Lookit

Tue 26 Feb 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., bookshops, keep it indie, LCRW | Comments Off on Lookit | Posted by: Gavin

Hey, peeps, they are a-reading the new issue of LCRW.

Also, it is now in many shops. Indies bookshops who carry LCRW, listen up: We Love You! We appreciate your mad passions! You are It for us, now and forevers!

“Always happy to see a new issue of this occasional story outburst. I grope for a term to suggest the nature of the highly imaginative fiction here; “weird” will not do; “fabulist” is wrong; “odd” might fit, but I think I’ll settle on “strange”. Yes, these are strange stories, in which even experienced explorers of genre terrain may occasionally find themselves on uneven footing; there are few overworn trails here.”
—Lois Tilton, Locus Online

“The entire issue made me smile. I’m looking forward to the next issue, whenever it may come.”
—Fantasy Literature

“Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet is the kind of magazine that you want to read slowly. Read a story. Put the magazine down. Absorb what you have just read. Then, after a while, read another story. Repeat. After more than a year’s absence here is issue #28 with more of their very different stories.”
—SF Revu

 

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Trafalgar, here, there, everywhere

Thu 21 Feb 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Amalia Gladhart, Angelica Gorodischer, translations | Comments Off on Trafalgar, here, there, everywhere | Posted by: Gavin

Thanks to translator extraordinaire Amalia Gladhart, I’m very happy to be celebrating the first English language publication of Angélica Gorodischer’s novel Trafalgar. The credit for this book coming out also goes back to Ursula K. Le Guin whose translation of Kalpa Imperial opened our eyes to this excellent writer. I am so glad I put this rather optimistic line in our About page:

We are seriously interested in more translations — especially of Angelica Gorodischer. However, we are monolingual (sorry) which makes the editorial process difficult. If you are a grad student looking for a translation project which may be of interest to us, we recommend Gorodischer’s Trafalgar and Prodiges.

We heard from a few translators of Gorodischer’s work in the ten years(!) since we published Kalpa Imperial but nothing panned out so when I received an email in June 2011 from Amalia I didn’t know whether to get excited or not. She had published a couple of previous translations, The Potbellied Virgin and Beyond the Islands, both by Alicia Yánez Cossío of Ecuador, which seemed like a good sign. But I still wasn’t sure, of course, until I got the book.

The first story, “By the Light of the Chaste Electronic Moon,” is great and really off the wall—check it out in Fantasy & Science Fiction this spring—so I was on edge, wondering where the book was going. But the second story, “The Sense of the Circle,” blew me away and I knew we were going to publish the book.

When it was announced that Angélica was one of the two winners of the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award, I had a mad thought that we could get the book—or at least a chapbook—out in time for the convention. Ha. Did not happen. But in the meantime Kelly found Ron Guyatt‘s fabulous travel poster “Caloris Basin – Mercury” and we worked with him to use it for the cover.

And now the book is out!

Two of the stories are already online: “The Best Day of the Year” (on Tor.com) and “Trafalgar and Josefina” (on Belletrista), and just today “Of Navigators” went up on the lit journal Eleven Eleven’s new site (their print edition will be available here). And reviews are coming in from all over. The Willamette Week (“a thing of digression and casual wonderment”) liked that Trafalgar was translated by an Oregonian. Abigail Nussbaum, in the Los Angeles Review of Books, called it “A novel that is unlike anything I’ve ever read, one part pulp adventure to one part realistic depiction of the affluent, nearly-idle bourgeoisie, but always leaning more towards the former in its inventiveness and pure (if, sometimes, a little guilt-inducing) sense of fun.”

Trafalgar is hard to describe, which is part of the fun of it. Put the coffee on and join in.

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Death stars to electric cars

Thu 14 Feb 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Death stars to electric cars | Posted by: Gavin

I find it hard to believe that so many people fell for the White House’s announcement that they aren’t building a Death Star. Of course that’s what they’d say.

Are you going to be in Chicago on Sat. April 6th? Check out the Caxton Symposium: OUTSIDERS: Zines, Samizdat, & Alternative Publishing. Looks like a good day.

I was sad to note the recent death of Ralph G. Martin, “The author or co-author of some 30 books, Mr. Martin was perhaps best known for Jennie: The Life of Lady Randolph Churchill, a two-volume biography of Winston Churchill’s beautiful American-born mother, the former Jennie Jerome.” Nice books, I recommend them if you haven’t read them.

Speaking of the Times, did you see Karen Russell on the cover of the Book Review this week? Can’t wait to read Vampires in the Lemon Grove, although I will probably pick it up and have to put it aside until all the excitement dies down and I can read it in peace.

Other Small Beer stuff: No, we did not post eligible books/stories or whatever for various awards. It never quite seems like the right thing for us to do. But we do like awards and reviews and so on, including this review of LCRW 28 in Locus Online from Lois Tilton, who enjoyed most of the zine. LCRW‘s out at most of the bookstores it goes to now. Thank you for giving our tiny zine space on your lovely shelves, indie bookstores!

There’s one bookstore with a 10-year-old invoice for chapbooks. On the 10th anniversary, in September, maybe I will post the invoice online and see if payment appears!

Did you see Linda Nagata has a new SF novel coming out next month. Ch-ch-ch . . . you know what to do.

AWP is in Boston this March. See you there?

Looks like an interesting show starting soon in NYC: Ann.

Who’s right, who’s wrong? NYT vs. Tesla! The writer reports he skipped regular charging stations because he wanted to use only the superchargers. Because that is a rational decision any driver would make . . . ? Er, no. Sorry. Can’t wait for the driving in circles explanation.

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How about 9 books in a box?

Thu 14 Feb 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on How about 9 books in a box? | Posted by: Gavin

No, not a sale. We should do one of those someday, shouldn’t we? Some day when we’ve caught up with things.

Anyway! The annual Con or Bust auction is on and this is what we put up. At the moment, the bid is $25. Bid it up!

1. Poppy Z. Brite, Second Line
2. Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, A Life on Paper: Stories (hardcover, trans. by Edward Gauvin)
3. Kelley Eskridge, Solitaire
4. Karen Joy Fowler, What I Didn’t See and Other Stories(hardcover)
5. Angélica Gorodischer, Trafalgar (paperback, trans. by Amalia Gladhart)
6. Julia Holmes, Meeks (paperback)
7. Eduardo Jimenez Mayo & Chris N. Brown, Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic (paperback)
8. Laurie Marks, Water Logic (paperback)
9. Benjamin Parzybok, Couch (paperback)

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Olondria Winners

Thu 14 Feb 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Freebies, Sofia Samatar | Comments Off on Olondria Winners | Posted by: Gavin

To the 5 lucky readers who Goodreads selected: Your copies of A Stranger in Olondria are on their way!

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Office closed

Mon 11 Feb 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Office closed | Posted by: Gavin

Perhaps not a surprise but given the rubbish weather, our office is closed today.

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Win a copy of A Stranger in Olondria

Wed 6 Feb 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Free books, Sofia Samatar | Comments Off on Win a copy of A Stranger in Olondria | Posted by: Gavin

 

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Reading Group Guide: Meeks

Thu 24 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Julia Holmes, Reading Group Guide | Comments Off on Reading Group Guide: Meeks | Posted by: Gavin

Told from four different perspectives, Julia Holmes’ Meeks is an engaging read that presents a satirical view of marriage and society. While short, it is full of thought-provoking ideas. Here are some discussion questions by Kimberly Pavlovich to get you started. And, of course, there are no right answers:

1. The theme of grief is first introduced when Ben discovers his mother is dead. He is fitted for a black suit, during which the tailor asks, “What is grief but a sudden inability to sustain belief in the story that preceded it?” (13). Do you agree? How would you define grief? How does grief play a role in the novel?
2. Marriage is highly valued in Meeks; there are consequences for those who remain unmarried. How do you think Holmes views marriage, based on the ideas in the book? Do you think the way marriage is presented in the novel reflects some of our own society’s ideas? What are your own thoughts on marriage?
3. How are each of the characters’ perspectives (Ben, Meeks, the Brother, and the Father) connected? As you read Meeks, did you find yourself wanting to hear an additional character’s story? How would the story change if characters’ viewpoints were added or omitted?
4. When Ben discovers his room at the Bachelor House is connected to another bachelor’s room, he immediately wants to switch – until he meets him. How would you describe Ben’s and Finton’s friendship? Meeks and Bedge also have an interesting bond. How would you describe their friendship?
5. What is your take on the Brothers of Mercy’s role in society?
6. What holds Ben back from becoming a “typical” bachelor? Is it his black suit, or is it something else?
7. Ben longs for a pale suit, while Meeks longs for a gun. Eventually, they steal these items from the same prone bachelor. What compels each of them? Would you have done the same?
8. In the course of the novel, Ben wears a black suit, a pale suit, and finally a gray smock; each act as a symbol to other people. How does Ben’s behavior change with his attire, as well as the behavior of the people he interacts with? Why do you think clothing has the ability to temporarily change the wearer and how the wearer is treated – not only in Ben’s society, but in our own? Have you ever felt “changed” by your clothing?
9. What is the significance of the heavens watcher’s story about “the man marooned on an island”?
10. Who is “the man in the black jacket”? Do you think Meeks made the right decision when he refused to switch costumes with him? How would the story change if he had?
11. What is your interpretation of Ben’s last line: “Let everyone see him, let them finally get it: when something is lost, it’s lost forever” (185)?
12. Were you satisfied with the ending? Did it surprise you?

 

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Coffee? Sure. La Morenita or La Virginia?

Thu 17 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Amalia Gladhart, Angelica Gorodischer | Comments Off on Coffee? Sure. La Morenita or La Virginia? | Posted by: Gavin

Reforma gives Trafalgar a very strong recommendation (“Highly recommended for Public and Academic Libraries”), which I translate as: a book for everyone!

I suppose a good quote from the review would be “The narrative of this compilation draws the reader into the story of an ordinary man traveling to alternative worlds. Gorodischer creates an atmosphere where fascinating stories take on the ordinariness of everyday life.”

Not mentioned: Trafalgar drinks a lot of coffee. We should have partnered with an Argentinean coffee firm because this book is going to cause a lot of people to get up and put the coffee on. La Morenita! La Virginia! Coffee shops! Baristas! Call us!

How much coffee? Seven cups. Begins like this:

I was with Trafalgar Medrano yesterday. It’s not easy to find him. He’s always going here and there with that import-export business of his. But now and then he goes from there to here and he likes to sit down and drink coffee and chat with a friend. I was in the Burgundy and when I saw him come in, I almost didn’t recognize him: he had shaved off his mustache. . . .

Marcos brought him his double coffee and a glass of cold water on a little silver plate. That’s what I like about the Burgundy. . . .

Marcos brought him another double coffee before he could order it. That Marcos is a marvel: if you drink nothing but dry sherry, well chilled, like me; or orange juice—not strained—with gin, like Salustiano, the youngest of the Carreras; or seven double coffees in a row like Trafalgar Medrano, you can be sure that Marcos will be there to remember it even if it’s been ten years since you went to the Burgundy.

Marcos arrived with the third double coffee. . . .

Marcos had put down the paper—he had collected at one of the other tables—and now he was coming with the fourth double coffee. . . . 

All right, coffee, anyone?

But, wait, if you prefer it with wine, the third edition of Wine and Word Tasting at Winter’s Hill Vineyard will take place on Saturday, February 16, 11:00-5:00 in Lafayette, Oregon. Yum.

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My fave-orite flow chart EVER

Wed 16 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

http://hoganhere.tumblr.com/post/40586465546/2-bold

(Yes, that is really a link, because you gots to go there.)

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Small Beer Podcast 16: Kij Johnson’s “The Empress Jingu Fishes”

Tue 15 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Kij Johnson, Not a Journal., At the Mouth of the River of Bees, Julie Day, Kij Johnson, Podcastery, small beer podcast, The Empress Jingu Fishes | Comments Off on Small Beer Podcast 16: Kij Johnson’s “The Empress Jingu Fishes” | Posted by: Julie

Hallelujah! Another podcast is neigh. And to everyone’s delight here at the Small Beer Studios, it’s another piece of fiction.

Kij Johnson’s debut collection, At the Mouth of the River of Bees, came out in mid-2012. And people were excited. Kij can rock climb. She can teach. She knows both Old Norse and Latin. But most of all she knows how to tell horrific and wondrous stories in the most beautiful of language.

As well as all that, Kij is a research demon. Science and ancient Japan and near-future teen culture all collide between the pages of this collection.

Kij has won the World Fantasy Award, the Sturgeon Award and the Nebula award (multiple times). Reading “The Empress Jingu Fishes” was a truly lovely experience. Kij Johnson does more than just tell a compelling story. She knows how to put her words together.

Episode 16: In which Julie Day reads Kij Johnson’s “The Empress Jingu Fishes” from At the Mouth of the River of Bees.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe to the Small Beer podcast using iTunes or the service of your choice:

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Around Small Beer

Mon 14 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Alasdair Gray, Ayize Jama-Everett, Elizabeth Hand, Karen Lord, Kathe Koja, Kij Johnson, LCRW, Under the Poppy | Comments Off on Around Small Beer | Posted by: Gavin

Just because the government tells you something doesn’t mean you have to believe it.

Tomorrow: Julie Day reads Kij Johnson’s “The Empress Jingu Fishes” on the Small Beer podcast on the tavern with beer and food.

And check out Wired.com’s Geek Mom interview with Kij. Kij is off to Oxford to give the JRR Tolkien lecture on fantastic fiction and to teach a workshop: lovely!

Ayize Jama-Everett’s The Liminal People was on the Identity Theory Holiday Reading List. Add it to all your comix-and-sf-reading lists!

I just interviewed Karen Lord, whose lovely new novel The Best of All Possible Worlds comes out from Del Rey next month, for BookPage. That should go up at the start of February.

In April it’s last chance to see Under the Poppy in Detroit. Do it!

The Village Voice gives Errantry a stormer of a review:
“With grand feeling and inventiveness, Hand writes of modern life edging just into the impossible. Her ragged modern characters, often lost or stoned or just unfixed in their lives, set out over moors or into hidden parks in search of realities less dispiriting than our own.”

Kelly’s “The Faery Handbag” is this week’s story on the Bookslinger app.

The first review has come in for the new ish of LCRW. Here’s Sam Tomaino at SF Revu on LCRW 28:
“Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet is the kind of magazine that you want to read slowly. Read a story. Put the magazine down. Absorb what you have just read. Then, after a while, read another story. Repeat. After more than a year’s absence here is issue #28 with more of their very different stories.”

Scottish Television loves Alasdair Gray almost as much as we do. He’s doing another piece of public art in Glasgow—can’t wait to go over next summer and see it all—this time at the Western Baths Club. (Ok, so I may not be able to go see this one). Here’s the video of the unveiling of his previous mural in the Glasgow subway. It’s based on the art from Old Men in Love.

That’s it, out of time.

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Fountain of Age a PKD Award finalist

Thu 10 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Awards, Nancy Kress | Comments Off on Fountain of Age a PKD Award finalist | Posted by: Gavin

Lovely news from the Philip K. Dick Award peeps, Nancy Kress’s latest collection Fountain of Age is a finalist for this year’s award. Congratulations to all the nominees!

Here’s the full list of nominees and various links and so on:

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Locus Poll: All-Time Short Fiction Results, 2012

Thu 10 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ted Chiang | Comments Off on Locus Poll: All-Time Short Fiction Results, 2012 | Posted by: Gavin

I missed this (as with so many things) while mostly offline over the new year. Neither did I vote as I always forget things I wish I had included. But maybe if I had Maureen F. McHugh, Alice Sola Kim, and some others would appear. Also there are two Karen Joy Fowler stories and I think seven Ursula K. Le Guin’s. And we published one of the top ranked stories and reprinted two in Ted’s mighty and fabulous Story of Your Life and Others. Yay, indeed!

20th Century Novella:

Rank	Author : Title (Year)
1	Chiang, Ted : Story of Your Life (1998)

21st Century Novella:

Rank	Author : Title (Year)
1	Link, Kelly : Magic for Beginners (2005)

21st Century Novelette:

Rank	Author : Title (Year)
1	Chiang, Ted : Hell Is the Absence of God (2001)

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Clarion & Clarion West

Wed 9 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Clarion, Clarion West, workshops | Comments Off on Clarion & Clarion West | Posted by: Gavin

Where will Kelly be at for 2 weeks next summer? Teaching the final two weeks of the six week Clarion Writers’ Workshop in San Diego with Karen Joy Fowler.  The 2013 writers in residence are:

Andy Duncan, Nalo Hopkinson, Cory Doctorow, Robert Crais, Karen Joy Fowler & Kelly Link

Applications are accepted until March 1st:

Applications are also due March 1st for Clarion West in Seattle where this year’s instructors are Elizabeth Hand, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Justina Robson, Ellen Datlow, and Samuel R. Delany.

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The Faery Handbag on Bookslinger

Tue 8 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on The Faery Handbag on Bookslinger | Posted by: Gavin

This Friday Kelly’s story “The Faery Handbag” will be featured on the Bookslinger app. And! Some of our other fave short stories can be found there including one of the best science fiction stories of the last ten years or so, “Start the Clock” by Benjamin Rosenbaum, and Maureen F. McHugh’s amazing “Ancestor Money.”

You can download the app in the iTunes store.

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

You can also order Pretty Monsters here now. Why didn’t we add this before? Don’t know.

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New LCRW goes out, with little surprises

Mon 7 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Free books, LCRW | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

We just finished mailing out LCRW 28 (takes us a while, doesn’t it?) and we had fun with this one. As a subscriber bonus (for US/Canada readers only . . .  sorry Lovely Rest of World Readers, the post office wanted to charge us $16.95 a shot!) we threw in a random free book for everyone. Enjoy!

(Want a free book? Subscribe!)

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Small Beer Press Bestsellers 2012

Mon 7 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Bestsellers, Kij Johnson, Maureen F. McHugh, Ted Chiang, Three Messages, Ursula K. Le Guin | Comments Off on Small Beer Press Bestsellers 2012 | Posted by: Gavin

According to Neilsen BookScan, our top five Small Beer Press bestsellers (excluding ebooks) for 2012 were:

1. Maureen F. McHugh, After the Apocalypse
2. Ursula K. Le Guin, The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin
   Ursula K. Le Guin, The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin
3. Kij Johnson, At the Mouth of the River of Bees
4. Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others
5. Eduardo Jiménez Mayo & Chris N. Brown, eds., Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Stories of the Fantastic

All short story collections or anthologies! Our publication dates all crept into the latter half of the year, really the last couple of months, so books such as Errantry and Earth and Air didn’t get much time out there in the world to see how they’d do. Also #6? Stranger Things Happen, #7? The Serial Garden. Short stories!

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Ursula K. Le Guin @ Powell’s, Sunday, Jan. 6

Fri 4 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., events, Ursula K. Le Guin | Comments Off on Ursula K. Le Guin @ Powell’s, Sunday, Jan. 6 | Posted by: Gavin

Ursula K. Le Guin will be at Powell’s City of Books this Sunday evening at 7:30 PM. Would that we could be there!  But this is your chance to order your signed copy:

 Upcoming Event

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Happy Holidays

Fri 21 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Happy Holidays | Posted by: Gavin

Our office is closed from today, December 21, through until December 29th. We wish you the peace and joy for you and yours for the holidays.

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Small Beer Podcast 15: Lydia Millet’s The Shimmers in the Night

Tue 18 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Lydia Millet, Not a Journal., Julie Day, Lydia Millet, Podcastery, small beer podcast, The Shimmers in the Night | Comments Off on Small Beer Podcast 15: Lydia Millet’s The Shimmers in the Night | Posted by: Julie

These podcasts are special little moments that pop up in my life, but even when I’m not “on mic” I’m reading to an audience. Every day for almost a decade, I’ve sat with my children and read. Yes, we have a TV. Yes, we have broadband access. But every day we sit together and read novels: novels for kids. That adds up to quite a lot of books.

We read the first book in Lydia Millet’s Dissenters series, The Fires Beneath the Sea, last year, and its sequel, The Shimmers in the Night, earlier this fall. In between, we’ve read quite a number of other books, some of which are just amazing and some of which only part of my tribe actually enjoyed. Hint: it was not the reader. Parenthood has its trials . . .

The Shimmers in the Night was a blast for both reader and audience. Not only that: months later my younger child still asks if the next “Shimmers” book is “ready yet,” while my older child made me solemnly swear to get this particular podcast online “immediately.”

What makes this podcast extra-special is that Lydia Millet herself is the reader. With the help of a friend, she read and recorded Chapter 1. How fricking cool is that?

I hate to listen to recordings of myself if others are nearby, but I know I’ll be listening to this particular edition with two smaller people by my side.

Episode 15: In which Lydia Millet reads chapter 1 of The Shimmers in the Night.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe to the Small Beer podcast using  iTunes or the service of your choice:

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Updates: Dickinson, Le Guin, Hand, more

Mon 17 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Elizabeth Hand, Lydia Millet, Maureen F. McHugh, Peter Dickinson, Ursula K. Le Guin | Comments Off on Updates: Dickinson, Le Guin, Hand, more | Posted by: Gavin

This weekend the Wall Street Journal picked Peter Dickinson’s new collection of short stories, Earth and Air, as one of the 10 best books of fiction of 2012:

“Much modern fantasy draws upon myth and folklore, but not many authors can enter wholly into the surprising and novel logic of myth. In this brilliant collection of stories, Peter Dickinson recasts Beowulf and Orpheus, investigates tales of earth-spirits, explains the footwear of Mercury and accounts for the survival of Athena’s owls in Christian Byzantium. These beautiful stories, our reviewer believed, ‘deserve to become classics of the genre.'”

Look! Peter has a shiny new website with tons of extra stuff. (Including another new book!) There are gems everywhere, including this from the news section: “Most Tuesdays I bike up into the town to have tea with a 92-year-old friend.  Week before last we laughed ourselves into hiccups talking about funerals.  Did us both a power of good.” Ha!

You can listen to Ursula K. Le Guin on BBC’s The World. It’s all about language. I know you’ll love it.

Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe chat with Maureen F. McHugh about writing, games, online and TV things, writing for TV and other media, the Chinese economy, writing collaboratively, and more on the Coode Street Podcast.

Coming tomorrow, we have Julie Day’s final Small Beer podcast of 2012, an extra special edition featuring Lydia Millet reading the first chapter of The Shimmers in the Night.

Elizabeth Hand’s Errantry gets a lovely review in her sort-of-local paper, the Maine Sunday Telegram: “No writer has cornered the market on darkly beautiful, unsettling stories. But it’s a niche that Elizabeth Hand inhabits with uncanny ease.”

I haven’t seen the new Hobbit movie but I loved these Tove Jansson illustrations for the Swedish edition that someone on Twitter (thank you, Tweetee!) posted.

Ellen Datlow has a Kickstarter! Also, Red Emma’s in Baltimore is moving. Check out that timeline and help out? Also, there’s an Indiegogo for a student film version of Kelly’s story “Survivor’s Ball.”

Short story lovers may have noticed that we are the sponsor of the current issue of One Story. We love One Story — and their new project, One Teen Story (which, you know, would make a great present for teens . . . !) — and for the last couple of years we have been very happy to be one of their sponsors. Here’s editor Hannah Tinti’s post about the story:

Issue #172: Goodbye, Bear

December 7th, 2012 3:44pm by Hannah Tinti

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Valley gives

Wed 12 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Valley gives | Posted by: Gavin

There’s a fascinating experiment in local giving going on here today, 12/12/12—for once, a date that works in the UK and the USA!—on Valley Gives. The three organizations who raise the most money today will receive $15K, $12K, and $10K, and the 12th gets, of course, $1200, as well as random $1,000 drawings, for, natch, 12 hours, all in all the bonuses add up to $200,000. If you live in the Happy Valley area* today’s a good day to send some people a great holiday present.

* Or even if you don’t! We have local branches of Habitat for Humanity, the Humane Society, etc.

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Stranger Things Happen Limited Edition is here!

Tue 11 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, limited editions | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Guess what just arrived in the office? The Subterranean Press signed and numbered limited hardcover edition of Kelly’s first collection, Stranger Things Happen. What a treat this book is. Someone asked me once why Small Beer didn’t publish it ourselves and I have the answer right here in these two books in my hands.

You can now get STH (as it goes by around the office) in a 6″x9″ hardcover with a fantastic wraparound jacket by Kathleen Jennings. I may have to sacrifice one of the dustjackets to my wall—although Kelly bought some of the art from Kathleen, so maybe that will be good enough. I’ve included two of the title-page illustrations Kathleen did for each of the stories in the book, “Shoe and Marriage” and “The Specialist’s Hat.”

As Carolyn Kellogg noted in the Los Angeles Times, “This is one of the ways that publishers can distinguish the print work they do from the e-books they issue, focusing on creating an object that’s worth having. And Link’s work seems a great place to start.”

Kelly isn’t in the office today but she will be later this week and then we will ship out the personalized copies asap.

Of course the book is still available in our paperback edition—now in its seventh printing with that iconic Shelley Jackson cover—and as an ebook, although neither of those editions include the two-story hardcover chapbook (Origin Stories: “Origin Stories” and “Secret Identity”) that comes with the Sub Press edition. Those are some crazy, beautiful books and here are some photos to prove it:

              

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That’s Alright

Mon 10 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on That’s Alright | Posted by: Gavin

Off to Boston for  nonwork thing today. In the meantime, we discovered we could get the Sunday NY Times (including all digital access) for less than the price of just the digital access. It was great fun to have the total brick of paper delivered. Definitely read more than I usually do online.

Download the BookSlinger app and read this week’s story: Benjamin Rosenbaum’s “Start the Clock“—one of the best sf stories from the last 10 years—from The Ant King and Other Stories.

Over at Kirkus Reviews Elizabeth Hand chats with Jessa Crispin about Errantry and more.

On Bookslut Julie Phillips has a short essay on Ursula K. Le Guin which is full of mad, great quotes about Le Guin’s work that I completely agree with. As for will she be read in 50 years? If I’m alive: yes! If not, yes! Earthsea will outlast us all and some readers will always begin there and go on out to Searoad, Unlocking the Air, The Left Hand of Darkness, 

Look, a free magazine of International Science Fiction.

Kathleen Jennings’s American Sketchbooks: Part 1: World Fantasy and Toronto and Part 2: Illuxcon, New York and Colorado.

Stuck in my head:

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Paradise Tales wins the Sunburst Award

Thu 6 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Awards, Geoff Ryman | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Lovely sunny news from Canada: Geoff Ryman’s short story collection Paradise Tales has won the Sunburst Award. The winner of the 2012 YA award is All Good Children by Catherine Austen (Orca).

It is hard to believe—as he has written so many great books—but Paradise Tales is Geoff’s first short story collection. The sixteen stories include three set in Cambodia and a couple on Mars, some are contemporary and some are set in the far future. The wide-ranging nature of the collection reflects Ryman’s diverse interests in the world of today and tomorrow and how we humans will (or won’t deal with it). One of the things I wish more reviewers would point out is how funny some of Geoff’s stories are. His story “V.A.O.” (in which a retiree has to work who in his nursing home might be carrying out a string of robberies) is dark and satirical but it’s also hilarious in parts.

The most recent review I’ve seen of the book was by J. J. S. Boyce on AESciFi—the CanadianScience Fiction Review—which ended with a line I fully agree with:  “Short-form speculative fiction doesn’t get much better than this.”

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Free copy of Trafagar

Thu 6 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Free copy of Trafagar | Posted by: Gavin

You know the drill! Remember, you can read an excerpt here.

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Trafalgar and Josefina

Wed 5 Dec 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Amalia Gladhart, Angelica Gorodischer | Comments Off on Trafalgar and Josefina | Posted by: Gavin

Belletrista just posted “Trafalgar and Josefina,” an excerpt which will give you a nice sense of our forthcoming book by Angélica Gorodischer, Trafalgar. Along with the book there is a short intro—and a great picture of the two of them—by the translator, Amalia Gladhart:

Trafalgar’s adventures are curious, funny, sometimes hair-raising, always thought-provoking. His stories are sought after, traded among acquaintances, shared sparingly by those lucky enough to hear them first hand. And the importance of the storytelling process is always evident. Trafalgar loves to tell a tale—and he loves to draw it out, pausing for another cup of coffee, petting a friend’s cat, playing hard to get; his listeners prod him impatiently, but he will not be rushed.

Read on.

 

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