickinson’s children’s books:

“One of the real masters of children’s literature.”
—Philip Pullman

“Peter Dickinson is a national treasure.”—The Guardian

“Magnificent. Peter Dickinson is the past-master story-teller of our day.”
Times Literary Supplement

Peter Dickinson OBE is the author of more than fifty books, including many books for children and young adults such as Earth and Air: Tales of Elemental Creatures, Kin, Eva, The Dancing Bear, Emma Tupper’s Diary, and  Michael L. Printz honor book The Ropemaker. He is a two-time winner of both the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Award and winner of the Guardian and Horn Book Awards. He spent seventeen years working at the magazine Punch. Find out more at peterdickinson.com.



Where, etc

Fri 26 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Where, etc | Posted by: Gavin

As I hoped, the Where Are They Now posts are interesting! We posted Sara’s on Monday and next week we will post a second one, from Christian N. Desrosiers. More, as ever, TK!



Audio book news

Tue 23 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Comments Off on Audio book news | Posted by: Gavin

We sent out the following note this morning. More below:

EASTHAMPTON, MA, July 23, 2013 — Small Beer Press is delighted to announce that audio rights to seven new and forthcoming titles have been acquired by Audible.com.

The first release will be award winning North Carolina writer Nathan Ballingrud’s debut collection, North American Lake Monsters: Stories. Also forthcoming within the next year are:

Gavin J. Grant, Publisher of Small Beer Press stated, “We love the books we publish and getting audio editions out there is becoming more important day by day. We’ve worked with many of the best audio publishers and are happy to add Audible to the mix.”

Audible, Inc., is the leading provider of premium digital spoken audio information and entertainment on the Internet, offering customers a new way to enhance and enrich their lives every day. Audible is also the preeminent provider of spoken-word audio products for Apple’s iTunes® Store.

Small Beer Press is a Massachusetts based independent publisher headed by the husband and wife team of Gavin J. Grant and award winning author Kelly Link. Small Beer publishes a dozen or so select titles per year and also runs the DRM-free ebooksite, http://weightlessbooks.com. For more information, visit our website at https://www.smallbeerpress.com.

————–

This should be good news for authors and audio fans everywhere. Previously we’ve worked with

And we were very happy when Brilliance did the audiobook of Steampunk! and Recorded Books did Kelly’s collection Pretty Monsters.

Audiobooks are a growing part of the book business and we want our books read—or listened to—so I expect we will be selling more titles to Audible in the future but we will also shop them around to make sure we do well by our authors and readers.

And if none of this is fast enough for you and you want to listen to a good story right now, then I recommend our podcast which you can listen to here or subscribe to using iTunes or the service of your choice:

 rss feed



Where are they now: Sara Majka

Mon 22 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Where are they now: Sara Majka | Posted by: Gavin

Sara's apartmentLet’s see . . . after my time with Small Beer Press I spent seven months living in Provincetown as a fiction fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center.  From there I moved back to Northampton, MA to start at the University of Massachusetts MFA program.  I graduated from UMass a semester early because I couldn’t wait to move to New York City. That enthusiasm seems funny to me now, but here I am, living in Brooklyn, temping for the summer, saving money before starting the life of an adjunct in the fall. It’s hot here; the subway is unbelievably crowded on my morning commute. I finished a collection of short stories that I’m starting to shop around. I was lucky to be able to go on a lot of trips over the past few years—to Poland, Berlin, cross country by train, small mid-western cities by bus. I’ve begun to think, though, that a more established daily routine would be helpful.

When I volunteered with Small Beer, I think I was testing out publishing work as a potential future, but life seems to have funneled me towards teaching. Still, it was a good time to form relationships that I’m glad to have. It was also good to learn what the slush pile is like, what goes into making a book, and to get an intimate look at a press that’s there to publish books that otherwise might go unpublished.

Sara Majka lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her short stories have been published in The Gettysburg Review, Massachusetts Review, and A Public Space, among others. 



Where are they now?

Fri 19 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Where are they now? | Posted by: Gavin

I thought it would be interesting to see where some of our once-were-interns or volunteers are these days so a couple of weeks ago I emailed some of them to ask if they wouldn’t mind updating us on where they’ve been and where they are now.

In part it was curiosity since some of these people really helped out at various times: it’s no fun to mail the zine by myself, it’s much better with company! But I also thought it might be interesting to readers and students and anyone who is interested in working in publishing. The path to (or through) publishing is not simple nor singular, there are an infinite number of ways people enter, enjoy, live, and leave the field.

I’ll post the first one, from Sara Majka, on Monday, and then will post more as and when they come in. With luck we’ll do this again every seven years . . . well, maybe every now and then.



Publication Day: North American Lake Monsters

Tue 16 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Publication Day: North American Lake Monsters | Posted by: Gavin

Well, much to my regret I did not get to buy Nathan Ballingrud a tea or a beer at Readercon this past weekend. I saw him here and there, he looked pretty happy and I hope he is as this weekend we celebrated—a couple of days early—the publication of his first short story collection, the bleak, terrifying, heartrendingly brilliant North American Lake MonstersWe did manage to get him by the table to sign some copies of his book, so order soon if you’d like one. (We shipped out the personalized copies today.) Nathan is reading at the KGB Bar in New York City tomorrow night with his good friend, Dale Bailey—not coincidentally the co-author of one of the stories in his book, “The Crevasse.”

Early reaction to the book is strong, not surprising given the strength of the stories here. There’s an interview and a story coming up on Weird Fiction Review and reviews coming in some major newspapers and sites and we’re always curious to hear what readers think of our books. This one is excellent, but, oh so harsh!

Here’s where you can see and hear Nathan in the next month or two:

July
28 – Aug. 3, Shared Worlds, Wofford College, SC

August
3, 7 pm, Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC (Bull Spec 3rd annual summer speculative fiction event)
28, 7 pm, Malaprop’s, Asheville, NC

“Ballingrud’s work isn’t like any other. These stories are full of sadness and sorrow, but they’re not merely sad. Like Tom Waits, Ballingrud is an expert at teasing out every delicious shade and nuance, every fine gradation of misery and pain. It’s a heady and fantastic cocktail mixed from roughnecks and down-and-outers and flawed people who find in their ordinary and terrible world monsters, magic, and the strange. Ballingrud’s fantastic elements are never seen full on, but always out of the corner of your eye, and it makes them all the more haunting.”
—Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing

“A good horror story stays with you long after reading it. A great horror story doesn’t simply stay with you, it haunts you, and Nathan Ballingrud’s fiction does just that. He breathes life into rough, blue-collar characters and places them in some of the best dark fiction being written today. Every single story in this collection is an emotional gut punch.  The despair that saturates these tales is rich, and often it is not the supernatural elements in these tales that is horrific.”
Arkham Digest

“For those willing to go down the dark road that’s laid out here, and those willing to feel complex patterns of sympathy, disgust, and horror for (often bad) people, this is an interesting collection. Uncomfortable a read as it is, it has the tinge of reality to it: a reality that often we’d rather not look at.”
—Brit Mandelo, Tor.com



Bookslinger: Delauney the Broker

Fri 12 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Bookslinger: Delauney the Broker | Posted by: Gavin

New this week on Consortium’s Bookslinger app is French legend Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud’s “Delauney the Broker” (translated by Edward Gauvin) from the collection A Life on Paper.

Previous Small Beer stories on Bookslinger:

Ray Vukcevich, “Whisper

Maureen F. McHugh, “The Naturalist

Karen Joy Fowler, “The Pelican Bar

Kelly Link, “The Faery Handbag

Benjamin Rosenbaum, “Start the Clock

Maureen F. McHugh, “Ancestor Money

Download the app in the iTunes store.

And watch a video on it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySL1bvyuNUE



Readercon: more signed books

Thu 11 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | 6 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

This weekend we are off to Readercon and the program tells me I am on one panel (below) and Kelly will be interviewing guest of honor Maureen F. McHugh. We will also have a couple of tables in the bookshop—along with many friends from far away, yay!

I was going to paste in all the panels various Small Beer authors or connected peeps will be on but it got unwieldy. Program!

This also means you can order signed or personalized books by:

Nathan Ballingrud (new book!), Greer Gilman (yes, that new chapbook!), Elizabeth Hand, Maureen F. McHugh (we will have copies of the limited edition of Mothers & Other Monsters at a rather excellent price), John Crowley, Ted Chiang, John Kessel, Vincent McCaffrey, Howard Waldrop, Kelly Link, and maybe more? Just leave a note in the comments (or we will just suppose that’s what you want anyway).

Saturday

9:00 AM    VT    Reading: Jedediah Berry. Jedediah Berry. Jedediah Berry reads “The Family Arcana,” a story in cards.

9:00 AM    NH    Reading: Elizabeth Hand. Elizabeth Hand. Elizabeth Hand reads Flash Burn, the in-progress third Cass Neary novel.

10:00 AM    VT    Reading: Michael J. DeLuca. Michael J. DeLuca. Michael J. DeLuca reads “Remorse and the Pariah,” a mini-epic poem published in Abyss & Apex.

12:00 PM    RI    The Works of Maureen F. McHugh. Nathan Ballingrud, Dennis Danvers, Gavin J. Grant, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Charles Oberndorf (moderator). As Jo Walton said in a review ofMission Child, Maureen F. McHugh’s work explores “chewy ideas rather than shiny ones.” This is true of her novels, such as the Tiptree Award–winning China Mountain Zhang; her intense short stories, each of which contains an astonishing amount of narrative and conceptual complexity; and her alternate reality games, including the groundbreaking “I Love Bees.” McHugh’s work introduces the reader to communities large and small (families, subcultures, towns, nations, planets) and describes them with compassion, affectionate humor, and honesty. This panel will endeavor to give her rich, nuanced writing the close reading it deserves.

1:00 PM    NH    Reading: John Crowley. John Crowley. John Crowley reads unpublished work.

1:00 PM    CL    Kaffeeklatsch. Ken Liu, Maureen F. McHugh.

5:00 PM    F    Maureen F. McHugh Interviewed by Kelly Link. Kelly Link, Maureen F. McHugh

10:00 PM    F    Reading: Howard Waldrop. Howard Waldrop. Howard Waldrop reads from a work to be determined.

Sunday

10:00 AM    NH    Reading: John Kessel. John Kessel. John Kessel reads from the novel-in-progressSunlight or Rock.

12:00 PM    VT    Reading: Nathan Ballingrud. Nathan Ballingrud. Nathan Ballingrud reads fromNorth American Lake Monsters: Stories, published by Small Beer Press, which will debut at Readercon.



An American Beer Nerd in Edinburgh

Wed 10 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on An American Beer Nerd in Edinburgh | Posted by: Michael

100_1835

Edinburgh from Holyrood Park

Part 1: Culture Shock

I spent a week in lovely, misty, craggy, beery Edinburgh, Scotland, walking everywhere and drinking everything. This was my first time in the UK as a full-fledged beer nerd, engaging immersively with the beer culture that is perhaps dearest to my heart. I’d visited London and Dublin years before; I’d researched as extensively as might be considered reasonable from the other side of the ocean. So I wasn’t completely oblivious. Indeed, I thought myself quite well-prepared. I thought I knew what to expect.

Not so.

Read more



Holly Black’s book is in the 2nd Humble Ebook Bundle

Wed 10 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Holly Black’s book is in the 2nd Humble Ebook Bundle | Posted by: Gavin

The 2nd Humble Ebook Bundle now includes Holly Black’s dark and delicious short story collection The Poison Eaters and Other Stories A couple of the extras were included with the 1st bundle in case you missed them but Holly’s collection and Machine of Death are new. Humble Bundle says:

“If you have already purchased the bundle, these refreshing reads should automatically show up on your download page. New customers can access them by paying more than the current average on the site. All four books are available DRM-free in PDF, MOBI, and ePub formats — perfect for your computer, eBook readers, and tons of mobile devices!”

Also, a bunch of the Humble Bundle authors will be taking part in a group Reddit AMA on Thursday, July 11 at 12:30 EST.

You choose how your purchase is divided: between the authors, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Child’s Play Charity, or the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, and the Humble Bundle peeps themselves.

We say: go forth and acquire 10 new DRM-free ebooks including books by Cory Doctorow, Will Wheaton, Cherie Priest, Robert Charles Wilson, Peter Beagle, and, yes, more!



Signed copies of North American Lake Monsters

Fri 5 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Signed copies of North American Lake Monsters | Posted by: Gavin

Nathan Ballingrud will be at Readercon next weekend in Burlington, Mass. (Additional readings are also scheduled, see below.)

If you’d like a signed or personalized copy of North American Lake Monsters (publication date is July 16th), we’ll take orders until this Thursday, July 11th, and then mail copies out the next week.

July
11 – 14, Readercon, Boston, MA
17, 7 pm, KGB Bar, NYC
28 – Aug. 3, Shared Worlds, Wofford College, SC

August
3, 7 pm, Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC (Bull Spec 3rd annual summer speculative fiction event)
28, 7 pm, Malaprop’s, Asheville, NC

 



Cory on North American Lake Monsters

Fri 5 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Cory on North American Lake Monsters | Posted by: Gavin

Cory Doctorow wrote about Nathan Ballingrud’s debut collection today on BoingBoing:

Ballingrud’s work isn’t like any other. These stories are full of sadness and sorrow, but they’re not merely sad. Like Tom Waits, Ballingrud is an expert at teasing out every delicious shade and nuance, every fine gradation of misery and pain. It’s a heady and fantastic cocktail mixed from roughnecks and down-and-outers and flawed people who find in their ordinary and terrible world monsters, magic, and the strange. Ballingrud’s fantastic elements are never seen full on, but always out of the corner of your eye, and it makes them all the more haunting.

This slim volume traces the fine veins of unhappiness in a way that no other writer of science fiction or fantasy I know of can match. If you’ve ever enjoyed a long cry, or come out of a deep funk to discover the joy of the contrast of the light and the sun, then you know why these stories are so powerful and moving.



Quelle Horreur

Wed 3 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Quelle Horreur | Posted by: Gavin

You know, with Errantry and Nathan Ballingrud’s North American Lake Monsters, we are definitely getting our share of the darker books out there. Both authors are nominees for this year’s Shirley Jackson Awards which will be presented in a week or so at Readercon, where you can meet both authors! Should be a busy con, and a laugh.

Nathan’s book, being a fab piece of work, is about to see some nice reviews and mentions, more on those later. In the meantime it’s great to see a couple of nice reviews of Elizabeth Hand’s Errantry: Strange Stories popping up recently. Nic Clarke at Strange Horizons wrote

“. . . Hand’s strangeness is redolent of the sort of disturbing, uncanny children’s books that gave you nightmares at the age of nine (for me, Alan Garner): books with malevolent forces lurking under sunny hillsides, where adults aren’t going to save our heroes, and whose endings are staggeringly bleak.”

and Helen McCrory on Pank said

“Hand’s stories here are more expansive, yet have that undercurrent of a formless force closing in, be it weather, or birds gathering in a falling evening sky.”

which both capture something of the disturbing nature of Liz’s stories. Shiver me timbers!



On Sexual Harassment at Conventions — Elise Matthesen speaks out

Fri 28 Jun 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on On Sexual Harassment at Conventions — Elise Matthesen speaks out | Posted by: Gavin

Thank you, Elise.

Posted on Mary Robinette Kowal‘s site and cross-posted at the blogs of Jim HinesSeanan McGuireBrandon Sanderson John Scalzi, and Chuck Wendig.

 



(Don’t) take your vitamins

Thu 13 Jun 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

Read this, “Vitamins: stop taking the pills,” the other day in The Guardian and haven’t been able to get it off my mind. There are years of training, ads, articles, infographics, friends and family voices all saying “Take your vitamins!” and then there is the science:

“In October 2011, researchers from the University of Minnesota found that women who took supplemental multivitamins died at rates higher than those who didn’t. Two days later, researchers from the Cleveland Clinic found that men who took vitamin E had an increased risk of prostate cancer.”

Just two studies.

“At least 15 studies have shown that vitamin C doesn’t treat the common cold.”

But how dangerous can it be to just pop a pill? All my life I’ve heard that this is solid, preventative medicine, the one thing I can easily do (er, besides being aware of what I’m eating and doing some exercise) that will keep me healthy and enable me to enjoy a long life?

“In 1996, investigators from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle studied 18,000 people who, because they had been exposed to asbestos, were at increased risk of lung cancer. Again, subjects received vitamin A, beta-carotene, both or neither. Investigators ended the study abruptly when they realised that those who took vitamins and supplements were dying from cancer and heart disease at rates 28% and 17% higher, respectively, than those who didn’t.”

“In 2007, researchers from the National Cancer Institute examined 11,000 men who did or did not take multivitamins. Those who took multivitamins were twice as likely to die from advanced prostate cancer.”

Read the article: “Vitamins: stop taking the pills.” Might be time to chuck the supplements.

• This is an edited extract from Killing Us Softly: The Sense And Nonsense Of Alternative Medicine, by Dr Paul Offit, published on 20 June by Fourth Estate at £13.99. To order a copy for £11.19, including free UK mainland p&p, go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop.

In the USA it is being published by Harper under the title Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine



Neko Case, “Man”

Tue 11 Jun 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Neko Case, “Man” | Posted by: Gavin

Link



On Geoff Ryman

Mon 3 Jun 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on On Geoff Ryman | Posted by: Gavin

Here’s another post I meant to put up at some earlier point. Like, you know, when this fabby book was coming out. But, hey, it’s a fab book so this can go up any time:

Written for Readercon in 2011:

Publishing Geoff Ryman’s books—and reprinting his backlist—has been a fantastic experience, in most senses of the word. But first I should mention: Geoff Ryman is a busy guy which makes his email signature line actually worth reading: there’s always a new project or collaboration or a project he thinks is worth pushing. 

And pushing is what he’s good at. In his writing, he’s pushed across every boundary he’s ever come across from his very first stories right up to the present day, and, with luck, he’ll continue to do so for many more years. There are many of his stories where the reaction I’ve had has been, “No, please don’t go there! Don’t . . . oops.” Which is generally followed by “Wow.” There were readers who could not stand the thought of “Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter,” but once a writer has an idea like that how could he resist writing the story? Forty-nine percent of the readership of “Omnisexual” probably winced along with me when something burst. And let’s not talk about “Birth Days.” Or, rather, let’s. It’s so uncomfortable, but so optimistic; so light to begin with, so huge by the end.

The way he pushes out beyond the comfort zone with his omnivorous gaze for the uncomfortable and telling detail makes for fascinating reading. Two of his recent stories, “The Film-makers of Mars” (first published on Tor.com) and “K is for Kosovo (or, Massimo’s Career)” (first published in Paradise Tales) capture something of the breadth of his writing. The former is a slow burn instant science fiction classic that by the impossible and inevitable end has the audience in the bleacher seats standing up and cheering for more. The latter is an intense, hard-hitting realistic story of a series of post-war interviews with a Kosovar family that could have been background for a piece right out of the New York Times. The story is not at all fantasy or science fiction, but it is pure Ryman: an uncomfortable story aired out with respect for all concerned, a very human weariness at the things we do to one another, and just a touch of humor.

We’re lucky to have someone who isn’t afraid to write such stories who also happens to be a great storyteller and I’m looking forward to reading many more of Geoff’s stories and novels with their unique mix of nitty-gritty human moments and mind-blowing ideas.



One Story Debutante Ball

Sat 25 May 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on One Story Debutante Ball | Posted by: Gavin

Small Beer Press is happy to be one of One Story magazine’s sponsors. Every year they have a  big party, the Literary Debutante Ball: A Celebration of Emerging Writers, and this year it’s in Brooklyn at Roulette on June 6th, 2013.

As sponsors we receive some tickets for the ball and yesterday we offered them to LCRW subscribers. The three lucky winners are Kris, Shveta, and Colin!

Hope the ball is tons of fun and thanks again for subscribing. We have a new issue coming in July and we will post the table of contents here next week.  



Celebrating Death of a Unicorn

Wed 22 May 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Celebrating Death of a Unicorn | Posted by: Gavin

As noted yesterday, this month published a new edition Peter Dickinson’s excellent sort-of-mystery Death of a Unicorn.

Death of a Unicorn is one of those English novels which at some point you realize is all about inheritance. Lady Margaret, who goes by Mabs, is older than her twin sister Penny by twenty minutes. Those twenty minutes mean that Mabs who will inherit their stately home, Cheadle, which as someone says, “Looks kind of like it was waiting to eat someone.” Cheadle looms in the background behind every family squabble and argument:

When Bartrand Millett built Cheadle in 1712 he effectively bankrupted all his heirs, in perpetuity. Looking through the account books I can see the same scrimping going on generation after generation. My mother and I are only the last two in a long line of cheeseparers. 

Death of a Unicorn starts off with Mabs bored at a party, “hiding from Mark Babington and trying to get squiffy.” She is surprised to received help from someone she does not know and that first meeting leads to all sorts of interesting complications between Mabs, her mother and her sister.

We’re following Death of a Unicorn with another Peter Dickinson mystery, The Poison Oracle, this summer. Book Groups take note: There’s a Reading Group Guide in Death of a Unicorn which we hope you will take advantage of and for The Poison Oracle we have an interview with Peter Dickinson carried out by none other than New York Times bestselling author of the V. I. Warshawski novels, Sara Paretsky!



Updatery

Tue 21 May 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Updatery | Posted by: Gavin

Q. Is Nathan Ballingrud’s North American Lake Monsters  at the printer?

A. Yes! Review copies are going out and we are getting ready to receive complaints and plaudits. It is scary!

Q. Gavin, are you asking yourself questions?

A. You have no idea.

Q. So where can I get Nathan’s book signed?

A. Readercon, Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh and  Malaprop’s, both in North Carolina.

Ok, now I’m done with the Q&A.

What else? Peter Dickinson! We have just published a new edition of Death of a Unicorna fascinating novel in two parts, thirty years apart, which follows a young woman as she gets her first job and has her first affair. The book picks up 30 years later as truths unknown to said young woman surface.

Book Groups take note: There’s a Reading Group Guide in Death of a Unicorn which we hope you will take advantage of.

Next: the sky in Easthampton is so low that I can reach up and touch it. Blech!

After Ysabeau Wilce tweeted about finding her Led Zep albums:

I dug out my CDs—not as cool, but I got a boxed set of all the recordings a couple of years ago from my excellent wife. How luxurious they seem compared to the tapes of tapes we had as kids! (The CDs are not as well worn as those tapes were.) I am listening to Presence. I know I-IV better, so time to explore the later years.

But I am also wishing I were going to WisCon—all those people, going to have so much fun! I love Madison, too. One of these years we’ll get back there.

What else? I’ve sent off another draft of a contract (short story collection FTW!). Also trying to see if I can bend a contract for good for all (I’m down with it, will everyone else go for it?), sent off ebooks for a secret fun thing, working on Google ebooks (why are they so opaque? our books were there for a couple of years and now I find they haven’t been there since last summer. Argh.), and waiting for another contract to appear so that I can jump up, jump around and spread the good word. Jump? Who has the energy for that? Eek!



Dancing between the monoliths

Mon 20 May 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Dancing between the monoliths | Posted by: Gavin

We live in interesting times where independent voices, even whole online communities, are subsumed into corporate monoliths. We do business with these monoliths to survive but our hearts are with other independent businesses. We hope our readers will support them. If there isn’t a good indie near you, we recommend indiebound.org.



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