2012 Holiday Shipping deadlines

Thu 1 Nov 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., holidays, post office, shipping, usps | Comments Off on 2012 Holiday Shipping deadlines | Posted by: Gavin

Here are the last mailing dates before Christmas/your holiday of choice from the US Post Office.

Media Mail shipping is included in all our prices and Priority Mail can be added.

Remember that all mail slows down at the holidays. Media Mail packages are only included by the post office if and when there is space so they can languish for days during the holidays. If you are ordering after December 1st, 2012, and you would like your books to arrive for Christmas we recommend choosing Priority Mail.

You can also buy Gift Certificates to Small Beer or Weightless.

Holiday Dates for Military Mail

Calculated for December 25, 2012.

Addressed to	First-Class Mail® Service	Priority Mail® Service
APO/FPO/DPO AE ZIPs™ 090-092	Dec. 10	Dec. 10
APO/FPO/DPO AE ZIP 093	Dec. 3	Dec. 3
APO/FPO/DPO AE ZIPs 094-098	Dec. 10	Dec. 10
APO/FPO/DPO AA ZIP 340	Dec. 10	Dec. 10
APO/FPO/DPO AP ZIPs 962-966	Dec. 10	Dec. 10

---

Suggested reading for Sandy

Mon 29 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Hurricanes, To Read Pile | Comments Off on Suggested reading for Sandy | Posted by: Gavin

Here’s a scary comparison pic on the WSJ of Hurricane Irene (2011, $15bn damage) and Hurricane Sandy (2012, flooding NYC and surrounds already; picture below from the NYT live update feed).

How big is Sandy? It’s bigger than the Random Penguin merger. Boo merger! Wonder who HarperCollins will merge with now? They were thinking $1.6bn in cash for Penguin and you know how it is when you go shopping but they don’t have the publisher you wanted in stock, might as well see who else is up for sale . . .

I love Penguin books and all the tat that they sell: we have the mugs and cards and tea towel and are quite happy to keep stacking the shelves with those old and new classics. And, they published Kelly’s YA collection, Pretty Monsters. But! I also love the name Random House. It was (was? erk.) one of the best names for a publishing house. What’s coming next? A cookbook? A collection of poetry? A science fiction novel? Yes to all of the above! And, one of their imprints published The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. RHP? Meh. And, only 1 letter away from RIP. (Hmm, that’s a bit too much reading the bones, methinks.)

While Random Penguin is a publishing behemoth in the making (they’ll be awaiting government approval: Obama says, “Hmm, maybe.” Romney says, “Merger? Assets stripped, jobs outsourced, big dividend to stockholders? Do it!”) they’re fleas on the back of the other players in publishing, as someone tweeted today:

Charlie King ‏@charlietheking

Interesting context RT @arhomberg Market value of Apple $567 billion, Google $221 billion, Amazon $108 billion, Random Penguin ~ $3 billion

Anyway.

Recommended reading for the next few days: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Forty Signs of Rain wherein Washington DC is flooded and the politicians (and the taxed-but-not-represented locals) are the ones who have to deal with the Katrina-like events. I reviewed it tho those many years ago for BookPage:

There are flood warnings throughout (beginning with the Biblical reference in the title) but the blinkered D.C. politicians won’t pay attention until the rising water is lapping at their doorways. Robinson skips between the domestic, scientific and political spheres without missing a beat and delivers a hot-topic page-turner that leaves the reader gasping and stranded at high tide, eager for the next book from this science fiction master.

Once you’ve read that you’re going to want the sequel, Fifty Degrees Below, (“an intensely positive book, brimming with ideas and hope for the future real or imagined.” Review), and the final one: Sixty Days and Counting. (“Every senator, especially the ones with presidential aspirations, should read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Sixty Days and Counting.” Review).

These books should be on the must-read list for all politicians, but then again I think Robinson’s books should be on everyone’s to-be-read stack.

Be safe.

---

Saddest email of the week

Fri 26 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kathe Koja, post office, tracking is a must | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

It’s hard to imagine the disappointment of reader C.H. who ordered the new paperback edition of Under the Poppy and instead, well, read this:

Hi Small Beer Press-

I had ordered a paperback copy of Under the Poppy by Kathe Koja and received notification on October 19 that it had shipped, USPS Tracking #xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.  I received the envelope today, but there the book was not inside the envelope. Instead there is a a booklet and several discs for Microsoft 98. Very confused, and then I noticed on one side of the package there is a USPS Rewrapped/Resealed packing tape. Obviously the package was tampered with some where along the order coming to my address. Is there anything that can be done to rectify this?

Thanks for your time,
C.H.

Suffice to say we quick smart dropped another copy of the book in the mails. With tracking of course. If there is someone out there looking for the Microsoft 98 discs, I can put you in touch with the person who has them!

---

Proud to be you and me

Thu 25 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Proud to be you and me | Posted by: Gavin

Just in time for the upcoming election, here’s some nice stuff.

Yo, politicos, don’t step on the immigrants! You were only born here, adult immigrants chose this country. Besides, apart from Native Americans, everyone’s family here were immigrants at some point. And soon enough immigrants get legal status and we remember who was putting us down. So instead of that, let’s play nice with one another and work together to, as Stephen Colbert puts it, Re-become the Greatness We Never Weren’t!

 

   

---

Chris Abani says

Thu 25 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Chris Abani says | Posted by: Gavin

of A Stranger in Olondria:

“Sofia Samatar has an expansive imagination, a poetic and elegant style, and she writes stories so rich, with characters so full of life, they haunt you long after the story ends. A real pleasure.”
—Chris Abani, author of GraceLand and The Virgin of Flames

Absolutely!

Since Stranger  doesn’t come out until next April, you can catch up with Sofia in the meantime on her blog where she answers 10 questions about Stranger in Olondria, writes about her experiences as a debut author at the debut author at the Heartland Fall Forum, and introduces her Weird Fiction Review essay on Mervyn Peake.

Sofia published a fabulous poem on Strange Horizons this summer, “Lost Letter” which starts:

we were going to start an artists’ commune
we were going to start an avant-garde artists’ commune
we were going to live on youth good looks and music

but you should go read it!

---

Where I Write by Lydia Millet

Wed 24 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Lydia Millet | Comments Off on Where I Write by Lydia Millet | Posted by: Gavin

Loved the photos and the advantages/disadvantages listed with each of Lydia Millet’s writing destinations:

“Fitness.” . . . Advantage: Puffy armchair; fitness potential, chiefly latent. Disadvantage: Half-naked, hard-bodied individuals saying bad things; many have pink acrylic talons.

Read more.

---

Brian Conn: yay!

Tue 23 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Brian Conn, LCRW | Comments Off on Brian Conn: yay! | Posted by: Gavin

Fully ganked from Shelf Awareness this morning: fantastic, cheery news for a writer we love, Brian Conn has won the 2013 Bard Fiction Prize. How awesome is that? That is awesome. Ten years ago (well, probably eleven, given how slow we read submissions) we were thrilled to read his story “The Mushroom” and published it in LCRW #10. Five years later he sent us “The Postern Gate” and in it went to LCRW #21. Besides being a fascinating writer, Brian also co-edits Birkensnake, a journal you can either download for free or buy a lovely print edition of.

From Shelf Awareness:

Awards: Bard Winner

Brian Conn has won the 2013 Bard Fiction Prize, intended to support promising young fiction writers. The prize has a $30,000 cash award and appointment as writer in residence at Bard College for a semester.

Conn won for his debut novel, The Fixed Stars (Fiction Collective 2), published in 2010. The prize committee praised the science fiction book for “the remarkable way the weird, perplexing bleakness of the imagined society is firmly held in place by a narrative style at once bewildered and lucid–it has the air of a kind of deadpan tragedy, of the sort Kafka scared us with, and made us yearn for more. The Bard Fiction Prize has been anxious to celebrate innovation in the novel–and in Conn’s The Fixed Stars we found a perfect match of inventive fable with disquietingly radical storytelling. The prose sparkles with unique images, and the narrative itself is wonderful, at times wondrous even, and a highly original formal work, full of life.”

---

Small Beer Podcast 14: Benjamin Parzybok’s “The Coder”

Tue 23 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Benjamin Parzybok, Not a Journal., Benjamin Parzybok, Julie Day, Michael J DeLuca, Podcastery, small beer podcast, The Coder | 1 Comment | Posted by: Julie

My podcastery life doesn’t get much better than this. Two of my favorites in one audio track: Benjamin Parzybok and  Michael J. DeLuca. Benjamin Parzybok’s story “The Coder” was first published in Lady Churchhill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 21. We bring it to you in audio for the first time. Not only that. Michael J. DeLuca makes another guest appearance on the Small Beer Podcast. Michael is more than a guest reader; he is a passionate advocate of “The Coder.” He spent long hours with his laptop, software and microphone getting the digital track just right. I can’t think of a better homage to this particular Parzybok story.

For those of you who follow such things, Episode No. 4 of our podcast features an excerpt of Ben’s novel, Couch. In other words, we are returning to the scene of the Parzybok crime. Ben is currently finishing his second novel, Sherwood Nation. You can find out about Ben and all his various projects at his site, ideacog.net.

Episode 14: In which Michael J DeLuca read’s Benjamin Parzybok’s “The Coder.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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

---

Win the audiobook of The Freedom Maze

Tue 23 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., audio books, Delia Sherman | Comments Off on Win the audiobook of The Freedom Maze | Posted by: Gavin

All you need to do is leave a comment here—and there are only a few, so your chances are high!—on this interview with The Freedom Maze’s narrator, Robin Miles.

Can’t wait to hear this!

---

Coming this week: book, podcast, freebies, &c

Mon 22 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Benjamin Parzybok, Julie Day, Michael J DeLuca, Peter Dickinson | Comments Off on Coming this week: book, podcast, freebies, &c | Posted by: Gavin

Monday: Publication day for our latest Big Mouth House title: Peter Dickinson’s new collection, Earth and Air: Tales of Elemental Creatures. It’s now available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook editions. The first story “Troll Blood” is also available in F&SF’s September/October issue. Here’s a short interview on F&SF about the story.

There are two strong reviews (from Faren Miller and Rich Horton) in the latest issue of Locus and Tom Shippey gave it a marvelous review in the Wall Street Journal:

“Mining folklore for ideas is routine in modern fantasy, but not many can add the surprising twists and novel logic that Peter Dickinson does. These are beautiful stories, deft, satisfying, unexpected. They deserve to become classics of the genre.”

Tuesday:

1. A new podcast from a lovely triumverate, Julie Day, Michael J. DeLuca, and Benjamin Parzybok—which I am listening to right now, awesome! Michael reads Benjamin Parzybok’s story “The Coder” from Lady Churchhill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 21. Come back tomorrow (or subscribe now) and you too can get your coding joy on, too.
2. The Humble Bundle ends. 77,000 people have partaken of the first ebook Humble Bundle so far. I think it’s a pretty incredible thing: pay what you want for a baker’s dozen of DRM-free ebooks. It’s been hugely popular, especially internationally, and I can’t wait to see 1) how it ends and 2) what the next one will be!

Thursday:

1. We send out 15 free copies of Elizabeth Hand’s Errantry to the Goodreads giveaway winners.
2. Kij Johnson reads at 7 p.m. at the Big Tent at The Raven in Lawrence, Kansas.

Will there be more news and more goings on? Probably. Unless the debates fill us with such lethargy that we become slugs and end our days in a bowl of beer. Which, you know, is going to happen one way or the other.

---

Mac laptops

Mon 22 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Apple | 9 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

As noted before, I seem to be somewhat rough on my laptops: Kelly and I have twice bought new laptops (new white MacBooks sometimes in the 2000s, then used MacBook Pros in March 2011) at the same time and I have worn mine out first.*

So now I have a question for Mac laptop users (as I will be Time Machining my current laptop & software over to the new one). I am probably moving from a 15″ MBPro to a 13″ and would love to hear user’s experiences with both the 13″ MacBook Pro and the 13″ MacBook Air. (I am tempted to buy the former with a steady-state drive.)

As I mentioned, I appear to be somewhat hard on my laptops—it goes to and from home with me and most of the press’s work is done on it. At any given day I will have Mail, Firefox (which seems to be crashing the current laptop, so I may switch to Chrome), Safari, Word, InDesign, PhotoShop, Preview, QuickBooks, Cyberduck, and I don’t know what else running so I would love to hear from people who are using their laptops for such things. Can the little laptops do these things or should I just go back to the 15″ (5.6 pounds/2.56 kg) monster?

Any help appreciated!

* There is a chance that I wear my laptops out for the same inherited reason I can’t wear a wind-up watch. I was horrified as a kid when I go a watch for the first time from Santa (memory serves: it was a Sekonda!) and it stopped working within a few hours. There’s nothing like the secret horror of thinking you’ve broken your big new present before lunch. I was hugely relieved to discover that my mum can’t wear a wind-up, either. I had a few more watches as a kid, then carried a robot pocketwatch for a while and now with the ubiquity of phones I don’t bother. I might be able to wear a modern, quartz watch, but I’m happy without one now. Besides, why give my “talent” with machinery more opportunity to express itself?

---

Free copy of Errantry anyone?

Fri 19 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Elizabeth Hand | 3 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Here we go again, not back in the country two days and here we go again giving away books! And, we’ll be giving some away on LibraryThing next month. All in the name of getting the books out there. These are physical books, so we’re only sending them to the US & Canada, sorry international readers—but we send out free ebooks through LibraryThing, sometimes, too. The post office here has killed sea mail, so mailing 1 book costs $17, just for the mail. Eek!

We are having quite the month: Peter Dickinson’s new collection, Earth and Air, is about to be released, Errantry is about to ship out(!), and we are promised that the two huge Ursula K. Le Guin volumes of Selected Stories are about to ship from the printer.

All of which is to say: this is fun!

 

---

Stranger Things … & Magic for Beginners on the Humble Bundle

Fri 19 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., DRM-free, ebooks, Kelly Link | Comments Off on Stranger Things … & Magic for Beginners on the Humble Bundle | Posted by: Gavin

Now with 5 extra books!

Please welcome the debut of a new kind of offering: the Humble eBook Bundle!

Here’s a brief primer on this sensational deal: for two weeks, you can pay whatever you want to get these six digital, DRM-free books: Pirate Cinema, Pump Six and Other Stories, Zoo City, Invasion: The Secret World Chronicle, Stranger Things Happen, and Magic for Beginners. If you choose to pay more than the average, you will also receive Old Man’s War and graphic novel Signal to Noise!

This is the first Humble ebook offering and is only available for two weeks,
so head over to the site and pick up your Humble eBook Bundle right now!

---

Kij Johnson in Locus

Thu 18 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kij Johnson | Comments Off on Kij Johnson in Locus | Posted by: Gavin

Back. Not awake. Catching up slowly. Just read the great Locus interview with Kij Johnson:

Excerpts from the interview:

Ha! More: print / ebook.

ETA: Added a reading at the Raven and another starred review!

10/25  7 p.m. The Big Tent at The Raven, 6 East 7th St., Lawrence, KS, 66044
11/24  1 p.m. Uncle Hugo’s Books, 2864 Chicago Avenue South, Minneapolis MN 55407

“[The] stories are original, engaging, and hard to put down. . . . Johnson has a rare gift for pulling readers directly into the heart of a story and capturing their attention completely. Those who enjoy a touch of the other in their reading will love this collection.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

---

The Humble Bundle

Thu 11 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link | Comments Off on The Humble Bundle | Posted by: Gavin

I am guessing that by now you’ve heard about the new ebook Humble Bundle which contains the full DRM-free ebooks of Kelly’s first two books, yes? I’m going to put up a sticky post with the HB counter on so on that will be nice and obvious for the next two weeks.

If you don’t know what I am on about, below the cut I have cut-n-pasted the intro from their blog. Basically you can pay what you want for a rather awesome ebook bundle. The monies get split between the authors, the charities, and the Humble Bundle people. If you pay more than the average (currently $12.43 and which, interestingly, has risen over the last two days) you get two extra books. The HB people usually do ebooks, although they did a cool music one earlier this year which I bought for the OK GO extras—addicted to those videos. Cory Doctorow put the ebook edition together and I think tapped a bunch of people who have released their books under Creative Commons licenses and/or as DRM-free books. (There being really no point in buying DRM’d books if you ever expect to read them again.) It really is the simplest, neat, and lovely idea and it is awesome to have Kelly’s books involved.

Introducing the Humble eBook Bundle!

Get ready to feast your eyes on this new bundle! Please welcome the debut of a new kind of offering: the Humble eBook Bundle! Read more

---

Kij in NC; UKL in Seattle; Sofia in Madison (of course)

Sun 7 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Joan Aiken, Kij Johnson, Sofia Samatar, Ursula K. Le Guin | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

We will have a fun announcement on Tuesday, October 9th. Come back for it!

We’re busy falling in love with the people and city of Uppsala, Sweden, at Swecon/Kontrast. The food here is as great as promised, although I do not think we will eat better than the homemade (for 21 people!) meal that Daniel ______ (last name TK!) slaved over for days. Ok, while naps are being had by part of our party, here are a few upcoming readings and so on.

If you’re in North Carolina (or, you know, have a small plane can fly there—or, better, have a friend with a tandem and can bike there!) on Tuesday night, don’t miss rising star Kij Johnson’s appearance at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh. (Tues., Oct. 9th, 7:30 PM)

Also coming up soon, Ursula K. Le Guin will be doing a Clarion West fundraiser event in Seattle. I’d go if I were there, dammit.

Join Ursula K. Le Guin Saturday evening, October 13, as she helps us kick off our upcoming 30th Anniversary Year. From 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. we’ll celebrate Clarion West’s past record of excellence and reflect on our future growth at the Uptown Hideaway, 819 5th Ave N., in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. Attendance is limited to 100 people. All proceeds benefit Clarion West.

October 26th there’s the Joan Aiken celebration in NYC which we’ve alluded to before.

Into November: between the 7th & 10th, Sofia Samatar, whose fabulous debut novel A Stranger in Olondria we’re publishing in hardcover/paperback/ebook in April 2013, will be at the Wisconsin Book Festival. We were there a few years ago and remember it fondly. Any excuse to stay in Madison! You can download a chunk of the novel here.

---

Bath bricks, senna, sassafras, and brown calico

Thu 4 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Joan Aiken | Comments Off on Bath bricks, senna, sassafras, and brown calico | Posted by: Gavin

Joan Aiken’s daughter Lizza has a lovely essay on the British Council website, “Voices: The Magical Mysteries of Children’s Literature,” where she talked about her transatlantic roots (Joan Aiken was US poet Conrad Aiken’s daughter) and the culture shock that reverbrated through her when she crossed the Atlantic as a child. I love this part:

“On our next trip over the Atlantic we visited the wonderful island of Nantucket, and Joan got the idea to write her own version of Moby Dick, in another of the Wolves Chronicles called Nightbirds on Nantucket. Here her intrepid English cockney heroine Dido Twite wakes up on a whaling ship in hot pursuit of a pink whale and lands on this mysterious American island where not only the language but the customs are strange. Within minutes poor Dido is scrubbed with a bath brick, doused with senna and sassafras, and buttoned into brown calico! Interestingly, this book was possibly more successful back in England where these New England customs had long since died out.”

We’re talking to Lizza about published another Joan Aiken collection (yay!) and in the meantime if you are in Cheltenham on October 13th of New York City on October 26th I hope you can make it to the events celebrating the 50th Anniversary of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.

---

Kegging, or, The Internet Ain’t What It’s Cracked Up to Be.

Wed 3 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Literary Beer | Comments Off on Kegging, or, The Internet Ain’t What It’s Cracked Up to Be. | Posted by: Michael

I have finally upgraded to CO2 kegging my homebrew after seven years of doing without. Seven years of other homebrewers hiding amusement behind the bottoms of their imperial pint glasses. Seven years of worry and hardship! Did I use enough priming sugar? Did I clean those bottles well enough? Ok, it wasn’t that much hardship. I still got to drink good beer. But after clawing my way up the initial learning curve (and forking out the startup cash), keg beer already promises to be a huge leap forward in ease, simplicity and quality.

The internet was less helpful on the matter than I expected–a lot of overviews, a lot of filler, not enough detail. Though pretty much every single post I came across assured me I was soon to be “the envy of all your friends”. The most useful resources I came across were the brief but succinct kegging appendix in good old Papazian, the single sheet of instructions that came with the CO2 regulator, and the school of hard knocks.

While I sit back awaiting the fame that must surely accompany maturation, here, for the next person who goes looking, are the details.

Read more

---

Sweden and being offline

Mon 1 Oct 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Cons, Kelly Link, travel | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Tomorrow we’re off to Uppsala in Sweden to Kontrast where Kelly’s one of the guests of honor along with Joe Abercrombie and Peter Watts. Can’t wait! Kelly’s collection, Pretty Monsters, has just come out there (in two volumes, sort of the same way it was done in Australia) and we are going to get to meet her translator, Ia Lind, as well as the lovely folks at X Publishing . . . and then there is the con: so far, so good on that front. They’ve been wonderfully communicative and helpful with our odd requests (beer! chocolate! carseats!). Besides the Glasgow Worldcon in 2005 it will be our first Eurocon.

You can check out programming here and I’ve pasted our schedule below. I’m mostly on childcare but I do get to talk about the Death of Science Fiction (ok, “Science fiction and the future”) on Saturday. Ideas for that panel are most welcome! Kelly will probably do a workshop (always her first love), too.

After Sweden we’re going to visit family in Den Haag (yay!) so we will be mostly offline for a bit. Although that doesn’t ever really work anymore, does it?

KELLY LINK

Friday
19:00 Short opening ceremony followed by signing

Saturday
13:00 The short story and the ideas panel
17:00 Writing and research panel
19:00 What has steampunk got to say about us? panel

Sunday
13:00 GoH interview
16:00 Closing ceremony

GAVIN J. GRANT

Saturday
11:00 Science fiction and the future

---

Small Beer Podcast 13: Julie Day Interviews Jennifer Stevenson

Thu 27 Sep 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Jennifer Stevenson, Julie Day, Podcastery, small beer podcast, trash sex magic | 1 Comment | Posted by: Julie

Jennifer Stevenson is a fantasy author, a romance writer and a former roller derby queen, so it should be no surprise that our interview veered into a discussion of sex and sexual politics. When you add in the fact that we were discussing Jennifer’s book, Trash Sex Magic, the topic of sex became more than an expectation, it became a necessity.

Course, as fun as sex is, there’s always more to the story. The real-life analog of the book’s magical Fox River, the connection between the author’s mother and Raedawn’s mother, Gelia, and even Jennifer’s role in cofounding the Book View Cafe all found their way into our conversation. An interview with Jennifer Stevenson travels fast. Fact is, Jennifer is as much a force of nature as the characters in her novel.

Trash Sex Magic is now available as an audio book through Iambik. (Iambik distribute their audio books out through all the usual channels but for the best price you can’t beat their own site.) Listen to an an excerpt here.

The print edition is available through Small Beer Press and the ebook can be found at Weightless Books. Pick your poison. It’s a great read no matter how you chose to imbibe.

Episode 13: In which Julie Day interviews Jennifer Stevenson, the author of Trash Sex Magic.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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

---

In the mails recently

Tue 25 Sep 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Joan Aiken, Kelly Link, Kij Johnson, Peter Dickinson, Sofia Samatar, Ursula K. Le Guin | Comments Off on In the mails recently | Posted by: Gavin

Here are pics of a few things that have arrived at the office recently:

1. Galleys of A Stranger in Olondria — booksellers, meet Sofia and get your copy at the Heartland Fall Forum.
2. Daniel A. Rabuzzi’s The Indigo Pheasant (read his guest post here).
3. J. Boyett’s novel Brothel, which arrived with a nice note.
4. Bike cards from the fabulous artists at Cricket Press in Lexington, Kentucky
5. Galleys of the two volume Selected Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin.
6. The first issue of One Teen Story: “The Deadline” by Gayle Forman (subscribe!)
7. A stack! Made up of . . .
   1. Donny Smith’s new translation of Wenceslao Maldonado’s If Cutting Off the Gorgon’s Head.
   2. A galley of the Subterranean Press edition of Kelly’s Stranger Things Happen with the lovely cover and interior illos by Kathleen Jennings.
   3. The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23, edited by Stephen Jones, which includes Joan Aiken’s story “Hair”
   4. Fantasy & Science Fiction‘s September/October issue featuring Peter Dickinson’s “Troll Blood” as well as stories by Andy Duncan and Richard Butner.
   5. Finished and actual copies of Kij Johnson’s At the Mouth of the River of Bees.

And!

Finished and actual copies of Lydia Millet’s new middle grade novel, The Shimmers in the Night, whose publication day is TODAY!

---

At the Mouth . . . on NPR

Mon 24 Sep 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kij Johnson | Comments Off on At the Mouth . . . on NPR | Posted by: Gavin

Quick: click and read Alan Cheuse’s lovely allusive review of Kij Johnson’s collection At the Mouth of the River of Bees:

Ursula Le Guin comes immediately to mind when you turn the pages of Kij Johnson’s first book of short stories, her debut collection is that impressive. The title piece has that wonderful power we hope for in all fiction we read, the surprising imaginative leap that takes us to recognize the marvelous in the everyday.

You have a few more chances to catch Kij at a reading or on the radio—Twin Cities folks please note the new reading just added:

9/26    Writers Voice interview air date
9/29    7 p.m. Ad Astra Books & Coffee House, 141 N. Santa Fe, Salina, KS 67401
10/9    Quail Ridge Books, Ridgewood Shopping Center, 3522 Wade Avenue, Raleigh, NC
11/24  1 p.m. Uncle Hugo’s Books, 2864 Chicago Avenue South, Minneapolis MN 55407

In other news, the Goodreads giveaway for Peter Dickinson’s Earth and Air was very successful—now we know how to increase our traffic x 10! Give away great books. Winners’ books will be going out early this week.

What’s the connection between these two books? Cover artist Jackie Morris! Jackie painted both the bee for Kij’s book and the minotaur’s head for Earth and Air. Her blog is fascinating and I strongly recommend you take a look at this recent post which shows a piece of art in development.

What else? Lexington, Kentucky, is a city full of fabulous people! (Although flying Delta was a huge mistake. Urk.) More on that later. For now: bees!

Lastly, coming tomorrow: Julie Day posts a new podcast interview with Jennifer Stevenson, author of Trash Sex Magic.

---

Joan Aiken, new Wolves editions

Thu 20 Sep 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., events, Joan Aiken | Comments Off on Joan Aiken, new Wolves editions | Posted by: Gavin

Joan Aiken’s Dido Twite series is celebrating its fiftieth(!) anniversary this year.

There are beautiful new editions coming out in the US and the UK as well as a new audio book, read by Joan’s daughter, Lizza. (You can see all the international editions here!)

There will be events in the USA (at the Bank Street College Auditorium on Oct. 26th) and in the UK (at the Cheltenham Festival, Saturday, October 13.

---

Peter Dickinson’s new book: Free!

Tue 18 Sep 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Free books, Peter Dickinson | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Ch Ch Ch Check it out! 15 copies. Yes, it is US only for postage reasons, sorry. We will do a LibraryThing give away of ebooks which will be international. Good luck!

 

---

Elephants on the website

Mon 17 Sep 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Free reads, LCRW, Thomas Israel Hopkins | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

LCRW may appear next month. We are optimistic. Determined. But we have been all those things before and other deadlines have pushed it aside like a saddle-stitched zine before a three hundred page book, if you get my drift.

SO. While we are considering whether to just publish the next issue of LCRW as a flavor or perhaps a scroll, in the meantime, here is a story, “Elephants of the Platte” by Thomas Israel Hopkins, from a somewhat recent issue, N0. 25, to be precise:

North from New York City up the Hudson; west out the Erie Canal through Utica and Syracuse; transfer at Rochester from a long, thin packet boat to one of the grand old Great Lakes passenger ships across Lake Erie via Cleveland to Toledo; up through Detroit, Lake Saint Clair, and Port Huron; farther north across Lake Huron to Mackinaw City; down the shores of Lake Michigan to Milwaukee and Racine; transfer again at Chicago; down the Tippecanoe to the Wabash to Terre Haute; out through Saint Louis and Kansas City on the Transcontinental Canal along the ruins of Interstate 70; turning up toward Casper and points west on the Nebraska Canal along the ghost map of the old Oregon Trail. The night this happened, that was as far as we’d come.

Read more

---

Great Lakes Cider & Perry Festival

Thu 13 Sep 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Literary Beer | Comments Off on Great Lakes Cider & Perry Festival | Posted by: Michael

Hi all, I’m Michael. If you fit into the same tiny cross-section of sword/pen/pint-slinging we do, maybe you’ve come across Literary Beer, a blog series on homebrewing I used to write for Small Beer Press. Who knows, maybe I’ll write it again. In the meantime, what you need to know about me is that I really, really like cider, mead, cyser, lager, stout, an ancient style of herbed beer known as gruit, tequila, mezcal, bourbon, scotch, and all kinds of weird things in between, and may here subject you to ruminations on any of the above. I hope you enjoy.

I went to the Great Lakes Cider and Perry Festival last weekend. It’s held at Uncle John’s Cider Mill, among the farmlands just north of Lansing, Michigan. I brewed my first batch of Michigan cider, a cyser I bottled in January, with apples from Uncle John’s orchards. This year they lost their entire crop after the freak (read: new normal) 80 degree weather in March. The trees flowered prematurely, then the buds were all killed by frost–a tragedy. Cider made from this year’s crop will come dear, though that won’t stop me. Last year’s crop, anyhow, spent all this year maturing and was present and abundant in all its glory.

My old favorites Farnum Hill, West County and Albemarle were represented. I sampled ciders from Wisconsin, Oregon, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Michigan, Spain, France, the UK. It was awesome.

I got cheery with a British expat cidermaker living in Ohio (that’s him on the right in the silly hat) whose ciders were really satisfying, a classic English style I’d been looking for since I moved out here. Griffin Cider Works is his label–”Burley Man” was my favorite, 7.5-8% alcohol with rich mouthfeel and sweetness to balance.

I tasted a hopped cider from the much-touted Wandering Aengus in Oregon, which I expected to dislike (hops are for beer!) but turned out to be quite a pleasant, gently bitter reprieve from all the sweet and dry.

Maybe the best American cider I tried was a bourbon barrel aged maple cider from Crow’s Hard Cider in Michigan–a single keg made just for this event, not available in stores.

I sampled a whole bunch of Spanish ciders all from one importer, a most eye-opening experience. They were peppery and funky like Belgian farmhouse ales, but light and richly tart, like nothing else I’ve tasted. Of course! Because they’re made from apple varieties I never knew existed. I drool at the thought. I can’t really get excited about wine or hop regions, but something about cider apples does it for me. Comes of once having lived next to Clarkdale Orchards in Deerfield, MA. I will never eat better apples, unless maybe I go to Spain.

For me, there is no buzz so heady as a hard cider buzz. There might be, but I’ll never be able to drink enough champagne to find out.

I hear after the tastings are over, the orchardists and cidermakers hang around until the next morning boozing and talking shop. That sounds like a pretty good time. Maybe next year I’ll try to crash, if there is a next year. I hope so.

Cheers!

---

Peter Dickinson in F&SF; Robert Reddick @ the library

Wed 12 Sep 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kathleen Jennings, Peter Dickinson | Comments Off on Peter Dickinson in F&SF; Robert Reddick @ the library | Posted by: Gavin

How cool is this? Peter Dickinson’s story “Troll Blood” is the above the headline story in F&SF this month. As Gordon points out in the story intro, Peter was last in F&SF in 1955! “Troll Blood” is one of six stories in Peter’s new collection Earth and Air, forthcoming from Big Mouth House. It’s at the printer as I type so it won’t be too long until you can get your hands on it.

Next Saturday, Sept. 15, at 10:30 am one of our fave local authors Robert Redick (have you read The Red Wolf Conspiracy? It’s fab!) is doing a panel this weekend at the Florence library: Writing Fantasy: Reflections on Craft. More info on the Straw Dogs Writers Guild page.

Go read this interview with the one and only Kathleen Jennings by Rowena Cory Daniells. There’s also a giveaway you should enter: “A little ink drawing of a famous quote with a word replaced by “duck” (artist retains right of veto/negotiation on quote, because I don’t have time to draw 14 ducks again – you don’t realise how many ducks that is until you have to draw them, but it is a lot of ducks).”

Top Shelf Comix is having a huge sale.

And that’s it for the open tabs. Ok, there was this crazy NYT story (which I read because I was reading a follow-up story about a restaurant whose owner, Lucy, I worked with nearly 20 years ago(!) in a restaurant in California). The tech story is about a business owner whose CTO apparently tried to start a competing company while still working at the first place, then when he was fired, he tried to take down the company through all the software backdoors he’d built into the system, and when the police, etc., tried to track him down they found he was living off the grid: no taxes filed, no credit cards, etc. Wow.

---

Kij Johnson on tour

Wed 12 Sep 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kij Johnson | Comments Off on Kij Johnson on tour | Posted by: Gavin

This week we’re celebrating readers all over the world enjoy Kij Johnson’s first (print) book of short stories, At the Mouth of the River of Bees, we’re happy to say that Kij is going to be out there doing some readings.

Should you not happen to be in Minneapolis, Lawrence, Salina, or Raleigh, you can listen to Kij chat with Jonathan Strahan and Gary Wolfe on the Coode Street Podcast and with Patrick Hester at SF Signal and later this month on the Writers Voice.

9/14    DreamHaven Books, 2301 East 38th Street, Minneapolis MN 55406
9/18    7 p.m. The Raven, 6 East 7th St., Lawrence, KS, 66044
9/29    7 p.m. Ad Astra Books & Coffee House, 141 N. Santa Fe, Salina, KS 67401
9/26    Writers Voice interview air date
10/9    Quail Ridge Books, Ridgewood Shopping Center, 3522 Wade Avenue, Raleigh, NC

Don’t have the book? We’ve got all your indie acquisition options here:

DRM-free ebook on Weightless

---

« Later Entries — Earlier Entries »