Storyteller 2

Wed 11 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Storyteller 2 | Posted by: Gavin

After a couple of months of being hard to find (and just in time for Clarion Diego—nice new site—and Clarion West) the second printing of Kate Wilhelm‘s Storyteller shipped from the printer today.

So this new printing (with a slightly redesigned cover) will be trucking down from trusty employee-owned Thomson-Shore in Dexter, MI (never been there, although a lot of our books have) to the Perseus (they own our distro, Consortium) distribution center in Jackson, TN (another place to visit!) and then off to you fave book shop, Powell’s,—&c.


Cafe Press

Tue 10 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Cafe Press | Posted by: Gavin

Skinny Dipping: Dark T-ShirtWe have a bunch of “stores” on Cafe Press. If we actually sold much of this stuff we’d quit selling books in the drop of a pink Men’s Raglan Hoodie. But they’re more for fun than anything else.

This came up because Anne Sebba, author of a new biography of Jennie Jerome (aka Lady Randolph Churchill), reminded us we have an LCRW store. The other stores are:

Skinny Dipping: Dog T-ShirtWe haven’t added shops for the ’07 books yet—maybe we will, maybe we won’t. Any requests will be read and (after a quick trip to Maine), perhaps acted upon.

In the meantime the last one of these we added was for Alan DeNiro’s Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead. We really hope these doggy shirts are popular this winter.


Tue 10 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on | Posted by: Gavin

There may be a Readercon thing later. In the meantime, reviews &c:

  • Quimby’s bookshop in Chicago has an appropriately and hilariously named blog.
  • Get a Spec Lit Foundation travel grant.
  • Nisi Shawl on Endless Things in the Seattle Times:
    “Endless Things” is the long-awaited fourth book in John Crowley’s epic magical realist “Aegypt” sequence. Despite the perpetualness its title might imply, it’s the concluding volume of the series, which first began to charm and intrigue readers 20 years ago.
  • Matt Cheney on Generation Loss in Strange Horizons:
    Just as lives that are only momentarily brilliant deserve celebration and respect, though, so do such novels, because life is dark enough that we need whatever illumination we can get, and there’s plenty to be had in Generation Loss.
  • It may be true that of a recent night there was some drinkage and some talking about Harry Frickin Potter (to quote Brad Neely). Kelly took down a few notes for Salon.
  • Go see the preview for The Jane Austen Book Club movie at Buzz Sugar and leave comments to puzzle regulars.

Tue 10 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on | Posted by: Gavin

There may be a Readercon thing later. In the meantime, reviews &c:

  • Quimby’s bookshop in Chicago has an appropriately and hilariously named blog.
  • Get a Spec Lit Foundation travel grant.
  • Nisi Shawl on Endless Things in the Seattle Times:
    “Endless Things” is the long-awaited fourth book in John Crowley’s epic magical realist “Aegypt” sequence. Despite the perpetualness its title might imply, it’s the concluding volume of the series, which first began to charm and intrigue readers 20 years ago.
  • Matt Cheney on Generation Loss in Strange Horizons:
    Just as lives that are only momentarily brilliant deserve celebration and respect, though, so do such novels, because life is dark enough that we need whatever illumination we can get, and there’s plenty to be had in Generation Loss.
  • It may be true that of a recent night there was some drinkage and some talking about Harry Frickin Potter (to quote Brad Neely). Kelly took down a few notes for Salon.
  • Go see the preview for The Jane Austen Book Club movie at Buzz Sugar and leave comments to puzzle regulars.

Readercon

Thu 5 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Readercon | Posted by: Gavin

We’re off to Readercon where Karen Joy Fowler and Lucius Shepard are the guests of honor and there are tons of smart people coming to talk about smart things. And then there is us! We will be in the bookshop (stop by and say hello to us and various interns and interested third parties) and on a panel or two. Although Gavin may miss his Future SF Scenarios to see Towards a Promiscuous Theory of Story Structure with John Clute, John Crowley, James Morrow, Sarah Smith, Eric M. Van (L). Because, who wouldn’t?

There are tons of good things about the weekend—not including the hotel restaurant, but there is a mall next door with a food court. Wooee.

Laurie J. Marks is reading and on a couple of interesting panels including Other Points of View with David Louis Edelman, Laurie J. Marks (L), Maureen McHugh, Wen Spencer, Peter Watts.

Theodora Goss will fly the interstitial flag high-ish at The Slipstream / Fabulation / Magic Realism Canon with F. Brett Cox (L), Paul Di Filippo, Ron Drummond, Theodora Goss, John Kessel, Victoria McManus, Graham Sleight, Catherynne M. Valente.

Maureen McHugh (she of the hilarious New Novel Chart) is making the trip up from Austin (where Howard is dog sitting, blogs are weird and wonderful).

Also, all this week John Crowley’s Aegypt series has been getting the full retrospective treatment from the NYTimes, oh, wait, Strange Horizons:

Feature Week: John Crowley’s Ægypt

The fourth book of Ægypt: Endless Things by John Crowley

John Clute: Endless Things comprises, in part, a release into stillness, an ontological black hole from which other stories of the world cannot escape, or are disinclined to; a spiral which becomes a circle in the end; a holy emptiness vaster than pleroma, where the utter still centre of the world utters all.

The third book of Ægypt: Dæmonomania by John Crowley

Paul Kincaid: Dæmonomania should represent the point in the sequence where the creation has become too big, so that it starts to slip out of the author’s sure grasp. In fact I think it is where Crowley reasserts his grip on the story after the (relative) slippage of Love & Sleep. But it is also where he breaks the pattern of Ægypt.

The second book of Ægypt: Love & Sleep by John Crowley

Graham Sleight: The story of the first three volumes of John Crowley’s Ægypt sequence is, broadly, the story of his protagonists getting what they want and finding they can’t stand it. The first volume, Ægypt, is the story of the main characters wishing; Love & Sleep is the story of them getting.

The first book of Ægypt: The Solitudes by John Crowley

Abigail Nussbaum: The Solitudes presents the reviewer with an unusual challenge. How to review the novel as an independent entity—and thus avoid stepping on my fellow reviewers’ toes—when it is so clearly and overwhelmingly part of a whole? More importantly, how to review Ægypt the novel when the experience of reading Ægypt the series so completely and irrevocably colors and alters one’s reactions to it?


Free?

Mon 2 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Free? | Posted by: Gavin

Lew Shiner, author of some great fun novels including Say Goodbye and Glimpses, is the latest author to post along with a ton of fiction online—the difference here is that Shiner has also posted a manifesto a. His new site, the Fiction Liberation Front (can we join?) has a stack of free reading — all under Creative Commons licenses.

I’ll also be adding new short fiction, music reviews, and articles from time to time, though I won’t guarantee that I won’t also publish short pieces elsewhere. I’m launching the site with three previously unpublished stories (“Straws,” “Fear Itself,” and “Golfing Vietnam”) plus a major story from 2004 (“Perfidia”) that’s had only limited circulation, and as a special bonus, my previously unpublished “vampire lawyer” screenplay, THE NEXT.

Strange Horizons is consistently one of the best short speculative fiction sites on the web. Every year (until this year) they used to tie a writer to the top of a pole and sell the right to shoot arrows at said writer.

After seeing how scarily accurate the average spec fic fan was with a bow and arrow (we’re not even talking compound bows here), the SH crew have decided that a fund drive is more appropriate.

The personal injury law firm champion legal causes for the greater good of society and help those in need of legal assistance who might not otherwise be able to afford a lawyer.

The fund drive started July 2nd and they’re hoping to raise $6,000—all of which, since they’re still n all-volunteer operation—goes to the writers (and maybe the web host!). So: Donate what you can and you’ll be entered into a prize drawing.

The drawing includes a bunch of our book, so if you’ve been meaning to order them and like an element of chance in your book purchases, check out the whole prize list and do that thing.


Year’s Best ToC

Fri 29 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Year’s Best ToC | Posted by: Gavin

More table-of-contenty goodness. This is for the fantasy section of The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror 2007: Twentieth Annual Collection edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant. Ellen Datlow will post her horror selections on her Amazon blog (don’t call it that!) and various message boards. We’ve sent in our picks to the man behind the book, Jim Frenkel, who is doing the permissions and contracts and so on.

We’re just received the ARC (which includes all the summations and the Honorable Mentions)—Powell’s doesn’t have the cover for some reason and only has Kelly’s name. Amazon has the cover and only Ellen’s bio. Ingram has Ellen and Kelly. Gavin = the invisible man!

The reason posting this took so long was the trying (and failing) to track down rights to Mark Haddon’s excellent poem “The Seventh Circle” from his collection The Talking Horse and The Sad Girl, The Village Under the Sea. Ah well, can’t win them all.

Looking forward to seeing what people think.

Nathalie Anderson, “Tell“, (poem) The Journal of Mythic Arts, Summer/Autumn
Jeanne Marie Beaumont, “Is Rain My Bearskin?”, (poem) Fairy Tale Review, Green Issue
Josh Bell, “Yep, I Said Camel, (poem) Ninth Letter, Vol. 3, No.1
Paul Di Filippo, “Femavillle 29”, Salon Fantastique
Jeffrey Ford, “The Night Whiskey”, Salon Fantastique
Ben Fountain, “The Good Ones are Already Taken”, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara
Jeannine Hall Gailey, “Persephone and the Prince Meet Over Drinks” and “Becoming The Villainess” (Poems) Becoming the Villainess
Frances Hardinge, “Halfway House”, Alchemy 3
Minsoo Kang, “A Fearful Symmetry”, Of Tales and Enigmas
Ellen Klages, “In the House of the Seven Librarians”, Firebirds Rising
Tim Pratt, “Cup and Table”, Twenty Epics
M. Rickert, “Journey into the Kingdom”, F&SF, May
Benjamin Rosenbaum, “A Siege of Cranes”, Twenty Epics
Christopher Rowe, “Another Word for Map Is Faith”, F&SF, August
Geoff Ryman, “Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter”, F&SF, Oct/Nov
John Schoffstall, “Fourteen Experiments in Postal Delivery”, Strange Horizons, June 5
Ira Sher, “Lionflower Hedge”, ParaSpheres
Delia Sherman, “La Fee Verte”, Salon Fantastique
Ysabeau S. Wilce, “The Lineaments of Gratified Desire”, F&SF, July
Caleb Wilson, “Directions”, Diagram 6.4


The day’s mail

Thu 28 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on The day’s mail | Posted by: Gavin

The last issue of Punk Planet (order) came in — which is always a great read and is incredibly frustrating that it had to stop. There’s a great review of Liz Hand’s Generation Loss (any other music mags want a copy? email us)

“A literary page-turner of impressive thematic heft and cohesion, illuminating surprising insights on the relationship between art and imitation, death and photgraphy, and art and madness.”

Part of the frustration with losing the zine is the ads. There aren’t that many places where you see ads from tiny bands and zines, so this was one way to keep up (interested or not) with what other people are doing out there.

The Privilege of the Sword CoverOk, so. Next exciting thing: the mass market paperback of Ellen Kushner’s The Privilege of the Sword. This is the original mannerpunk Young Trollopian interstitial novel. Katherine’s uncle invites her to live with him in the city. While she envisions dancing the night away the reality is quite different. Ellen’s take on the unexpected ways the adolescent years can take you is quite wonderful. Also, Ellen reports the trade paperback has just gone back to press, which is lovely news. Our hardcover edition is puttering along nicely. Doubt we’ll ever reprint it, but it sure is fun to make books like that.

Lastly, not actually in the mail pile, just finished Nancy Farmer’s brilliant follow up to The Sea of Trolls, The Land of the Silver Apples. More on this book later. Just to say, if you liked the first this one is—without denigrating the first—even better. Farmer enriches the world, folds back unexpected corners of history, and joins threads of stories in the most beautiful and unexpected ways.


Tithe?

Thu 28 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Tithe? | Posted by: Gavin

Has anyone seen our copy of Tithe? I could swear it was around here somewhere!


ALA

Tue 26 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on ALA | Posted by: Gavin

Back from the ALA conference in DC which was great. (Also: Ah, Amtrak.)

Librarians are so damned engaged and passionate. They go to this huge shindig not only for the free books and parties, but also for the panels — which were quite formal in their set up and fascinating to see.

  • Red Spikes CoverIt was pointed out by star librarian David Wright that not a ton of libraries have subscriptions to The Believer, McSweeney’s, or indeed many new lit mags. We popped over to the McSweeney‘s/Bomb table soon afterward and there were librarians queueing up to subscribe. Thought = action, baby. (In a sentence that will only make sense to librarians and a few others, LCRW is available through SWETS, by the way.)
  • Exciting books spotted: an appropriately Huge stack of ARCs of Margo Lanagan’s collection, Red Spikes, which just gets better and better the more its read.
  • Other books of interest: The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy given to us by someone lovely at the New York Review of Books. (Everyone we have met from there has been lovely, not a coincedence, methinks.) Looks like a great summer read, a fun thing about two young women pottering around Europe in the ’50s. Should go great with a glass of Monkey Bay.
  • Also got a copy of Derrick Jensen’s Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos which is full of black and white pictures and thoughtful text and which will be on our gift list to a couple of people
  • Thought to Exist in the Wild: Awakening from the Nightmare of Zoos CoverIf anyone would like to send us all the NYRB books, that too would be lovely.
  • Should you be wandering a book convention and not able to find any good books go find Theo Black and he will lead you.
  • Completely missed (due to not reading the program book, doh!) Scalzi and the VanderMeers and the whole sci-fi contingent.
  • Program book and exhibit book were in fact 2 separate heavy things. Hmm.
  • Stayed at the Watergate Inn and took spy photos. Was too lazy to carry the camera otherwise.
  • DC in June was more like DC in September so we had beautiful walks across the city with friends. (Now we are back in Northampton and someone has draped a hot, wet towel across the whole town, yuck.)
  • Baltimore Library has a great zine library. No, didn’t get there but did meet Miriam DesHarnias and Google says it’s true. They have a great handout for new zine librarians.
  • Witnessed the glory of the book cart drill teams. The Texans won again and we concurred that those librarians knew how to drill with carts.
  • Exotic BirdsChronicle Books have an absolutely great giveaway to go with their book on Florence Broadhurst. If you win this print you must lend it to us. Or at least send us an email syaing, Ha ha!
  • Abby Bass (from awesome Seattle bookshop Bailey/Coy) was one of many librarians who stopped and said hello. Since we are newish to the world of librarian events we are most happy when people lead us around. For which: thank you!

Surely there was more? Yes. But that’s more than enough for today.


    No iPhone here

    Tue 26 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on No iPhone here | Posted by: Gavin

    Good golly it is a pretty thing and we wants it.

    So at first it was about the memory: 4 MB, 8 MB. Not numbers to inspire $600 purchases. These are numbers for keyrings, not intermodular future devices.

    Today comes the monthly price: $60, $80, $100.

    Ah well. Hope someone we know gets one so that we can lean over their shoulder and watch us some fantastic films.


    General update

    Thu 21 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on General update | Posted by: Gavin

    Added reviews to a bunch of pages. It’s too exciting.

    You have until tomorrow to send in your haiku to win a copy of the new edition of The Solitudes (aka the book previously known as Aegypt) from the Overlook Press. This is one of the best uses of video seen on the net (well, except the blurry text — but we know all about digital cameras being used for video). Ok, maybe not, but it made us laugh.

    Recognize this picture? (Here’s a hint.)

    John Crowley writes about Rosamond Purcell’s awesome new book Bookworm in the Boston Review. (There’s an interesting part on the difficulty of writing about something that the artist writes so well about herself.)

    We’re sending Storyteller back to press, yay! Here are some reviews just added to the site:

    “Its strength, I think, lies in some of the pointers she offers to beginning writers as to help them shorten the time it takes to get published.”– New Pages

    “If you are a budding writer, please spend $16 on this book before raising the money needed to attend Clarion. You’ll get much more out of the workshop if you do.”– Emerald City

    “For such a short book — just barely 192 pages — there is a lot here, and a lot that I’ve never found in other writing books, and it’s all on-point. It’s also delivered as part of the story of one of the most significant institutions in the history of science fiction and fantasy, as told by a true storyteller.”– Green Man Review

    Aren’t the Clarions on at the moment? Hope it’s going well and that all the writers are too busy reading journals to write. Or, the other way round.

    Here’s the Live Book/Gayatri page for the Russian editions of Stranger Things Happen and Magic for Beginners.

    Ed Park on Kim Stanley Robinson’s climate books.

    A certain Japanese multi-level marketing scheme which Gavin was involved in in 1998 has been handed a partial business suspension order by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. Nova, one of the larger foreign Japanese language teaching companies, is good for teachers in that they organize the visa and a place to stay. No one ever called them over-friendly on the customer service side. Go students! (Thanks Naoko.)

    131 – US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs

    Say good-bye to Shocklines.com and send Matt a note of thanks while you’re at it. It’s not a reflection on publishing (which we all know is boomin’!), but it is a reflection on how hard it is to organize and sell books, mags, zines, chapbooks, &c. from the small presses. Moment of thought over, bookmark Pulp Source (as well as the usual B&M’s: Atomic, Borderlands, Quimby’s, et al).


    Google book bar

    Thu 21 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Google book bar | Posted by: Gavin

    Random wigglings on Google having control of our site. Or, at least, we’ve added Google Book Bar to the front page (down a bit on the left hand side). And if you wait a minute it will change.

    We also use Google Calendar and Kelly has experimented with Google Docs (although not, as Alan DeNiro, is doing, by writing a novel in it).

    Whether we should keep this on the site is a question. Whether in fact we should drop the whole site and leave this up as a self-generating page for the books is also an interesting question.

    We have a pretty basic site which retains much of its 5 year old charm. Cough. Updating it is something we think about but don’t jump at. Companies like Google making these auto-content generating widgets may mean that eventually we won’t have a site. Just a journalling capability to centralize a source of information.

    That journalling capability, i.e. doing the site blog-style, is basically great — since the structure and archiving are built into it — but not one we’re moving to with any real haste. The front/splash page seems important as people go to websites for lots of different reasons and we like the simplicity of it.

    At least for now.


    Happy Locus Privilege News

    Thu 21 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Happy Locus Privilege News | Posted by: Gavin

    Ellen Kushner, The Privilege of the SwordOk, we are slow, but very groovy news for Ellen Kushner whose novel The Privilege of the Sword just added to its booty pile a Locus Award. Congrats to all the winners!

    We have signed copies here (shipping is slow over the next week or two, sorry).

    More info on the Awardiness of the Novel:

    Read more


    The Best of LCRW ToC

    Wed 20 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on The Best of LCRW ToC | Posted by: Gavin

    At last. Seen in the wild this week for the first time as an ARC (will post pictures of its exciting little self if we see it again) this enchanting little tomb, er, tome will be released to the world in late August. Just after the doldrums to be inexact.

    In the meantime, here’s what there’s to be had: some of the best parts of the first 10 years of surprising stories, poetry worth reading, odd bits, and maybe more. Below is the Table of Contents with links to some of the contributor’s pages. Look at all those peeps with livejournals (not a single deadjournal among them) and so on. It’s like the blogospasm has them in its grasp. Not that we would know anything about that. Cough.

    So: The Best of LCRW (with the unofficial subtitle: So Far), bought by the fantastic Mr. Jim Minz at Del Rey and carried on in the best possible way (i.e. not Up the Khyber) by Mr. Fleetwood Robbins and Mr. Christopher Schleup. There are also perhaps other people at Del Rey, like D. Moench, who are working on this. All of them deserve a beer. On us, next time we see you, ok? I thought so!

    The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet CoverCover by Jacob McMurray
    Preface by Chunterers Max and Mini
    Dan Chaon    , Introduction (yes, that is a myspace link: friend him!)
    Kelly Link, Travels with the Snow Queen, LCRW 1 (Japanese illo)
    Scotch, An Essay Into A Drink, LCRW 2
    David Findlay, Unrecognizable, LCRW 3
    Ian McDowell,     mehitobel was queen of the night, LCRW 4
    Nalo Hopkinson, Tan Tan and Dry Bone, LCRW 4
    Margaret Muirhead — An Open Letter, LCRW 4
    Margaret Muirhead, I am glad, LCRW 4
    Margaret Muirhead, Lady Shonagon’s Hateful Things, LCRW 5
    Karen Joy Fowler    , Heartland, LCRW 6
    What a Difference A Night Makes, LCRW 7
    Ray Vukcevich, Pretending, LCRW 8
    Shh! I can’t hear the music! (LCRW 8)
    William Smith — The Film Column
    Amy Beth Forbes, A is for Apple, LCRW 9
    Shh! I said I was listening to some music! (LCRW 9)
    Mark Rudolph, My Father’s Ghost, LCRW 9
    A list of chickens (From The Fairest Fowl, Portraits of Champion Chickens) (LCRW 9)
    Jeffrey Ford, What’s Sure to Come LCRW 10
    Roadtripping, zinemaking, cooking, cleaning, reading, and eating music (LCRW 10)
    Geoffrey Goodwin — Stoddy Awchaw, LCRW 10 (Listen)
    A selection of teas the LCRW kitchen has acquired or been given over the years (LCRW 10)
    Theodora Goss, Rapid Advance of Sorrow LCRW 11
    Nan Fry, The Wolf’s Story, LCRW 11
    Sarah Monette — Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland, LCRW 11 (prize winner!)
    David Moles     — Tacoma-Fuji, LCRW 11
    David Erik Nelson — Bay, LCRW 12
    Richard Butner — How to Make a Martini, LCRW 12
    All About the T: Swept (not sweeped) away by the love of irregular verbs (LCRW 12)
    Jan Lars Jensen — Happier Days, LCRW 12
    Philip Raines and Harvey Welles — The Fishie, LCRW 12 (that’s a fun link)
    The Switch. Hope in the form of planted tomatoes (LCRW 12)
    Gwenda Bond — Dear Aunt Gwenda
    William Smith — The Film Column
    David J. Schwartz — The Ichthymancer Writes His Friend with an Account of the Yeti’s Birthday Party, LCRW 13
    A By-No-Means-Complete Joan Aiken Checklist (LCRW 13)
    Veronica Schanoes — Serpents, LCRW 13
    Homeland Security, LCRW 13
    David Blair — Vincent Price; For George Romero, LCRW 13 (First book coming in September!)
    Douglas Lain — Music Lessons, LCRW 14
    James Sallis — Two Stories, LCRW 14
    Karen Russell — Help Wanted, LCRW 15
    Sarah Micklem     — “Eft” or “Epic”, LCRW 15
    John Kessel — The Red Phone, LCRW 16
    Lawrence Schimel & Sara Rojo, The Well-Dressed Wolf, COMIC
    Deborah Roggie — The Mushroom Duchess
    Seana Graham — The Pirate’s True Love, LCRW 17
    You Could Do This Too, LCRW 17
    Sunshine Ison     — Two Poems LCRW 18
    [Name Withheld] Article Withdrawn
    Becca De La Rosa — This Is The Train The Queen Rides On LCRW 18
    A selected list of Automobile City/Hwy Mileages (LCRW 18)
    Gwenda Bond — Dear Aunt Gwenda
    John Brown — Bright Waters
    K.E. Duffin, Two Poems LCRW 19
    D.M. Gordon, Sliding LCRW 19
    Cara Spindler & David Erik Nelson, You Were Neither . . . LCRW 19


    Tea!

    Wed 20 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Tea! | Posted by: Gavin

    In Laurie J. Marks’s fabby new novel Water Logic some of the characters have been known to sit around and drink tea. (Although Laurie says she’s more of a coffee drinker!)

    And for those of them that like tea we have, as they say, just the thing: travel tins (1 ounce, that would be 28g) of Evening Escape, a blend of good black teas (with blue cornflower petals for an added dash of color). See attached pics of this morning’s brewery action for more details.

    “And?” you say.

    Send us a link (or mail us a copy) of your review of Water Logic and we’ll send you a tin of the tea (US + Canada only, sorry: unless your review is in The Guardian or something).

    We only have a small number of these left (most have booksellers’ names on them!) but we’ll wait around and send them in a week or two to give people a chance to get their reviews out there.

    Early reviews are coming in (no cribbing, naughty tea drinker!):

    Frankly, it’s mind-bending stuff, and refreshing…. I haven’t read the previous two Logic books by Marks so this was like a flashback to my childhood. Interestingly, while there was some character history that I missed, from what I’ve seen of Marks’ writing style, I didn’t necessarily miss much explanation anyways. The world is presented as-is, and of course all the people in it know what is going on and why. I found the book quite intriguing, since Marks does have some unusual magic going on, and there’s certainly no overkill in the infodump department.
    —James Schellenberg, The Cultural Gutter

    * How gifts from the past, often unknown or unacknowledged, bless future generations; how things that look like disasters or mistakes may be parts of a much bigger pattern that produces greater, farther-reaching good results—such is the theme of Marks’ sweeping fantasy, which reaches its third volume with this successor to Fire Logic (2002) and Earth Logic (2004).
    —Booklist (Starred Review)


    Punk Planet: RIP

    Mon 18 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Punk Planet: RIP | Posted by: Gavin

    In the office for a couple of days (with a KGB visit interstitialed in there on Wednesday) before heading to DC for ALA on Friday (say hi if you’re there). Acronymed to death, anyone?

    Punk Planet just pulled the plug on it’s zine, bah fkn humbug. It was a great fun mag with good pieces on all aspects of indie culture. Another death-by-distributor tale. Best of luck with the books!

    These are pretty desperate times for indie culture. It’s (somewhat) easy enough to start something—we did it while knowing nothing. Keeping it going while being, er, nibbled to death by ducks? Not always easy.

    The usual “clarion” call: if you like a zine, subscribe. Shop the McSweeney’s and Soft Skull sales.

    But don’t wait until a press or bookshop you like is desperate. If you buy this $14.95 book from Amazon for 32% off:

    The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (Paperback)
    by Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant

    List Price $14.95
    Price $10.17
    You Save $4.78 (32%)

    That’s great! You only pay $10.71 (Hey, buy 2.) But that 32% you’re saving doesn’t come from Amazon: that cut is from the publisher. The publisher still has to give Amazon a huge discount (so that they can pass it on — and not selling on Amazon, well, let’s suppose that argument is over already) and pay all the other usual people. Hello printer!

    How about if you buy that same book at your local book store (which probably has a frequent buyer card of some kind to offer you 10% off)? Then that 22-32% goes back to the bookshop (paying smart people in your town to sell books: how cool is that?) and a slice of it goes back to the publisher, who need every % they can get.

    Every dollar is a political act.

    —

    More LCRW stuff:

    We will post the Best of LCRW table of contents soon. Promise!

    Submissions are running about 1,500 per year. So we are falling further behind and wow are they piling up. Not sure what we can do. Reading periods? Charge to submit? (That is a joke, by the way.) 1500 stories a year (and only going to rise) is a chunk of time. Suggestions appreciated.


    Tue 5 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on | Posted by: Gavin

    Catching up again (before disappearing, again):

    • Jack’s posts from a trip to China are excellent
    • Generation Loss gets a good review in the Boston Globe:

    “Highly recommended for the reader who yearns for something more complex and literary with a touch of goth.”

    Liz and Ron Hogan of Galleycat pictured to the right. Tons of his pics here. We did not take so many, er, any, pics. Liz signed a ton of books, did a reading in a spot with terrible acoustics (but she sounded [and looked] great doing it), and generally charmed booksellers and everyone else she met.

    • Bill Sheehan wrote a wonderful review of Endless Things for the Washington Post Book World. The cover, blown up to 2′ x 3′ stopped people dead in their tracks (so messy, all those corpses) at BEA and there were more than a few people wailing with happiness about the publication of the last Aegypt book.

    “Endless Things is the fourth and last installment in a vast, intricate series of novels collectively entitled “Aegypt.” The series (which is really one long novel) began in 1987 with the publication of Aegypt (soon to be reissued as The Solitudes) and was followed by Love & Sleep (1994) and Daemonomania (2000). It was clear from the start that Crowley was on to something special, and the appearance of this final volume confirms that impression. In its entirety, “Aegypt” stands as one of the most distinctive accomplishments of recent decades. It is a work of great erudition and deep humanity that is as beautifully composed as any novel in my experience.”

    Note: Overlook Press begins publishing the series in paperback in autumn with the publication of The Solitudes—and we know this for sure because we picked up a copy at BEA.

    Here’s an interview with John from May 2006 about the book—and it’s published just a year later.

    • It’s true, there is a new LCRW and we will get it mailed out this week. Quick, someone send us a couple of cases of chocolate bars!Also, there is a cover for autumn’s The Best of LCRW (not final, so don’t quote it!). Taken from Jacob MacMurray’s journal.

    “It draws on standard fantasy and horror ideas – zombies, fairies, etc but, trust me, it’s like nothing you’ve ever read. Blackly funny. Wildly inventive. Utterly insane.”

    Best American Fantasy gets a review on NPR: listen to a minute of Kelly reading “Origin Story” or read it.

    Stranger Things Happen slips into New York’s “The Best Novels You’ve Never Read”:

    “A book that could be shelved under several genres—horror, fantasy, literary fiction—it suffers from the limited ways in which we think about literature.”
    —David Orr, Times Book Review

    That’s a pretty good book list. If only the stack weren’t quite so high. Lists or pics may follow.

    • Posted a very few WisCon pics.
    • Again with the rec for Hang Fire Books blog — for the writing on buying books and the scans (wistful Ohio girl, Bambi, pizza platter remote control planes).

     

     Have to change the CSS on this thing as it just looks grotesque at the moment. One day soon.


    Tue 5 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 5 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

    Catching up again (before disappearing, again):

    • Jack’s posts from a trip to China are excellent
    • Generation Loss gets a good review in the Boston Globe:

    “Highly recommended for the reader who yearns for something more complex and literary with a touch of goth.”

    Liz and Ron Hogan of Galleycat pictured to the right. Tons of his pics here. We did not take so many, er, any, pics. Liz signed a ton of books, did a reading in a spot with terrible acoustics (but she sounded [and looked] great doing it), and generally charmed booksellers and everyone else she met.

    • Bill Sheehan wrote a wonderful review of Endless Things for the Washington Post Book World. The cover, blown up to 2′ x 3′ stopped people dead in their tracks (so messy, all those corpses) at BEA and there were more than a few people wailing with happiness about the publication of the last Aegypt book.

    “Endless Things is the fourth and last installment in a vast, intricate series of novels collectively entitled “Aegypt.” The series (which is really one long novel) began in 1987 with the publication of Aegypt (soon to be reissued as The Solitudes) and was followed by Love & Sleep (1994) and Daemonomania (2000). It was clear from the start that Crowley was on to something special, and the appearance of this final volume confirms that impression. In its entirety, “Aegypt” stands as one of the most distinctive accomplishments of recent decades. It is a work of great erudition and deep humanity that is as beautifully composed as any novel in my experience.”

    Note: Overlook Press begins publishing the series in paperback in autumn with the publication of The Solitudes—and we know this for sure because we picked up a copy at BEA.

    Here’s an interview with John from May 2006 about the book—and it’s published just a year later.

    • It’s true, there is a new LCRW and we will get it mailed out this week. Quick, someone send us a couple of cases of chocolate bars!Also, there is a cover for autumn’s The Best of LCRW (not final, so don’t quote it!). Taken from Jacob MacMurray’s journal.

    “It draws on standard fantasy and horror ideas – zombies, fairies, etc but, trust me, it’s like nothing you’ve ever read. Blackly funny. Wildly inventive. Utterly insane.”

    Best American Fantasy gets a review on NPR: listen to a minute of Kelly reading “Origin Story” or read it.

    Stranger Things Happen slips into New York’s “The Best Novels You’ve Never Read”:

    “A book that could be shelved under several genres—horror, fantasy, literary fiction—it suffers from the limited ways in which we think about literature.”
    —David Orr, Times Book Review

    That’s a pretty good book list. If only the stack weren’t quite so high. Lists or pics may follow.

    • Posted a very few WisCon pics.
    • Again with the rec for Hang Fire Books blog — for the writing on buying books and the scans (wistful Ohio girl, Bambi, pizza platter remote control planes).

     

     Have to change the CSS on this thing as it just looks grotesque at the moment. One day soon.


    Wed 30 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on | Posted by: Gavin

    Back! Unspeakably awesome. Booked next year. 19 hour drive home. Unspeakably awesome. Next year you should drive back with us.
    Busy! BEA tomorrow. (Liz Hand reading and signing, we’re at booth 2431 in the Consortium aisle.)

    Next: Monday is the pub date for Water Logic.

    Ack!


    Wed 30 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 2 Comments | Posted by: Gavin

    Back! Unspeakably awesome. Booked next year. 19 hour drive home. Unspeakably awesome. Next year you should drive back with us.
    Busy! BEA tomorrow. (Liz Hand reading and signing, we’re at booth 2431 in the Consortium aisle.)

    Next: Monday is the pub date for Water Logic.

    Ack!


    Water Logic

    Fri 25 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Water Logic | Posted by: Gavin

    Marks, Water LogicAlmost in time for WisCon (and in fact from there), we’ve got a page up for Laurie J. Marks, whose third Elemental Logic novel, Water Logic, comes out in one week.You can read an excerpt of the book on Laurie’s site — which has just had an amazing update so there are now interviews, pages on the series, a map, and there will even be a song!Last night at the author reception (at one of our favorite indie bookstores A Room of One’s Own) Laurie read one of the folk tales from Earth Logic (the second book, afer Fire Logic).Later in the convention Laurie will be doing another reading, that song mentioned above will be performed (by Rosemary Kirstein), Laurie and fellow Guest of Honor Kelly Link will interview one another, there will be desserts, some speechifying, more possibly-fascinating panels than you and your clone army can attend, and a Water Logic book release party held in the local acquarium.In the meantime PW reviewed the book:

    “Marks plays the fantasy       of her unfolding epic more subtly here than in previous volumes, and       the resulting depiction of intransigent cultures in conflict, rich       with insight into human nature and motives, will resonate for modern       readers.”—Publishers Weekly

    After WisCon, we’ll be off to BookExpo, where there will be copies of this book (and some of our others) available, then a couple of weeks later we’ll be at ALA for the first time (hello…!)—but more on that later.And somewhere in between there we should do a giveaway of this awesome book (or maybe a package of all 3 in the series) but we will need to come up with ideas of how and why to give the books away.Off to load books into a book room and see if the Tiptree Bake Sale is open today or if we have to wait until tomorrow.


    lcrw 20

    Tue 22 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 1 Comment | Posted by: Gavin

    We are going on the road to play a couple of shows (Hello Poland! The Czech Republic! However, we are not going there. We are going to Chicago (Hello BookSlut readers!) and Madison (Helloo WisConites!)) so will be slow to answer email, a little slow on shipping, and really not taking many manuscripts with us for perusal.

    Here is an inaccurate picture of the cover of the next LCRW, No.20, and an accurate representation of the T.o.C.!

    Order! Subscribe! Writhe! Jump! This High! Phew. Tired now.

    lcrw wrestles with the future

    fiction

    Marly Youmans — Prolegomenon to the Adventures of Chílde Phoenix
    Anil Menon — Invisible Hand
    Edward McEneely — Consider the Snorklepine
    Steven Bratman — Under the Skin
    Michael Hartford — The Oologist’s Cabinet
    M. Brock Moorer — The Third Kind of Darkness
    Laura Evans — Workshop
    Amelia Beamer — Krishnaware
    Meghan McCarron — I’ll Give In
    Jon Hansen — In the Lobby of the Mission Palms
    Karen Joy Fowler — The Last Worders

    poetry
    Neile Graham — The Tattoos I Don’t Have
    Neile Graham — Westness Walk
    Rose Black — The Secretary
    David Blair — Five Poems

    nonfiction
    Gwenda Bond — Dear Aunt Gwenda
    William Smith — Eleven Things

    cover art
     Nathaniel Meyer


    Hangfire Books

    Mon 21 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Hangfire Books | Posted by: Gavin

    Hang Fire BooksThis is my favorite new blog at the moment, and Will is, in the parlance of the last century, blogging up a storm on books, book finds, zombies, bookselling tools (ok, ok, we ordered a desktop tape dispenser—who knew it was so indispensable?), and, yes, more. RSS feeds available, you know what to do.

    Also:

    Jennifer Stevenson hops on the blogoplane.

    Vice Magazine shouldn’t be good but after the Appalachian issue a while ago I’m converted. (Although they’re stopping with the theme issues, ah well.)
    Latest ish has a tiny report from someone who went to check out Sudan. Sudan in a pop culture mag? (Or you can download the Iraq issue.) Ok, it’s not Playboy interviews or Rolling Stone looking at voting irregularities but there is something of unexpected weight in every ish.

    William Gibson’s Spook Country — a caper novel! More on that later this summer. Summer? Eek!

    We are planning for WisCon (here’s everyones’ schedule!) and Book Expo. We are planning on 2008. We are planning on dinner. Don’t suppose you’re cooking?


    Artifacts

    Sun 20 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Artifacts | Posted by: Gavin

    Last Thursday we threw an tiny local shindig (ouch?) at Artifacts gallery in the Florencian part of Northampton. We had lined up the readers, gotten in the chairs, talked to the weather god and cursed* the Sox for playing that night … all the usual set up thingies. (Need flyers put up fast: call Flyer Girl!)

    Liz Hand drove down from Maine, showed us her new tattoo (a work in progress), signed books like she may have done it before, and still managed to finish a book review by her deadline. Paul Park arrived and eventually we headed over to the space: which is huge, beautiful and fills us with longing. (We could do such things in such a space! We could put the letterpress here, the silkscreening could be done over there, the tandoori over over there.)

    The Artifacts people, Ann, Julia, and Bob, had done tons of set up and the place was organized. We just needed peeps. And peeps, they arrived. They parked their jetpacks carefully (only one small brush fire) flocked to the refreshments, and admired Susie Horgan’s Punk Love photos—Liz knew some of the people and places!

    Happily for us, Erik wrote the evening up for the MassLive Sound Check blog with links to all the readings:

    Click here for an advice column on the topic of confronting an electric toothbrush that seems vaguely malevolent.

    Click here to listen to Elizabeth Hand reading from Generation Loss.

    Click here to listen to John Crowley reading from Endless Things.

    Click here to listen to Michael DeLuca’s reading of “The Utter Proximity of God” from Interfictions.

    Click here to listen to Diana Gordon reading “Sliding” from LCRW 19.

    There’s no recording of the hilarious Paul Park story (“A Short History of Science Fiction”) as he is still working on it.

    After all the readings Philip Price and Flora Reed of the Winterpills played a short set. It was mind-blowingly gorgeous music and a great cap for the evening. Then there was still a chance to buy books and CDs (and beautiful silk-screened Winterpills tour posters, ahem), and much swapping of “When I first read John Crowley…” tales.

    We videod parts of each of the readings but if those go up here it will be in a while. Here’s Diane on the night and Friday’s (weekly) parasite.

    * Just kidding. Who is brave or stupid enough to curse the Sox? Not us!


    Liz Hand interview

    Fri 18 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Liz Hand interview | Posted by: Gavin

    Yesterday Liz Hand was in town for a reading (more about that later) and she went down into the root cellar to be interviewed by Jedediah Berry about art, photography, music, and more.

    She was very composed for someone who was trapped down there revising Generation Loss for 3 weeks late last year.


    A. DeNiro in a pod

    Thu 17 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on A. DeNiro in a pod | Posted by: Gavin

    Don’t miss the Bat Segundo / Pinky’s Paperhaus interview with Lit Blog Coop spring Read This! pick A. “Space Poetry” DeNiro.

    LBC Podcast #3: A. DeNiro

    Lbcdeniro Nominator: Carolyn Kellogg

    Nominee: Alan DeNiro

    (A co-production of the LBC, Pinky’s Paperhaus and The Bat Segundo Show.)

     

     

     


    2 x John Crowley

    Wed 16 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on 2 x John Crowley | Posted by: Gavin

    Tonight: KGB Bar in New York City.

    Tomorrow: Artifacts, Florence (Northampton), Mass.—with Liz Hand, Paul Park, 2/4 of the Winterpills, & Others.

    In other Crowley news (from John’s blog) he reports that the 25th Anniversary edition of Little, Big banneris moving along and may be out by September.


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