One Week to OKPsyche

Thu 7 Sep 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Anya DeNiro, readings | Comments Off on One Week to OKPsyche | Posted by: Gavin

Come out Twin Cities — or, order your signed/personalized copy from Moon Palace:

One week tonight: Anya Johanna DeNiro launches her new novel, OKPsyche

9/14/23 6 p.m.

Moon Palace Books (FB)
3032 Minnehaha Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 55406

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Old House of Fear

Wed 6 Sep 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., bodies, Long Covid, meh | Comments Off on Old House of Fear | Posted by: Gavin

Yesterday was a wash. After I put together breakfast for me and the kid, I had a health crash. It wasn’t hospital level, happily, rather one where, lying on the couch as per usual, I wanted needed to lie down. I was lying down but I need to lie down more. I had the smallest pillow under my head and it was a too much to bear.

In the morning my ambitions for the day had included a little light laptop work, making lunch, maybe even dinner, playing a video game, doing some dishes, skimming Bluesky, taking the dog for a short night walk. So all of those things fell to Kelly as I felt the squeeze of the air above me crush me down further. ~15 lbs of air above me was too heavy but there was nowhere to go.

The day improved slowly. I did as close to nothing as I could. That was easy during the first part where staring at the ceiling took everything I had. As time went by and I slowly (metaphorically) crawled back to my new norm, I realized I’d achieved the zen state of no thoughts. Zen-like, this made me neither happy nor unhappy.

Today I’m again on the couch, no different from the last eighteen months and my plans today are on the simpler end.

I’m attributing yesterday’s crash to Post-Exertional Malaise, a term I did not know before December 2021. On Sunday and Monday we had friends visit. They all tested — for which I am very grateful — and I did very little. While I was never a great host, now I am quite terrible. Someone else — Kelly — has to take care of welcomes and drinks and snacks and comfort and conversation and so on. Instead I sat half-slumped trying to be as near horizontal as was polite (ha, silly me, just give up and lie down) and to use as little energy as possible even as I was still delighted to see people (and dogs!). I did very little and removed myself from company after a little while and apparently it was all still too much.

So: no events, no conferences, no parties, no book fairs, no nothing that is just even the littlest bit interesting for a while yet more for me.

Hilariously I’d been meant to see my doctor last week. They cancelled it. I got a new last minute appointment for this Friday. Yesterday they called: and cancelled it. Maybe they’ll call me to re-arrange. I don’t have the energy.

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What I’d wanted to write about this past weekend — instead of about this mushy piece of flesh attempting to pass itself off as a body — was a book I’d been reading: Russell Kirk’s Old House of Fear.

My mother died two years ago and in the run up to her anniversary I decided to read one of the books she’d included in a late-in-life reading journal. My mother loved books as much as anyone I know, although our tastes did not particularly align. However the books she recommended to me, siblings, extended friends, and family, were quite often a good fit. I also loved that she did not care one whit about condition or edition. A rare, signed first edition hardcover was the same book to her as an ex-library charity shop find. The story mattered, the particular book did not.

I’ve read and enjoyed all the books she’d recommended to me over the years and what fascinated me about these Russell Kirk books was their uncanny nature. She’d told me she loved Dennis Wheatley when she was young but her recent favorites included Dorothy Dunnett and Anthony Trollope — she was delighted to have found and read every book Trollope published. Kirk sounds like someone my mother would have argued with — she was religious but still a humanist. Now that I’ve read Old House of Fear, however, I can see why she had listed it. Or, without being able to ask, I think I can.

The novel is set and was written in 1960 and published in 1961 and begins along the same lines as the film Local Hero: an American employee of a large firm is sent to Scotland to try and buy some land, here an island off the north coast. The novel quickly moves into John Buchan territory, with no one quite as they seem and strange events and behaviors, and then there are the stories within the story. Fair warning to readers, it is a novel of its time and while it doesn’t have some of the worst markers of the time the attitudes are sometimes rank.

If you read this edition, I definitely recommend leaving the introduction until you’ve finished the book — the writer says there are some great covers on the pulp editions. And if possible, read the book late at night. Even better if the wind is high and there are branches scraping at the window and you’re not quite sure there are any branches near enough the window to make that noise.

So that’s more writing than I meant to do and I’m stopping here before writing more about the book. Do tell me if you’ve read it or recommend more Kirk. I haven’t looked for the other 2 on my mother’s list.

Now it’s time for me to put my computer aside and take a break. We have a book out next week, so maybe I can do some last minute work on that. Maybe not. I am definitely not able to do as much work, Small Beer or otherwise, as in the past. So any help spreading the word about these new books is always appreciated.

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New Flier

Fri 1 Sep 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on New Flier | Posted by: Gavin

Admin for me: added our new flier to the catalogs page where anyone who ever wants can download more Small Beer fliers than anyone would ever need.

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Give it a look!

Wed 30 Aug 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Angelica Gorodischer, Shelf Awareness | Comments Off on Give it a look! | Posted by: Gavin

I was enjoying an author interview in Shelf Awareness this rainy morning when I was brought up short to see SL Huang is an evangelist for Kalpa Imperial. Now that is a way to wake up!

Shelf Awareness: Book you’re an evangelist for:

SL Huang: Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire that Never Was is one of the books I’m constantly hyping that I feel like so much of SFF has slept on! It’s by Argentinian author Angélica Gorodischer, and the translation from Spanish was done by Ursula K. Le Guin. And it is stunning.

It also exemplifies a lot of unusual things, craft-wise, that are highly unusual elsewhere: a fantasy world with no magic, a book made up of interconnected short stories, a book that takes place over many generations and many thousands of years. Give it a look!

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Second Starred Review

Mon 28 Aug 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kij Johnson, starred review | Comments Off on Second Starred Review | Posted by: Gavin

Kij Johnson just put a line through an item on her bucket list: The Privilege of the Happy Ending has received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews — great news, especially following the first starred review the book received from Publishers Weekly.

After the great popularity of At the Mouth of the River of Bees, we’re changing things up a bit and splitting the run on this book so that we will have some hardcovers available.

Here’s an excerpt from the review or read the whole thing on Kirkus’s site.

★ “While the entries are uniformly excellent in pacing and prose, the standouts may be the collection’s opener and closer. ‘Tool-Using Mimics’ spins out a half-dozen explanations for a vintage photo of a young girl with tentacles that lead to piercing questions about how much we can know about the past, other species, and each other. The titular novella, which also won a World Fantasy Award, is a compelling fairy tale about a little orphan girl and her talking hen that poignantly interrogates the ways we determine which stories take center stage. A strange and glimmering jewel for any genre fiction collection.”

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Anya, Prairie Lights, 10/27

Fri 25 Aug 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Anya DeNiro, bookshops, events, readings | Comments Off on Anya, Prairie Lights, 10/27 | Posted by: Gavin

We’ve just confirmed another event for Anya Johanna DeNiro’s OKPsyche this one in October at the justifiably famed and lovely Prairie Lights in Iowa City.

How great is the reading series? Tonight’s reading is kind of a stunner: National Book Award finalist Jamel Brinkley reading from his new short story collection, Witness, and then in conversation with Carmen Maria Machado. Check out the rest here.

More details to come as we get closer but for now set your landyacht’s autodrive calendar to Iowa City for 7 p.m., October 27th, and plan on arriving in time to browse those shelves.

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SBP on Audio

Mon 21 Aug 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., audio books | Comments Off on SBP on Audio | Posted by: Gavin

I had fun finding Small Beer audiobooks for this new list I put together for Book Moon on LibroFM — get 2 audiobook credits for US$15 with your first month of membership . . .

There are a few audiobooks only available on Am*zon as I sold half a dozen books to them 10 years ago. One of them has earned out, so it was a good deal for the authors!, but meh to the limited availability.

 

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Slowly, Slowly

Thu 17 Aug 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Slowly, Slowly | Posted by: Gavin

Not even a cover yet, but I’m moving LCRW 47 slowly along the road to publication. Phew.

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Starred Booklist Review

Mon 14 Aug 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Anya DeNiro | Comments Off on Starred Booklist Review | Posted by: Gavin

Anya Johanna DeNiro’s forthcoming OKPsyche is a short but powerful novel that just garnered a starred review from Booklist:

“DeNiro’s novel is a lyrical, emotionally powerful story about what it means to try and find a place for yourself in the midst of a hurricane of climate disaster, violence, and fear. It’s a story told through weird, ghostly, haunting fantasy. Fans of enigmatic speculative fiction like Our Wives Under the Sea, by Julia Armfield (2022), will enjoy this tale of queer parenthood, of the reality of the sharp fear of trans lives, and of complicated self-discovery.”

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A Butner, A Wexler, 2 LCRWs

Mon 14 Aug 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Awards | Comments Off on A Butner, A Wexler, 2 LCRWs | Posted by: Gavin

I should have noted Kelly and I are on the World Fantasy Award ballot under “special award – professional.” Since this is for 2022, it can be taken that the jurors very much enjoyed Richard Butner’s collection The Adventurists and Robert Freeman Wexler’s novel The Silverberg Business, and maybe also the paperback reprint of John Crowley’s And Go Like This and perhaps, too, LCRW 45 & 46. For the curious, you can read an excerpt from The Silverberg Business on Lithub and Butner’s nearish title story “Adventure” on The Deadlands. Congratulations to all the finalists!

Sorry to say we won’t be at the convention, especially irritating to me as Kij Johnson is one of the guests of honor — along with Jonathan Strahan and Tananarive Due, ach — and her new collection, The Privilege of the Happy Ending, will be coming out that week. Oh well! I’ll send along books for the book bag and try my best to ensure there will be copies there.

 

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Boundary-Pushing Wow

Fri 4 Aug 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kij Johnson, starred review | Comments Off on Boundary-Pushing Wow | Posted by: Gavin

We just got the proofs from the printer for Kij Johnson’s forthcoming second collection, The Privilege of the Happy Ending: Small, Medium, and Large Stories. We’re going to do a short hardcover run along with the regular trade paper edition, so it was fun to design a jacket extending out from Sophia Uceda’s lovely cover art. Proofs are always a two-edged sword though as I hope not to find any errors as that would slow up production even as at the same time I hope I do find any remaining errors as it would be better to find them now rather than opening up the finished book and finding them. So, fingers crossed: no errors!

And, good news came in from Publishers Weekly — which I immediately shared with our distributor and international rights agents — the first trade review has come in and it’s a star:

The devastating title tale follows another young girl and her cherished talking hen as they barely escape a swarm of monsters who devour anything with flesh. Johnson’s keen eye for the mysteries of human nature shines as her characters experience love, loss, growth, and betrayal, all made delightfully strange. These boundary-pushing, magic-infused tales are sure to wow.

Read the whole review here.

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Privilege Hardcover

Tue 25 Jul 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., hardcover, Kij Johnson | Comments Off on Privilege Hardcover | Posted by: Gavin

While working on Kij Johnson’s The Privilege of the Happy Ending we bought a collection of vintage sf&f for Book Moon — here are a few, there are more pictures up there, too. We don’t buy much in the way of used books there anymore, which is a shame as I love them, but Easthampton really wanted a new bookshop which is a different kind of fun.

Anyway, while cleaning and pricing some of the old hardcovers I realized it would be fun to do a short hardcover run of Kij’s book along with the trade paperback so we are adding a small hardcover edition and we got to design a new jacket for the hardcover. When I took it to our distributor they liked the idea but pushed for a higher price for the hardcover to differentiate the books so the hardcover will be $34 and the trade paper $18. I am still always surprised by how expensive it is to make a Smyth sewn hardcover using 30% recycled paper so that is reflected in the price. The interiors of the hardcover, paperback, and ebooks are the same so the hardcovers are going to be for those who read their books very hard and need a hardcover to stand up to the force of that. Or maybe libraries and those who like a pretty hardcover. The paperback is 5.5″ x 8.5″ as many — or maybe most? — of our books are as I find that size very readable.

The hardcover should be out at the same time as the paperback, October 24, and Kij will be at World Fantasy and some more places when it comes out.

 

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Readercon 2023

Mon 10 Jul 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., events, Greer Gilman, Jeffrey Ford, Readercon, Sarah Pinsker, Susan Stinson | Comments Off on Readercon 2023 | Posted by: Gavin

Readercon is back in Quincy again this year and while we’re not going the lovely Steve Berman of Lethe Press will have a few Small Beer titles available at his table so that when you hear Jeffrey Ford, Greer Gilman, Elizabeth Hand, Sarah Pinsker, or Susan Stinson read you can dash over and pick up one of their books.

Steve will also have 1 or 2 other SBP titles — and maybe a couple of copies of Kelly’s White Cat Black Dog?  — but he only has one table, so there won’t be the whole cit and kaboodle, he spoonered. These books will be there — email me ahead of time if there are any others you’d like to pick up there:

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More Other Lands

Mon 26 Jun 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on More Other Lands | Posted by: Gavin

Thanks to tens of thousands of enthusiastic readers, it’s time to send Sarah Rees Brennan’s In Other Lands back to the printer for another printing.

I’d say something like this little book has legs but there’s a mermaid on the cover — no legs — and there’s nothing little about it: the cover price is increasing to $19 because with the story that started it all, “Wings in the Morning,” included, it’s almost 500 pages of goodness. New copies should be going out to store in early August.

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OKPsyche Launch: 9/14

Thu 22 Jun 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Anya DeNiro, Moon Palace, readings | Comments Off on OKPsyche Launch: 9/14 | Posted by: Gavin

Delighted to say we’ve set up a launch reading for Anya Johanna DeNiro and her short novel OKPsyche at Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis, MN on Thursday, September 14, at 7 p.m.

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New York Review of Science Fiction Readings: Sarah Pinsker

Tue 13 Jun 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., online events, readings, Sarah Pinsker | Comments Off on New York Review of Science Fiction Readings: Sarah Pinsker | Posted by: Gavin

Catch up with Sarah Pinsker’s new book, Lost Places, with this recent NYRSF reading hosted by Barbara Krasnoff. Sarah reads excerpts from her original novelette “Science Facts!” — I still think Science Facts! Stories would have been a great title for the book and then Barbara interviews Sarah:

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Pride Ebook Bundle

Fri 2 Jun 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Laurie J. Marks, StoryBundle, Susan Stinson | Comments Off on Pride Ebook Bundle | Posted by: Gavin

I’m proud, no kidding, to say we have 2 novels in this month’s Storybundle 2023 Pride ebook deal.

Get all 17 ebooks — including the first book in Laurie J. Marks’s Elemental Logic series, Fire Logic, and Susan Stinson’s sexy and surprising Martha Moody — and support Rainbow Railroad whose mission is to help LGBT people escape persecution and violence here.

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2023 Warehouse Sale Is On!

Wed 17 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on 2023 Warehouse Sale Is On! | Posted by: Gavin

Here we go, it’s book bundle time! Order early — in case, fingers crossed, we run out!

 

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Tomorrow

Tue 16 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Tomorrow | Posted by: Gavin

Tomorrow I’ll post a link to our 2023 Warehouse Clearance Sale. Then I will lie back on the couch* and hope that the word spreads far and many books are bought so that our monthly warehouse charges drop. They’ve been just slightly too high and as I continue to be slowed down fingers crossed this works out.

* Inaccurate: already lying back on couch.

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Brilliant Reds and Greens and Purples

Wed 10 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Anya DeNiro | Comments Off on Brilliant Reds and Greens and Purples | Posted by: Gavin

We received a lovely note from Isaac Fellman, author of Dead Collections, on Anya Johanna DeNiro’s forthcoming short novel OKPsyche:

“OKPsyche is a spectacular novel, like a shard of stained glass in brilliant reds and greens and purples. DeNiro shows us the impossible and the possible with equal honesty. The book is a chronicle of hope and hurt and freedom, suffused with anxiety and grace, and told in prose that just won’t quit. It’s major. You’ll remember where you were when you read it.”

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Next week we’re going to run a sale

Tue 9 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Next week we’re going to run a sale | Posted by: Gavin

Heads up!

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Set the World on Fire

Mon 8 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kathleen Jennings | Comments Off on Set the World on Fire | Posted by: Gavin

And now, with the release of the cover art for Kathleen Jennings’s debut collection, Kindling, all our forthcoming 2023 books have covers.

The art is by Kathleen herself and features a slightly different take on some of her trademark lino cut art. Kathleen will post about her side of the process on her blog, which I always recommend to see an artist in action.

Kindling comes out in October when the trees here in Western Mass will be matching the matchbox on the cover January 2024. It has a baker’s dozen of fairy tales and more. We’ll put the full table of contents online soon. In the meantime, here’s the rather striking cover:

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Heartfelt and Uncanny

Thu 4 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Anya DeNiro | Comments Off on Heartfelt and Uncanny | Posted by: Gavin

Delighted to say report that we received a fabulous quote for Anya DeNiro’s forthcoming OKPsyche from Morgan M. Page, screenwriter of Framing Agnes:

“Tense and funny, heartfelt and uncanny, Anya Johanna DeNiro takes us on an hallucinogenic tour through the mind of a woman on the edge. Guided by strange angels or losing touch with reality — either way, it’s happening to you!”

And then I saw this lovely early review on Edelweiss from a bookseller, Sam Edge at Epilogue Books Chocolate Brews in Chapel Hill:

“An allegorical and lyrical short novel about a transgender woman struggling to belong in a near future populated by emotional support robots and a ceaseless slew of environmental disasters. DeNiro writes with a complexity that reflects the internal emotional struggles of her unnamed protagonist as she fights for happiness and a better relationship with her young son. A uniquely told and refreshingly weird story of self-realization and the courage it takes to love.”

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Wristlet Delays

Wed 3 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Wristlet Delays | Posted by: Gavin

In fun news we ran out of LCRW 46 so I’ve sent it back to the printer and once it’s back we’ll be able to catch up on shipping.

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Get Lost

Tue 2 May 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal. | Comments Off on Get Lost | Posted by: Gavin

No, really.

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3 Questions: Juan Martinez

Mon 10 Apr 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., 3 Questions, Juan Martinez | Comments Off on 3 Questions: Juan Martinez | Posted by: Gavin

Earlier this fast-moving year, we celebrated Juan Martinez publishing his first novel, Extended Stay. We’d published Juan’s short story collection, Best Worst American, a few years before and we’re always going to celebrate a new book by an author we’ve published. I was curious about the title so I sent Juan a few not very serious questions — plus a request for some book recommendations. For an actual, decent interview, here’s Tobias Carroll’s on Vol.1 Brooklyn.

What’s his first novel about? Publisher’s Weekly summed it up this way:

“Martinez’s impressive debut — part of the University of Arizona’s Camino del Sol series, which spotlights Latinx authors — reads like a collaboration between Lewis Carroll and H.P. Lovecraft, from an idea by Stephen King. This is a fresh and stunning winner.”

Gavin: You may have covered this in another interview, sorry: have you ever lived in an extended stay hotel? 

Juan: I don’t think anyone’s asked, actually! I totally did live in an extended hotel during my first two weeks in Las Vegas: it was a Budget Suites of America that had lost its franchise rights, so they put a tarp over “Budget,” possibly over “Suites.” I may have stayed in an “of America.” It was rough. They did have free coffee and there was this real effort on the part of the manager to keep the place nice — the lobby, at least. And anyone who had lived there a while had clearly made an effort to keep their area kind of nice. I remember a window that had a bunch of lighthouses neatly arranged. You did what you could to make the place yours.

GG: Are there other meanings that should be read into the title, such as trying to get a dog to sit while you walk 20 yards with their ball?

JM: The title does have a bunch of other meanings — or does suggest some other meanings. I’ll take the dog one! There’s also the whole bit about one overextending a tourist visa to circumvent immigration policies (the siblings do this in the novel). But there’s also the whole experience of leaving your home country for another place: there’s a sense, at least for a while, that you’re just, you know, extending a visit, that the whole experience is temporary, that eventually you’ll make your way back to your “real” home.

GG: What is it about horror that pulls you in?

JM: I love the nightmare logic of horror: how surreal horror can get, how it helps narratives navigate and blur the border between the world of the senses and whatever’s beyond that. I’m also just grateful for horror — I read so much of it, so much Peter Straub and Stephen King and Ramsey Campbell when I was a teenager and super sick — and I wanted to go back to that feeling of deep immersion in darkness. It was just such a wonderful way to navigate my own trauma back then, and now, even. Horror is just so good at that.

GG: One bonus question: Have you read anything good recently?

JM: I’m halfway through Elizabeth McKenzie’s The Dog of the North & Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions For You — they’re both excellent! As is Nathan Ballingrud’s The Strange. I also can’t say enough good things about George Gissing’s New Grub Street, a brutal novel about writing and money and the publishing crisis. It’s a 19th-century novel but it turns out things were right back then too.

GG: Thanks, Juan!

Pick up Extended Stay from Women & Children First or Bookshop.org.

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Richard Butner in NYC: 4/10

Fri 7 Apr 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., readings, Richard Butner | Comments Off on Richard Butner in NYC: 4/10 | Posted by: Gavin

I know New York City is pretty much dead on a Monday night and everyone sits on their stoops just wishing there was a place they could go to get a decent cocktail and listen to some good stories. I am delighted to say that this coming Monday will be much less boring than normal as Leopoldo Gout, Karen Heuler, Randee Dawn, & Richard Butner get together at the Someday Bar for the #YeahYouWriteSTRANGE reading. Doors open at 6 p.m., it’s at 364 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11217, there’s no cover, just weird fiction!

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White Cat, Black Dog

Tue 28 Mar 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link | Comments Off on White Cat, Black Dog | Posted by: Gavin

We’re celebrating as today Kelly’s new collection White Cat, Black Dog comes out!

Kelly will be reading at the Brookline Booksmith tonight, followed by a q&a with Holly Black and at Greenlight Bookstore on April 4, followed by a q&a with Carmen Maria Machado. There are also a couple of online events — including one with Leigh Bardugo on Friday, March 30.

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