Some Notes on the Belgian School of the Strange by Edward Gauvin

Mon 29 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | 7 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

Some  Notes on the Belgian School of the Strange by Edward Gauvin (translator of Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud’s A Life on Paper: Stories)

Small Beer readers big and little, new and old! I am writing you from rainbound Brussels, which is blustery and trying to decide, despite the waning daylight hours, between a last wet burst of fall and bitter winter. I’d girded myself for a gray year, so days of sudden sunshine both delight and alarm me, for almanacs inform us that annually, Brussels only has a hundred sunny days. In other words, were each sunny day a gold piece, we’d have a finite purse, and every time it’s nice out, I feel a pang, as though some quick-fingered pilferer has slipped a coin out and flung it blithely into the air.

Weather aside, living in this schizoid country is lovely. I came for the weird—specifically, to study the rich tradition of Belgian weird tales—and I’m getting it. Mysteries abound, from the mundane to the confounding. What to ferret out next? I find myself in a garden of forking paths and unearthly pleasures. How odd is it that every major Belgian writer uses at least one if not multiple pen names which are often open secrets in the tiny literary community? Why did mystery writer Georges Simenon, known mainly for creating Inspector Maigret, expressly forbid that his only work of science fiction, a late novelette about creatures of the London mist, ever be reprinted or included in a collection?

The national attachment to the fantastic is formally known as L’École belge de l’étrange, which has been translated over the years as the Belgian School of the Strange, the Bizarre, or the Weird. Although my understanding of it keeps growing and changing, I now think the Belgian fantastic is best thought of less as a school or a movement than a national literary pastime. Although the entire oeuvres of some Belgian writers fall squarely in the field, authors of all genres from all backgrounds—academia, poetry, criticism, crime, mainstream realism, surrealism—seem to recognize it as a tradition and feel compelled to pay it homage with at least one book (often a short story collection) if not several. It’s like a stage you have to go through to really be considered a Belgian writer. Because of the durability, if not the dominance, of the fantastic as a mode of expression, writer and critic Jean-Baptiste Baronian has compared it to the midcentury efflorescence of Argentine fabulists (Borges, Bioy Casares, Ocampo, Cortázar). As he remarks, “Few national literatures in the 20th century have produced in such a short span of time such a pantheon of first rate writers in such a specific and, on the whole, marginal genre.”

Over the next few posts I’d like to share a few authors and finds with you.


Canty (yes he can), Cincos Puntos, more

Sat 27 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Canty (yes he can), Cincos Puntos, more | Posted by: Gavin

Hmm. This was meant to go up a week or two ago!Holiday Cover

Tom Canty made a quiet, almost spooky trailer for M. Rickert’s new collection, Holiday. Which, you know: want! Interesting to see some of the behind the scenes work on the cover. Looks like a great book for  . . . the holidays!

There’s a great article in the El Paso Times on the good Byrds of El Paso, Cincos Puntos who:

“. . . fell in love with the wide-open spaces, the barren desert landscape, living at the base of a mountain, living five minutes from another country, living in a neighborhood with a little bit of everyone, where everyone belongs,” Susie Byrd said. “They fell in love with the confusion of the border, a place American but not quite, a place Mexican but not quite.

Claudia Gonson (of the Magnetic Fields) writes about her reading life on the New York Review blog—they have a good post on a new book about yon lovely design mannie (and his most excellent wife, Frances), Charles Rennie Mackintosh by James Macauley. Ha, added it to my wishlist. Which is more a piece of external memory than anything else. For some odd reason I’m happier adding books there than as To-Read on Goodreads.

No one quite knows why the National Book Awards disses fairy tales. Hope they will stop now that this oddity has been brought to their attention.

From The Atlantic: The 12 Timeless Rules for Making a Good Publication.


Gruit Quest

Fri 26 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 11 Comments | Posted by: Michael

Gruit—beer brewed with herbs instead of hops—is a lost magic art, thrust into obscurity and near-forgotten. But a few noble beer heroes have rediscovered its secret knowledge and now seek to bring its power back to the world. I’m taking up that banner.

Nobody will ever know exactly what real gruit tasted like, because—like the hypothetical wooly mammoth clone—it went extinct and must be resurrected. (Read about gruit’s checkered history in previous Literary Beer entry The Beer of Alchemists and Witches). There are lots of great, well-educated guesses out there, but the real work lies in experimentation: fresh/dry, boiled/not boiled, quantity, volume vs weight vs exposure time, herb flavors/properties/effects—it boggles the mind. The people who succeed at it have the resources and the patience to try again and again until they work out something great. Cambridge Brewing Company’s Weekapaug Gruit, Vermont Brew Pub’s Absinthe Ale and Amherst Brewing Company’s Heather Ale are examples of this. I’m not at their scale—I have to drink the beer in the bottles I have before I can brew more, if you get me.

I have patience. I’ll get there. But it’ll be a quest.

Read more


A world in two bits (second bit) by Vincent McCaffrey

Wed 24 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on A world in two bits (second bit) by Vincent McCaffrey | Posted by: Gavin

A world in two bits (second bit) by Vincent McCaffrey

At nine, I had not yet begun to truly read. Reading, as I am calling it, is a sole pursuit of the contents of books. Of course, I’d learned about Dick and Jane in the first grade along with everyone else.

I had, however, already been initiated into that cult of worshipers who poured over the pages of latest EC comics and Mad magazine during lunch breaks at school. We collected in tight knots outside the Smoke Shoppe to read any new issue just delivered. I might not have appreciated the subtler themes that were current in the EC’s, but there was no missing the broader wit in Mad. And at the price of a quarter, my recent foray into the crab business had given me the wherewithal to be the kid at the center of the knot.

But my popularity was short lived. Read more


The Fragments of Desire by Kathe Koja

Tue 23 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on The Fragments of Desire by Kathe Koja | Posted by: Gavin

The Fragments of Desire by Kathe Koja

All my work is done on little scraps of paper—you can see them here on the New Yorker Book Blog if you like, some of the notes that eventually became Under the Poppy.

They were written on blow-in cards, on random sticky notes, on ripped corners of ruled blue-lined notebook paper; they come from wherever such fragments originate, which is to say the ether, which is to say no one knows; or I don’t, anyway. When they come, I write them down—I try never to be without something to write on and with—and I tuck them away, and there they stay, accumulating, breathing in and out, becoming or not-becoming; not every scrap is used, not every idea comes to fruition, not every really juicy gorgeous line that pops into the mind can, alas, ever make it to the page. (Sometimes whole novels are written that never see the light of day, but that’s another story altogether, and besides, the wench is dead.)

This is not a method of creation I ever consciously adopted: like the ideas themselves, the notes, it just came out of that ether and I found that it worked, so I kept on doing it. My writing process is mostly uninvestigated by me; the unexamined life sometimes is worth living, especially if you’re worried that you might really screw something up by peeking once too often under the hood. So much of what I do when I work is done by instinct, by feeling my way through the dark, the way your hand gropes in that kitchen junk drawer for the sideways screwdriver or antique spool of thread or whatever-it-is you’re hunting: your fingers know it when they feel it, you don’t need your eyes to see.

The mighty stream of creational consciousness floats many a fictional boat, and my own little castaway raft is happy riding the tides, crashing into this and that, plucking some things rich and strange and some things intriguing but unusable and some things abandoned over the side again, with regret or without. Every book I’ve ever written has its discard file, and Under the Poppy‘s got a whopper, but many of those discards have offshoots that are usable, and others, though not germane, are still reflections of what in the end became essential. Like the life it hopes to mirror, so much of what matters in fiction is invisible, just sitting there off to the side, tucked sideways into a folder, the curled-up end of an unsticky sticky note on which is written a name, a line of dialogue, a fragment of sober research, something that lives in unbodied desire until a reader and a writer together make it real.

Previously:

That Corset


Interrupting our regular schedule by Karen Joy Fowler

Mon 22 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Interrupting our regular schedule by Karen Joy Fowler | Posted by: Gavin

Interrupting our regular schedule . . .
Karen Joy Fowler

I am traveling in a different time zone and unable to sleep. So I logged on just now and got the very unwelcome news that Chalmers Johnson has died. Though Johnson had a long career and thousands of students, I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been among that great number. In 1969 or 70, or maybe 72, I took a class on Chinese history and politics from him at Berkeley. (I loved history. Not so good with dates.)

A while back, I emailed him, because it seemed to me, when a professor remains so vivid in your mind for almost forty years, you should tell him. We then had several wonderful email exchanges. I’m trying to remember you, he said, which was kind, but futile. There were more than a hundred students in my class alone. I sat in the back and didn’t say a word. I’d have been astonished if he remembered me the next quarter, much less decades later.

Back in the 60’s, Dr. Johnson had little sympathy for the student activists, of which I was one. This was troubling as he was so much smarter than I. In those later emails, he said that because the activists had so much wrong about Vietnam, he was distracted from how much they had right about the US. Maybe six years ago, I turned on Air America and heard his familiar cadences on the Al Franken show. He was in full and glorious lecture mode and obviously too far to the left to quite suit Franken. I had an odd sense of enormous pride as I listened.

I trust there will be many now to speak to his brilliance, his scholarship, and his cogently pessimistic assessment of US democracy. So I will say something else as my own memorial: man, could he tell a story! He was as entertaining a teacher as he was inspiring. My time with him was brief, but the impact deep. I can’t help thinking that his was not a voice we could afford just now to lose.

Rest in peace.

Previous posts:

What I See
What I See, pt 2


This week

Mon 22 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on This week | Posted by: Gavin

Apple pie

Happy Thanksgiving week—at least for those here in the US. Canadians gave thanks last month and everyone else thinks two winter holidays a month apart are daft, unless one of them involves flying off somewhere sunny.

But we here at Small Beer are thankful to be alive (better than the alternative!), healthy, incredibly appreciative of all the help we’ve received this past year (or two), and looking forward to mashed potatoes, yams, cranberry sauce, roasted brussel sprouts, stuffing, and about 6 other “sides” before pie and pie and pie.

And we’re also thankful to be able to take part in this grand experiment we call . . . literacy(!) with one and all. Thanks indeed for reading: whether it be in the bath, up a tree, in bed, in space, under the covers, on the couch, or on the bus—but, please, not while driving!

Also: Some of our books have reduced prices to celebrate the holidays! Don’t forget, US & Canadian shipping is free!

We have great posts coming up this week (besides all those on the LCRW esubs thing, he flogged) from guest authors including:

» Karen Joy Fowler, who interrupts her regular posts because:

I am traveling in a different time zone and unable to sleep. So I, logged on just now and got the very unwelcome news that Chalmers Johnson has died. . . .

» Michael J. DeLuca gets back on the Literary Beer horse (as it were) and begins a Gruit Quest:

(1) save money on hops, (2) save carbon footprint by not having ingredients shipped to me from Germany and New Zealand, (3) live in the aesthetic spirit and tradition of the Frugal Housewife, the thrifty carpenter, the lowly serf, and yes, even the maligned and misunderstood witch, and (4) discover amazing new/old beer experiences to expand the mind and cast the palate back to a lost golden age. . . .

» Vincent McCaffrey, who was telling us about reading Moby Dick the other day, goes back a few years and says:

I had been initiated into that cult of worshipers who poured over the pages of latest EC comics and Mad magazine during lunch breaks at school. . . .

» Kathe Koja returns with “The Fragments of Desire”

Sometimes whole novels are written that never see the, light of day, but that’s another story altogether, and besides, the wench is, dead. . . .

» Karen Lord discovered with a friend that:

we discovered a mutual dislike for a particular staple of science fiction and fantasy—the multivolume opus. . . .

Elsewhere, it’s Holly Black week! And, the last day to get your tix for the Carl Brandon Society ereaders.

With more TK TK TK. Happy days!


LCRW 26 goes out into the world

Fri 19 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on LCRW 26 goes out into the world | Posted by: Gavin

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 26 coverWord in Western Mass is that about a million copies of LCRW 26 were shipped out the other day. However, the chocolate bars (and contributor checks!) were held up (as in delayed, not bandit’d away) in Boston and won’t be in Easthampton until next week, darn it. So chocolate will come soonish rather than soon. Maybe it will be all the sweeter?

Out it goes: tell us what you think!


Mountains Beyond Mountains

Fri 19 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Mountains Beyond Mountains | Posted by: Gavin

Goodreads has added (maybe it was there all along, who knows?) a thing making it easy to post reviews to other sites. So here’s a book I read recently and thought anyone reading this might enjoy:

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder
5/5 stars

This book has come in and out of our house a couple of times in the last few years and for some reason I never got down to reading it. Which is silly as I think Partners in Health (PIH) is one of the most excellent organizations around. So at some point I picked it up and it was as good as promised. It was fascinating to see how long Tracy Kidder followed Paul Farmer et al around. Sometimes the book was like peeking over PIH’s shoulder into the behind-the-scenes work that’s never shown in the glossy emails (that doesn’t sound right but it gives the right feel I get from some nonprofits’ emails) and print materials.

Reading about Farmer in action, on the plane in his rumpled suit, negotiating with the World Health Organization, working at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, hiking to patients in Haiti, and much more, was humbling. Looking at PIH’s latest updates they recently opened the first NICU in Haiti—where they’re working on the cholera epidemic, too—and they are working in Rwanda, Russia, Lesotho, Haiti, here in Boston, Mexico, Guatemala, Malawi, and Burundi. Farmer must be flying a lot more these days.

This is an excellent read from the Farmer family’s peripatetic beginnings to the inner workings and difficult choices that any organization must face. Read, pass it on.

View all my reviews


Award Season: World Fantasy Award winners

Thu 18 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Award Season: World Fantasy Award winners | Posted by: Gavin

Catching up on my ongoing simple male/female count of nominees and winners of awards. First, congratulations to the winners of the of the World Fantasy Awards—especially of course Karen Joy Fowler whose story “The Pelican Bar” received the award.

The awards went 5:4, men to women, but the Life Achievement awards went to 3 guys meaning the final count was:

8 men
4 women

  • 8 USA
  • 1 UK
  • 2 Australia
  • 1 Russia

Of note: there were no women nominees in the art category. Please consider nominating women artists next year either directly to the judges or by voting. Although I’m not suggesting voting in blocks as they are horribly obvious and no fun.

There was one woman (Kelly!) on the jury this year. In the last ten years the jury makeup has been:

15 women, 35 men

2010: 1 woman, 4 men
2009: 3 women, 2 men
2008: 5 men
2007: 5 men
2006: 2 women, 3 men
2005: 2 women, 3 men
2004: 1 woman, 4 men
2003: 2 women, 3 men
2002: 2 women, 3 men
2001: 2 women, 3 men


My two bit universe by Vincent McCaffrey

Thu 18 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on My two bit universe by Vincent McCaffrey | Posted by: Gavin

My two bit universe (first bit) by Vincent McCaffrey

It was possible to sell a blue crab or buy a paperback book for a quarter in 1956. And thus my reading career began.

We lived then in a modern (as in antiseptic and geometric) brick apartment complex in Beechhurst, just where the East River meets the Long Island Sound. Across the street, where a wonderful primal wood had lingered long beyond anything else of its kind in that densely populated suburb of New York City, was a place where I had watched bats twirl in the sky over the remains of a great estate while hidden in the enfolding roots of giant oaks, and held the fortress of a fallen gatehouse against the fury of thousands upon millions of snowballs. Read more


December deadlines

Thu 18 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2010 cover - click to view full sizeHere are a few December deadlines from A Working Writer’s Daily Calendar 2010—which will very soon now be superseded by the 2011 edition. We posted a few deadlines a couple of weeks ago. There’s also a free preview of January 2011 from the next edition on Scribd. We’ll be posting other useful parts of the Planner as the year comes to an end.

Read more


The Importance of Being Ernest by Vincent McCaffrey

Wed 17 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on The Importance of Being Ernest by Vincent McCaffrey | Posted by: Gavin

The Importance of Being Ernest by Vincent McCaffrey

I sell books for a living today, as I have for most all of my adult life. This has often seemed to me to be destined. A sort of cosmic joke. A perfect example of ‘Be careful of what you wish for.’

As a boy, I wanted to be a writer. Selling the books of the writers I loved seemed quite natural.

Having suddenly begun to read at the age of nine, I became a ‘bookworm,’ in my mother’s phrase, and ruined my eyes by the time I was twelve. Reports of other and possibly better means for doing this reached my ears belatedly.

I admit that my opinions of literature were formed alone and without proper guidance. Given the sheer quantities I read, I might even have been some sort of scholar, had I followed the advice so often offered by others who clearly knew better. But by then I wasn’t listening to anyone who couldn’t write. Read more


What I See, part 2 by Karen Joy Fowler

Tue 16 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on What I See, part 2 by Karen Joy Fowler | Posted by: Gavin

What I See, part 2 by Karen Joy Fowler

There is one cove along the cliffs of my morning walk where all the loose seaweed washes up. On one side of the street are million+ dollar homes, homes with an ocean view. On the other and down a flight of stone stairs, a great heap of bugs and rotting seaweed. In the summer you can smell this for blocks. Homes with an ocean smell.

Of course, this is the one beach in town that allows dogs off-leash. My dog (Mojito, commonly known as MJ) and I go there lots. MJ has just turned ten. We used to think that she was a good dog, but when she grew up, settled just a little, she’d be a really great dog. Maybe this is the year that happens. Fingers crossed.

At the top of the stairs, when I unclip the leash we both feel a great leap of spirits. Freedom! She can wander at will. No more being dragged along so fast you can’t stop and smell the piss. Me, too! No more stopping at every tree and fencepost. I can swing my arms.

It’s all spoiled at the bottom of the stairs. I have long ago resigned myself to the fact that we will have to pick our way through mounds of rot to get to the sand. (There is a metaphor there for writing books. The physical world is full of such metaphors. You can’t avoid them. One reason of many why scene is so affective in literature.) Yet I am continually disappointed when MJ decides to drop and roll. Somewhere there is a freedom that does not require an immediate and sullen bath. Someday we’ll find it together, MJ and I.

Another notable feature of the dog beach is a long cement wall. Not a retaining wall, or at least I don’t think so, since it runs perpendicular to the waves. I really can’t guess what it’s there for. But this wall is high enough, maybe four feet, that I sometimes have difficulty scrambling over it.

Here’s the amazing part, though. Sometimes it isn’t there at all. Sometimes the sands have shifted so much you would never know there was wall beneath you. (And see? We’ve hit another metaphor. Pay no attention; just go about your business. It’s more frightened of you than you are of it.)

Previously


The Whale in the Room by Vincent McCaffrey

Tue 16 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

The Whale in the Room by Vincent McCaffrey

In my junior year of high school, in 1964, I opted to read Moby Dick as part of my discretionary reading. It was a bit of grandstanding, in fact. I thought I had already read it a year or two before and would use it to impress my teacher and squeeze out a higher mark. I promptly went down to Anderson’s Bookshop in Larchmont and looked around for a copy. What I found there was a humongously fat Signet paperback. I asked the forbearing woman who usually worked the counter what was wrong with it. Where was the ‘regular’ edition I had previously read? She was totally mystified by my objection. She sputtered. She looked at me hopelessly. She shook her head and said, “Looks fine to me.”

A small gathering of patrons encircled us, each offering comments of their own as they in turn took the chunky volume and fanned through the pages. I remember one who helpfully offered the added information that this copy lacked a glossary. It was actually too short. I should buy an edition with a glossary so that I could look up the meaning of unusual words. Under their scrutiny, I could not admit that I had believed it was a much shorter work to begin with. Already committed, I took the advice offered and bought an edition with a glossary.

On the way home that day I stopped at the public library and found the version—the exact volume—that I had read before. It was in fact shorter. It was edited. Abridged. All of the parts of the great book which did not further the immediate advancement of plot, as well as all the too difficult words, were removed. No comic irony. No allegory. No religious metaphor. No slicing of the whale flesh “as thin as Bible-leaves.”

Read more


That Corset by Kathe Koja

Mon 15 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on That Corset by Kathe Koja | Posted by: Gavin

That Corset by Kathe Koja

People—readers—always like to know about the research that goes into a novel, and especially, I’m finding, a historical novel. Gaslight, weevils, laudanum—the appetite is brisk for details, which makes perfect sense, as one of the reasons we read of another time is to experience it for ourselves. Throw some puppets into the mix, rude and bawdy and (somewhat-) anatomically correct puppets, and the questions become more saucy, but the main one usually boils down to “ARE there such creatures in what we like to call the real world?” Well, given the human race’s ingenuity and reputation for making everything into a sex toy (cf the Internet), the answer would have to be Yes. For one of the odder examples I found, check this out.

Read more


What I See by Karen Joy Fowler

Mon 15 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

What I See by Karen Joy Fowler

Over the vast expanse of my life so far, I’ve made many attempts to keep a diary. None of them have lasted long. Neither will this one.

But I had a big birthday this year, sixty years on this earth and counting, which prompted a number of sober reflections. Prominent among them was a concern that I have stopped paying attention to the physical world around me. I won’t be here forever. So I should be here.

I used to leave the camera at home when I traveled. I felt it got in the way of the actual experience. Now when I travel, I’m on the web as often as not. When I have to stand in line somewhere, I read a book. Most mornings I take a long walk on a cliff-top path with the ocean below. I’m dimly aware that I’m walking through a place of great beauty. Also activity!  There are surfers and pelicans, sea otters and dolphins, joggers and street people. There are dogs. (I myself am on a leash.) But I am walking briskly, for the exercise, and my ipod is setting the pace so I don’t hear the water or the birds or the cars or the bicyclist who’s desperately honking to get past.

Often I don’t even hear the music. I use the time to think. Which, don’t get me wrong, is a very good use of time. I just don’t want thinking to be the only thing I do.

I want to establish the habit of paying attention and I figure if I’ve promised to post what I see, then I’ll have to manage to see something. Just one thing! Starting tomorrow. How hard can it be?


Today: Karen Joy Fowler and Kathe Koja

Mon 15 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Today: Karen Joy Fowler and Kathe Koja | Posted by: Gavin

As promised the other day, we’re going to be featuring quite a few of writers here on ye olde website over the next couple of weeks. We’re not starting with a schedule—although maybe we’ll end up with one if we have to. Monday: Writer A! Tuesday: Writer B! Wednesday: where the heck has writer C gone? Eek!

We’ll post as we receive stuff (although if Howard is going to write us letters which we have to retype we might be a little slower with that) which might mean 4 posts on one day and nothing for a couple more days but it should keep things lively.

Things off today with a post each from Kathe Koja (who’ll be reading at KGB Bar in New York City this week) and Karen Joy Fowler on puppets, corsets, and seeing the world!


Alasdair Gray in Edinburgh

Fri 12 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Alasdair Gray in Edinburgh | Posted by: Gavin

Over in the UK Alasdair Gray‘s star is really shining. There are exhibits, new books, new projects, he has a ton of stuff going on. Pity he doesn’t like air travel or we could get him over here. Here’s a short vid about a fabulous looking exhibition in Edinburgh. I wish I could see it (not likely!) but at least there’s this. It is amazing to see the size and detail in some of those prints:


LCRW the next

Thu 11 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on LCRW the next | Posted by: Gavin

Stories of Your Life and OthersLCRW 26 is at the printer. At some point soon we will have a mailing party. You bring the envelope-stuffing ability, we’ll bring the tea and biscuits and zines. (Also: added more subscription options.)

Meanwhile we just contacted five writers with variations on this email: Your Story Is Lovely! We would like to publish it (but not until next year). Sorry it took us so long to get back to you (since the stories were sent in January/February/July/September!). Much reading still to be done.

Also just sent another DMCA takedown notice—why is Ted Chiang’s book so popular with pirates? Sure, it’s excellent and was out of print for a while but now it’s available in all kinds of formats.

Then I posted on a free ebook trading site asking people not to add our books. So depressing and a little silly to post but I think it’s worthwhile now and then. I don’t think every illegal download is a lost sale (and I understand that readers abroad might have trouble getting their hands on books they want) but we try and go the extra mile to make our books available everywhere. Oh well.

Later today I’m hoping to take Ursula out for a walk. I was hoping to make it to a war memorial for Veterans/Remembrance Day but since I can’t drive with her in the car alone (there needs to be 2 people with her in a car) maybe we will just go to a local cemetery and have a wander. Right now she is fighting off 2 therapists and a nurse. Strong kid.

https://smallbeerpress.com/shopping/subscriptions/

We’ll send you a book if

Thu 11 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | 4 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

you post a pic of Under the Poppy in a Borders bookstore!


Saturday: online with Karen Joy Fowler

Wed 10 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Saturday: online with Karen Joy Fowler | Posted by: Gavin

Just got a notice about an interesting-sounding online event this Saturday: What I Didn’t See and Other Stories cover

This Saturday, Nov. 13, at 10:15 a.m. Pacific, Catherine Brady and Karen Joy Fowler will join Elizabeth Stark in the Book Writing World for an online conversation, and you are invited to attend and to bring your writing questions to these two brilliant, generous experts.

This is free and open to the public, but you do need to register here, now, for free.

You’ll connect through your computer and will be able both to see the authors and talk with them. (Calling in is an option; details will be sent after you register and before the event.)


Coming soon

Mon 8 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Coming soon | Posted by: Gavin

Lots of our writers will be writing right here. Well, not in this post, but in others: minty fresh new posts all of their own. Unless they want to interview someone/s, in which posts they will share the freshness around.

Who? When? What? Where?

Not telling! But the how is: they email us, we post them! Look for interesting things happening . . . soonish!


November deadlines

Mon 8 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on November deadlines | Posted by: Gavin

A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2010 cover - click to view full sizeHey, it’s NaNoWriMo—good luck to you if you’re at it!

For the poets our there, here are a few November deadlines from A Working Writer’s Daily Calendar 2010—soon to be superseded by the 2011 edition. We’ll post a few more deadlines in December and we will also be posting other useful parts of the Planner as the year comes to an end.

November 15: The Yale Series of Younger Poets
The Yale Series of Younger Poets champions the most promising new American poets. Awarded since 1919, the Yale Younger Poets prize is the oldest annual literary award in the United States. Past winners include Muriel Rukeyser, Adrienne Rich, William Meredith, W.S. Merwin, John Ashbery, John Hollander, James Tate, and Carolyn Forché. Louise Glück is the current judge of the Series.
Prize: publication.
Eligibility: An American citizen under forty years of age who has not published a book of poetry.
Manuscript: Between 48–64 numbered pages. See website for full guidelines.
Fee: $15 made out to Yale University Press.
Yale Series of Younger Poets, P.O. Box 209040, New Haven, CT 06520-9040

November 15: Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award
Prize: $1,000 + publication in Measure: An Annual Review of Formal Poetry
Eligibility: Sonnets must be original and unpublished.
Manuscript: Author’s name, address, phone number, and email (if available) should be typed on the back of each entry.
Check website for any updated information.
Fee: $3 per sonnet made payable to The Formalist.
Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, The Formalist, 320 Hunter Drive, Evansville, IN 47711

November 30: Academy of American Poets
The Academy offers several awards including the James Laughlin Award of $5,000 for an author’s second book of poetry and the Walt Whitman Award of $5,000 and a one-month residency for first book of poetry.
The Academy of American Poets, 588 Broadway, Suite 123, New York, NY 10012. 212-274-0343


George Takei says

Thu 4 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on George Takei says | Posted by: Gavin

My teenage years were a great thing to have lived through, but not a great thing to live.

George Takei: thanks for this.


Amazon

Thu 4 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Amazon | Posted by: Gavin

Best Books of 2010gets a jump on everyone else and says Redemption in Indigo is one of the:

Best Books of 2010

Top 10 Books: Science Fiction & Fantasy

Yay!

Redemption in Indigo cover - click to view full sizeNice to see Brian Conn’s The Fixed Stars on there, too. And it’s fun to compare the 2010 bestseller list (wonder if that will change over the next 2 months?) with the editors’ picks. No crossover but I love that Machine of Death made it on there. This is the one time of year we put up Amazon links and any purchases you make through these links will benefit the Endicott Studio.

Of course we have our own Holiday Best Books List. Cough.


Reading, listen to Kathe, go see Karen

Wed 3 Nov 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , , | Comments Off on Reading, listen to Kathe, go see Karen | Posted by: Gavin

What up? Many things. Visitors, busyness, to and froings in the oncoming weeks. The permanence of change. Catch up, link dump, tab closer, recent reads and more:

A few books are appearing which you may enjoy: Ray Vukcevich‘s new collection Boarding Instructions is just out. Go get from Powells.

Also to get: Sarah Smith‘s first YA novel which is out this week: The Other Side of Dark. It’s about ghosts, treasure, and two teenagers and life, art, madness, love, and more and it’s set it this here fair city of Boston.

One of our great local-ish bookshops, Food for Thought in Amherst—one of those places that just makes you happy to walk into—is in a moneycrunch. If you did you next book buy here, it would be much appreciated. Biased suggestions for starting places: Under the Poppy, Stories of Your Life, What I Didn’t See, The Poison Eaters, Meeks. And, as of this writing, these books are all in stock: what an awesome place!

Another non-local fave bookshop is Subterranean in St. Louis and there’s a lovely little piece in the local student paper about it. They have signed copies in stock of a certain 1,000 page McSweeney’s brick as well as excellent Africa-supporting lit-shirts. It’s a lovely shop from which we walked away with a nice bagful of books. (via)

Really enjoyed the current issue of the Harvard Review. Got it because Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud has a story in it but there were a couple of excellent stories and essays as well as a good range of poetry in it.

Jay Baron Nicorvo has an excellent essay about re-roofing the family house with his two teenage brothers on Guernica.

Apex just published a special Arab/Muslim themed edition.

Chocolate: want. (Difficult to acquire as $$$ and in the UK.) Next time we do have $$$ to burn, maybe we will play fill-a-box-o-chocs here.

How does a book signed by Betty Ann Hull, Fred Pohl, and Gene Wolfe sound? Sounds good!

Thanks to Susan for this. Go read, but not while eating cake.

And Congratulations to Susan and to Niall: we love Strange Horizons and are both selfishly sad and very happy to hear about the transition.

Awards: John Kessel‘s story “The Invisible Empire” received an Ignotus Award, “Spain’s equivalent to the Hugo.” (via)

More on the World Fantasy Awards at some point soon. Mostly: yay!

Reviews. What?

Belletrista looks at What I Didn’t See and likes what they see, “Fowler’s stories are gripping and surprising, with multiple pleasures awaiting the reader.” The San Francisco Chronicle also published a good review: “Fowler understands how disappearances heighten suspense. And she’s equally skilled at weaving mystery from the unknown.”

Karen’s final reading of her mini-California tour is this Friday at 7 PM at Vroman’s in Pasadena.

Under?

One of our fave bloggers, The Rejectionist, read Under the Poppy and calls it a winner at Tor.com.

You can see Kathe read in Ann Arbor next Wednesday night at the Blackbird Theatre where there will be delightful and scary sexy puppets. Thanks to Scott Edelman (having more than either of us right now) you can also see her reading on the youtubes. More on those readings TK.

Great review also in the Ann Arbor Chronicle—and Kathe’s on WCBN Ann Arbor radio today at 4:30 PM—listen here.

Life?

A couple of readers discover Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others for the first time. The sound of their heads exploding echoes through the intertubes. 1) Ed Park @ the LA Times [“patient but ruthless fascination with the limits of knowledge.”] 2) Dreams & Speculations 3) Stefan @ Fantasy Literature.


A Life in Pictures

Wed 27 Oct 2010 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on A Life in Pictures | Posted by: Gavin

A Life in PicturesIt’s been a huge week for Alasdair Gray—in more ways than one.

A new book of his art, A Life in Pictures, has come out (can’t wait to get a copy), there’s an exhibition of sketches from the book in Edinburgh, and it was announced that Gray will be creating a mural in one of Glasgow’s subway stations “based the on the panaromic view of Hillhead used in an illustration for his novel, Old Men in Love.” You can see a clip of him on the Scottish news here.

If you’re in Glasgow (hello Ross!) don’t miss Irregular, a night at Oran Mor with:

Alasdair Gray, Liz Lochhead, Louise Welsh and David Shrigley. Music from Roddy Woomble, Lord Cut-Glass and My Latest Novel.

Would that we could go!

The Graniaud has a lovely slideshow of a few pieces of Gray’s art as well as Gray writing on three different pieces of art and how they came about.

Old Men in Love is a huge patchwork novel with three narrative strands and an absolutely fascinating interstitial story. It was without a doubt one of the most complicated books we’ve ever published. It’s in two colors (colours, really), throughout, and includes three double page plates like the one of Hillhead mentioned above. You can preview the book on Scribd and get your copy here.


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