Fri 20 Oct 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on | Posted by: Gavin

Carthage, Missouri, is the home of Janet K. Kavandi, Astronaut, and has a plaque celebrating her on the city limits. Our tiny car racks up the miles, but doesn’t approach her over 13.1 million (from 33 days in space and 535 Earth orbits).

Back in Zinelandia you can read the whole of the new ish of Xerography Debt as a PDF here.

Good days in the reading world:

Dave, Dave, Dave! Yay!

Rain Taxi Book Fest in the Twin Cities: nice! Best desserts: a tie between the churros at Masa and the dark chocolate thingy at Auriga. Or the Tetleys at Brits pub — an English pub with a bowling green on the roof. Wacky.

Next. Paperback of Magic for Beginners went back to press. Kelly is at the Conference of the Undead(!) in Berkeley then on Saturday at the the Nimrod Fest in Tulsa. Soon after, Austin. In between: Katamari Damacy. You would not guess who is to blame for this.
Strange Horizons review of The Privilege of the Sword:

The Privilege of the Sword, for all its serious underpinnings, is a delight to read, with colorful, well-defined characters and a droll sense of humor.

And a review of Maureen’s collection on Pedestal Mag:

The thirteen stories in Mothers & Other Monsters are solidly written, superbly characterized, and ultimately unforgettable.

LCRW is at the printer. 10 years old, aw. Ful (sic) of typos. Ha ha. Ew.

Raking leaves is practice for shovelling snow. Discuss.


Fri 20 Oct 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on | Posted by: Gavin

Carthage, Missouri, is the home of Janet K. Kavandi, Astronaut, and has a plaque celebrating her on the city limits. Our tiny car racks up the miles, but doesn’t approach her over 13.1 million (from 33 days in space and 535 Earth orbits).

Back in Zinelandia you can read the whole of the new ish of Xerography Debt as a PDF here.

Good days in the reading world:

Dave, Dave, Dave! Yay!

Rain Taxi Book Fest in the Twin Cities: nice! Best desserts: a tie between the churros at Masa and the dark chocolate thingy at Auriga. Or the Tetleys at Brits pub — an English pub with a bowling green on the roof. Wacky.

Next. Paperback of Magic for Beginners went back to press. Kelly is at the Conference of the Undead(!) in Berkeley then on Saturday at the the Nimrod Fest in Tulsa. Soon after, Austin. In between: Katamari Damacy. You would not guess who is to blame for this.
Strange Horizons review of The Privilege of the Sword:

The Privilege of the Sword, for all its serious underpinnings, is a delight to read, with colorful, well-defined characters and a droll sense of humor.

And a review of Maureen’s collection on Pedestal Mag:

The thirteen stories in Mothers & Other Monsters are solidly written, superbly characterized, and ultimately unforgettable.

LCRW is at the printer. 10 years old, aw. Ful (sic) of typos. Ha ha. Ew.

Raking leaves is practice for shovelling snow. Discuss.


John Klima, where are you?

Tue 10 Oct 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on John Klima, where are you? | Posted by: Gavin

Catching up on his zine, anthology, chapbook, kid, life, tickets, hotel, library, shoe-making, and whatever else he is cobbling together. Ack! How does he do it. Please, organize our lives.

In the spirit of the mighty Klima, here’s the Table of Contents for the next LCRW. Due to weirdness in our UniVac Central Computational System, the website will probably not be updated with this info for a while. Darnit!

So, LCRW 19 (now with more ads!) which has the Usual Mix (TM) of new and known authors that we find so dear to our hearts. And has an awesome, fragile, thumpity-thump cover. (That will make sense when you see it.) And this will be its composition. (Not including the chocolate.) Should have it in Texas but mailing date is still unsure:

Fiction

Ray Vukcevich, Tubs
Daniel A. Rabuzzi, Grebe’s Gift
Dennis Nau, Dropkick
Nancy Jane Moore, Phone Call Overheard on the Subway
Cara Spindler & David Erik Nelson, You Were Neither . . .
Kara Kellar Bell, The Bride
Andrew Fort, Lady Perdita Espadrille Tells the Story
Anna Tambour, The Slime: A Love Story
Carol Emshwiller, Such a Woman, Or, Sixties Rant

Nonfiction

Dear Aunt Gwenda

Poetry

K.E. Duffin, Two Poems
Laura L. Washburn, The Troll in the Cellar
Katharine Beutner, Things That Make One’s Heart Beat Faster
D.M. Gordon, Sliding

Cover art: Eric Schaller


Rust Belt Surrealist

Tue 10 Oct 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Rust Belt Surrealist | Posted by: Gavin

Yes they are. Look at that, a great piece on new wave fabulists in the Boston Globe.

The Globe is of course the only remaining spherical newspaper in the world (after the demise of the Atlanta Sphere in the midst of the late 20th century depression).

Bostonians (and readers elsewhere) have long-established habits and traditions of how to read it. Some prefer the onion-skinning method of peeling a page off at a time, while others prefer flattening the whole thing and reading it as if it were any other daily. That all supposes that no one kicks it off your front step in the first place. Since the New York Times purchased the Globe a couple of years ago, there have been persistent rumors that the new ownership would switch the format but local sentiment (as well the daily tours of the unique Mercury Grace presses) have thus far prevented it.

Our favorite use of unread copies of the Globe are the Lynn Circular Houses. The hive was begun in the early 1970s and is still occasionally added to. Pictures can be found here.


Meanwhile, over the water

Mon 9 Oct 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Meanwhile, over the water | Posted by: Gavin

Like Looper or some of the other mellow relaxipop coming across the water from Scotland? Readers who remember this guy, might want to go check out First Tiger. Pop! (Friend them or whatever one does on the mindspace?) There’s more here. When wil they cross the pond to superstardom?

Also: Scotland put one past France!


Elliott Bay

Fri 6 Oct 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Elliott Bay | Posted by: Gavin

Bookshop T-shirt tour: Elliott Bay in Seattle, WA. Nice rich color, good for autumn.

There are tons of great bookshops in Seattle. Some of them probably don’t force you to turn your back to people to show off the wonder of their graphic design dept. But Elliott Bay is confident that you will. Or, that you’re a leader and people behind you will suddenly realize that they should pop off to the original E.Bay and get a book.

A book? How about something naughty and futuristic for the weekend? Such as Sex in the System: Stories of Erotic Futures, Technological Stimulation, and the Sensual Life of Machines. (That’s, er, a mouthful.) Edited by Cecilia Tan, it has stories from Sarah Micklem, Steve Berman, Jennifer Stevenson, Scott Westerfeld (reprinted from Say…), Gavin J. Grant (reprinted from Singularity a while back), at least one pseudonymous author, and an orgy of others. (“Orgy” being the collective term for erotica writers, no?) Funny cover, too. Don’t know if there are Seattle writers in this, or if there’s a Seattle event planned, but you can always go read it aloud at a park and see what happens.


Handy Book Sense pick

Thu 5 Oct 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Handy Book Sense pick | Posted by: Gavin

Saffron and Brimstone: Strange Stories CoverWe are way behind with spotlighting good recent reads. Happily Book Sense made it slightly easier on us by choosing Liz Hand’s new collection, Saffron and Brimstone, as a Book Sense pick (um, next month):

SAFFRON AND BRIMSTONE: Strange Stories, by Elizabeth Hand (M Press, $14.95 paper, 1595820965) “Stories from a master of lapidary style and fey fiction. I’m reminded of John Fowles’ touch of the mythical in The Magus, but Hand is no imitator — she wields her own magic.” —Pauline Ziniker, Country Bookshelf, Bozeman, MT


T-shirt tour

Thu 5 Oct 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on T-shirt tour | Posted by: Gavin

Prairie Lights, Iowa City. Nice aesthetic. Pity about the bod.


Bye, Mark. Bye Dennis? Bye bye George.

Wed 4 Oct 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Bye, Mark. Bye Dennis? Bye bye George. | Posted by: Gavin

Mark Foley may bring down the government. (Perhaps it’s time to start drinking, not stop?) After the torture “debate”, hackable voting machines, pushing a war (or two, hello Afghanistan, increased opium production and all) based on false (where are the Weapons of Mass Destruction?) premises, an energy policy crafted by oil insiders, and so (endlessly) on for the last six years, the present administration is going down over this? Sure, why not.

Didn’t they learn from last time they were in power? It’s the Cover Up, stupid.

Mark Foley is a poor fuck-up who we now hear was an abused kid, is gay, and a drunk—still waiting to hear his next excuse; believe it has something to do with being paid to send those IMs by the Democratic National Committee. He was the Co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children by day and, by day, exploiting children. The question rattling through Washington is who knew what he was doing and when?

Who thought it was a good idea to shuffle reports of his behavior into the “to do later” pile? Fire them all! This isn’t anti-Republican. It’s not a campaign orchestrated by anyone: if anything it’s a consensual cover-up being exposed. The IMs are coming from ex-Pages (who don’t want their own careers ruined), not from anyone else in DC.
There’s no organization, company, or group in the world who wouldn’t be calling for the heads of anyone involved in not acting on this information.


Poor hungry Not a Journal.

Wed 4 Oct 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Poor hungry Not a Journal. | Posted by: Gavin

Never gets fed. Until this afternoon.
Ellen Kushner’s The Privilege of the Sword pb is in its 4th printing. Our edition is selling nicely.

Great review of Howard Who?

Back in print after so many years, Howard Who? remains a terrific collection of short stories. There is nobody else alive writing stories as magnificently strange, deliriously inventive, and utterly wonderful as Howard Waldrop. More.

This won’t stay online, so here’s the full thing.

Nancy Pearl Books Reviews for 10/2/2006:

On the one hand, reading Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link’s exquisitely loopy collection of stories, demands a certain suspension of disbelief, not unlike when you read Garcia Marquez, Salman Rushdie, or the other magical realists. (As Shakespeare had Hamlet note, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”) You simply have to accept (at least for the length of the story) that there might be zombies living among us, or that a purse can expand to hold a complete village. On the other hand, Link’s writing is so remarkable, her use of language so mind-boggling perfect, that you’re sucked into the world of the stories before you know it, beguiled by descriptions like this one, of a sofa covered in “…an orange-juice-colored corduroy that makes it appear as if the couch has just escaped from a maximum security prison for criminally insane furniture.” My favorite is the title story, which reminds me of a drawing by M.C. Escher’s picture The Drawing Hands. It’s intricate, wildly imaginative, and totally wonderful. Whether or not you think you like fantasy, if you’re a fan of inventive plots and good writing – Link’s use of language will fill you with awe and joy – don’t miss this collection.


Get your name in a story &c.

Wed 4 Oct 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Get your name in a story &c. | Posted by: Gavin

More interesting things from the Clarion auction: your name in a Kelly Link story. Howard Waldrop on your answering machine. Your name in a Kate Wilhelm novel. Wacky. Other cool stuff.


Generalized ineptitude/updatitudinal

Fri 29 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Generalized ineptitude/updatitudinal | Posted by: Gavin

Friday afternoon and the tree limbs are scraping against the window. How did they get here, to the 54th floor? We send one of the temp typographers over to open the window and he is never seen again. Did he run out to get more ink, or did the trees take him? The light is yellow, burning, and our secret HQ’s engines aren’t responding. We have done our Scotty imitation but so far we are stuck. And the tree branches are scraping, scraping.

—

Kelly Link and Shelley Jackson read tonight at Amherst Books in Amherst, MA, and next Sunday at KGB Bar in NYC. They read last night at Newtonville Books with Kelley Kerney (who read from her funny and dark first novel Born Again). Newtonville has a great reading series: Books and Brews. Smart peeps who know readings always go better with drinkies. Newtonville Books is also the spiritual home of a smart mag, Post Road, of which we are often enjoying.
LCRW 19 is becoming an item. The fun thing about this: it is the ten year anniversary issue. You will know because everything will be repeated 10 times. Times. Times. (Etc.) Table of contents, type of chocolate, still to be fully determined. Yes, we are pushing it. No, reviewers can’t get it yet. No one can.

Exciting LCRW news will be released to the tubes at some point. Until then go phone the White House and see if Mr. Stupid will explain his latest abuse of the constitution.

Incessantly listening to Thom Yorke. (There’s a site for his new CD, but it’s filled with flash and pdfs, so, really, what’s the point. That’s not browsing, that’s work.)

Good books and mags have been flooding in for this year’s Year’s Best. Now we are officially buried. Yay!

[Update] Good news about the 2006 edition: our editor reports the paperback edition just went back to press.
Big developers with no taste want to knock down Las Manitas restaurant in Austin, TX. How dumb is this? Does Marriott really want to close down a childcare facility and lose the best breakfast place for blocks around? Not a smart pr move. (Thanks for breaking our hearts, Robert.)

Git ye to an apple farm and pick.


Ellen Kushner signed book

Mon 25 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Ellen Kushner signed book | Posted by: Gavin

Ellen Kushner, The Privilege of the SwordWe kidnapped Ellen Kushner, whished her away to one of our secret locations in a sunny place, made her juice*, and asked her politely to sign some of her lovely swashbuckler The Privilege of the Sword. And, you know, she did. So, if you want a signed copy, now’s your chance! WordPress love: cut’n’pasted button below:

PS We have lots of other signed books, here.

* A lie. We made apple juice today and when we looked for Ellen, she was not to be found.


eye popping art

Sun 24 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on eye popping art | Posted by: Gavin

Do you have hungry eyes? Would they like to partake of a feast? Charles Vess illustrated the upcoming Susanna Clarke collection, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and provides samples and comments. (Yes, these are the DVD extras and no you don’t have to pay for them.) At his blog, n’est pa? Charles, one of the loveliest people around, has also been blogging about giving Clare Danes art and so on. What fun.

Also, at some point last week someone pointed (sorry, no attribution) to the photos from the film adaption of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. You must go look at those pictures. Satrapi’s simple lines are genius (calling the MacArthurs!—although with the way her books are doing maybe she’s doing fine these days). More good news there: in October she has another slim volume out,
Chicken with Plums, about an uncle who died after his wife broke his favorite musical intstrument.


Text Edit, energy, stickers.

Tue 19 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Comments Off on Text Edit, energy, stickers. | Posted by: Gavin

For anyone fed up with how slow Word can be, Jed Berry pointed us to this handy text editor: a modified version of TextEdit. Get the Ogre Kit extras too, set the preferences, and off we go.

Futurismic points to good energy news:

Since 2000, global wind energy generation has more than tripled; solar cell production has risen six-fold; production of fuel ethanol from crops have more than doubled; and biodiesel production has expanded nearly four-fold. Annual global investment in “new” renewable energy has risen almost six-fold since 1995, with cumulative investment over this period nearly $180 billion.

Cafe Press updates (very irregular):


Catch up time

Mon 18 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Catch up time | Posted by: Gavin

Thoughtful and excellent review of Skinny Dipping:

“An impressive and darkly humorous debut collection—well worth every baby sacrificed in the making.” — Diagram

Calendar: Kelly is on the west coast this week and Ellen Kushner reads at KGB in NYC on Wednesday.

Exciting travel news: Kelly will be going to Italy in December to take part in the Turin Rome World Book Capital Program. She’ll be reading or doing events in Turin, Milan, and Rome. This is in between two other events, the small/indie press Book Fair in New York City on Dec 1/2 (that’s 1st & 2nd, not 0.5) and something else, but there’s enough time, a week or so, to go see some Old Stuff. Constantine’s finger, here we come!

This is due to the fantastic job Donzelli has done with Stranger Things Happen. We received some PDF pages of an Italian mag article on Kelly and the book—the piece had some great art in it so at some point we hope to get them on here. In the meantime, a little Italian blog love.

From our newsletter thing: Aunt Gwenda’s been handing out pithy advice for a while now. Aren’t you in need? Send us your question to info@lcrw.net (include your address and with luck we’ll send you the ish of LCRW your question appears in). That could be LCRW 19, which will be the 10th anniversary issue. Perhaps the last if we think too deeply about that. But Zine World just said this about #17, so maybe we will keep going: “This treasury of fiction is a feast of mystery, novelty, and desire.” Send Aunty G. a Q!

Clarion move FAQ.

We’d love to hear from any teachers or professors or whomever using Small Beer books in classrooms or any kind of teaching use. We want to send some catalogs out to other people who could be doing the same thing so maybe you can help us use the right language?


This Corrosion

Mon 18 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on This Corrosion | Posted by: Gavin

2 AM videos: Ok Go. Best use of exercise machines, best choreography. (Thanks Meghan!).

Then there are so many crowd (and regular) videos on YouTube that 2 can easily become 4 (AM). Thanks to everyone who ever sneaked a decent video camera into a concert. Watching a lot of bands whose videos never made it onto Top of the Pops, Old Grey Whistle Test, and whatever other few places to see them there were in a non-MTV land or digging into the past of bands only later learned to love.

Sisters of Mercy. An appropriate slight case of overbombing: Dominion (any excuse to play around in the desert), 1959, Lucretia, My Reflection (begin with the bass), Still in Hollywood, Concrete Blonde. (So young! So much fun. Still a great video. Still don’t know all the words, sorry Gwenda.) Have to check out Catfish Scar, Johnette’s new band. (in its year of release it has to be danced to at least once per week), Possession, Heartland—this tape does indeed contain “a portion of Jolene“. Knocking on Heaven’s Door.

Few others: Still in Hollywood, Concrete Blonde. (So young! So much fun. Still a great video. Still don’t know all the words, sorry Gwenda.) Have to check out Catfish Scar, Johnette’s new band.

Tinariwen! Hipsway.
Also this:

  Tiptree radio drama; “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” — Max Schmid guest host

Thanks to Jim Freund for the link—which will be live for 10 more days or so.

Some other time: more embarrassing bands, more embarrassing hair cuts.


Good stuff, cheap

Wed 13 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Good stuff, cheap | Posted by: Gavin

Ok, so some of it is great stuff, so sue us for the emotional distress of reading that Gene Wolfe’s books are good, not great. We believe you. We sympathize. We’d like to talk about it over tea, though, and think that mediation is appropriate here, instead of legal action.

Anyway, lookee here: 2006 Clarion SF eBay Auction Sept. 10 – Oct. 8. See the stuff or get straight to the bidding. Q? A. Chocolaty subscription to LCRW and naming rights to character in a Jim Kelly or Kelly Link story available. Huh. Must go bid!
All proceeds directly benefit the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop at UCSD.

UCSD? Yup. Clarion East just became Where in the World is Carmen San Deigo.

Our mole (we have links everywhere) tells us the Foundation (a scary group of powerful backroom figures or an all volunteer board, you decide) spent a year talking to schools around the country and UCSD was the most enthusiastic and put together the best long-term package. Bummer to leave Michigan: it was hot, the food was college food, but everyone worked hard and the workshop was successful. Hope San Diego has a botanical garden near the dorms.
Clarion’s survival, being there for writers, is what all the Clarion workshops are about. Clarion West in Seattle is an amazing thing. Clarion South, the Australian edition, is every two years to best fit their needs. Clarion East becoming SD (or whatever) is pretty shocking but, like the move Clarion took from Pennsylvania to New Orleans(!) then to Michigan, it has to go where it must. 2007 instructors are: Gregory Frost Mary Anne Mohanraj, Jeff VanderMeer, Cory Doctorow, Ellen Kushner & Delia Sherman.


James Tiptree. Jr.’s letter to Carol Emshwiller

Mon 11 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on James Tiptree. Jr.’s letter to Carol Emshwiller | Posted by: Gavin

Recently we got the chance (you know, dark alleys, anonymous meetings in bars, dead letter boxes, the usual routine) to buy a letter to Carol Emshwiller from James Tiptree. Jr., aka Alice Sheldon (whose bio, by Julie Phillips, is burning up the book charts). Carol never replied but she kept writing and now has quite a few books out, including The Mount, Report to the Men’s Club, and Carmen Dog.

It’s a fantastic letter: over-the-top, enthusiastic, coffee-stained—although whose that is and when it happened is unknown.

We forged some ownership papers and caravaned it safely out of the country to our cold storage facility in the Arctic where it’s got a whole ice-cavern of its own.

But that didn’t seem quite right, so we’ve put up a low-resolution scan. This is how it starts:

24 May 75

Dear Carol Emshwiller:

May a stranger make known how much your book, JOY IN OUR CAUSE has been enjoyed? Weak word, meant to include admired, goggled at, occasionally genuflected to, been rivetted in entrancement by, and, not least, suffered suicidal inferiority-convictions from.

Read on


Local girl makes good

Sat 9 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Local girl makes good | Posted by: Gavin

Thunderstorms. Lightning. The captain put the Small Beer HQ into dive mode and made it under the Connecticut River before we were hit. Phew.

Our local paper, The Daily Hampshire Gazette (which just became a morning paper after being an afternoon paper for about 450 years) did a feature on a certain (now-)local writer. Fantastic. Someone stopped Kelly at the grocery store and said, “I just read about you in the paper!” The editor also gave Kelly a chance to recommend some recent books, so, inveterate bookseller that she still wishes she were, she quickly rattled off half-a-dozen favorites:

  • Half Life by Shelley Jackson
    Recommended to anyone who loved Geek Love’‘ or ever suffered from a bad case of sibling rivalry.Feed by M. T. Anderson
    A young adult novel set in the near future which ought to appeal to adult readers of George Saunders.”Archer’s Goon” by Diana Wynne Jones
    Another young adult novel by a writer I wish everyone would read. Funnier than J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, but just as magical. And shorter!

    20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
    A fantastic collection of short stories put out by a small British press. Hard to find, but well worth tracking down. (I usually start with www.bookfinder.com.)

    Liquor by Poppy Brite
    The first book in an addictive mystery series about two chefs who start their own restaurant. Recommended to fans of Anthony Bourdain and Jeffrey Steingarten.

    James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips
    A page-turner of a biography about a writer whose life was much, much stranger than most works of fiction could ever be.

    I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
    A coming-of-age novel about a young writer growing up in a falling-down castle. Recommended to anyone who has ever wanted to write.

There’s also a sidebar on Small Beer Press just in case you don’t know why we are here. We don’t. We get lost wondering about what’s on the other side of infinity and what happens when you go left through a red turn light, and how they make those see-through internet tubes they use for the wireless signal.

In other news, Hem have a new CD out. Get pianodelic.


Edge of Darkness

Thu 7 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Edge of Darkness | Posted by: Gavin

Mid-1980s, the ‘star wars’ defense, the women’s camp outside Greenham Common, Northern Ireland a quagmire, Joanne Whalley, Joe Don Baker, the late Bob Peck, slippery backroom government wallahs hand-in-hand with the industries they’re meant to regulate, the miners strike, Bloody Thatcher, ghosts…. All of this was put together in Edge of Darkness (Imdb) a thoughtful, deep BBC thriller that 20 years later still stands as one of the best series ever made.
Thanks to a certain plugged-in zinester for reminding me to go see if it was available yet. It’s now available in the UK and at some point should be released in the US.


Small Beer Readings Calendar

Wed 6 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Small Beer Readings Calendar | Posted by: Gavin

Just embedded a new Google Calendar on our events page. Here’s a direct link. You can subscribe to the calendar—which means it adds our calendar to yours. We’ve set up a bunch of these calendars so that we can look at a glance at what fruit we’re supposed to be picking, wo the Scottish football team is playing, where the moon is (says “in the sky” every day), and so on. Very handy.

We’ll probably just flip all the Readings links on the site to the calendar page and maybe someday make different calendars for each author (or, maybe they will make their own!). Although that sounds like work, especially since the G.Calendar page has a search function.

So far we’ve only added a Federal holidays calendar, since they keep creeping up on us unexpectedly: banks and bakeries close and we have no idea why…. Will go looking at what is else is public—or feel free to point us toward interesting ones.


Reasons to be mostly cheerful!

Tue 5 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Reasons to be mostly cheerful! | Posted by: Gavin

It’s publication day for the paperback edition of Kelly Link’s second collection, Magic for Beginners. We should have pix to post from out there in Bookland, but as yet they cling to the phone and won’t let go. Babies! We will snap their little bonds and free their souls onto the internet. Soon, yet.

This is (maybe?) Kelly’s first book not published by Small Beer Press—it’s from Harcourt!—and although she is not here and cannot be directly quoted the minions have decided that She is Pleased with not only the book, but also the awesome tour (which should be updated soon to include Prairie Lights and some other places), the cover remix, and, in fact and let it be said with whole hearts, Everything.

Another pub date (the happiest of dates, those pub dates?): Changeling by Delia Sherman! This is Delia’s first young adult book and it clangs along at a great pace around New York City (mais oui, you see, it was where she grew up!). Great fun, great.
Soon to come: pictures of Ellen Kushner’s beautiful hardcover (get them here), anthologies, news about next year (which, mavens that you are, you mostly know already), updates on all the things we have yet to do (workwise, sweetie, workwise), and a rain of live frogs lifted from our pond and delivered to you, dear reader.

—

A reason not to be cheerful about convention going.

Alan’s coming from another dimension again.


Still looking forward to the future

Sun 3 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Still looking forward to the future | Posted by: Gavin

Gotta give H.E.(TM) his props for getting the word out that the world it is a-changing. By pulling what women have to face in private up onto the stage at the Hugo Awards, he gave the whole world a chance to consider what is and isn’t appropriate behavior in public and private.

For the price of public censure from those running the awards, H.E. (TM) has pried open a fantastic can of worms long needing opened.

This discussion has often previously run aground because each incident (aka “an anecdote” as how could the incident be proven to those who were not there?) was in private. Now, with everyone able to watch, a wide-ranging discussion is possible. Will this lead to adults behaving as John Klima hopes? Perhaps. At least interesting discussions, and — shock, horror — old dogs learning new tricks.

And David Moles shining like a star.

Questions abound on and off the net (Colleen, Christopher, etc.) and then there’s the beginnings of a better world, 2 conversations: Derryl Murphy on what SFWA can do for the community and the individual and the Bellwether discussion group.


What else is going on?

Fri 1 Sep 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on What else is going on? | Posted by: Gavin

Alex Wilson recorded “The Girl Detective” — available free.
The Village Voice dumbs itself down some more by firing good people.

Theodora Goss pointed us toward a couple of fascinating artists among them Robert ParkeHarrison and Connie Toebe.

We have a pretty hardcover and we’re maybe going to start sending it out and post pictures and make pretty piles of them and hold them and call them George. Or The Privilege of the Sword.

We’ve been signing contracts and making covers for next year’s books. Wooee! Whatta week. More surprising news on that end sometime soon.

We haven’t been reading LCRW submissions very fast. Sorry about that.

One of our fantastic interns just left, bye Lauren! We miss you. Come back and work for free any time! (Evil R Us.)

In other news: it’s not about Harlan Ellison, it’s the culture. Harlan can get as head-explodey as he wants and his apologists can do what they feel they must, and in the meantime how about a new simple rule: keep your hands to yourself.

Unless you ask or are asked. Or, act like an adult and treat others as you would be treated? How simple can the formulation be? Anyone who can write it in less than 6 words wins something silly.


Alan on the secrets of the Twin Cities

Tue 29 Aug 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Alan on the secrets of the Twin Cities | Posted by: Gavin

Not all of them, not at once. Not once, not twice. Some secrets, no twins. Some city, some paper.
Alan DeNiro‘s story “The Fourth” can be read at The Rake‘s site. By chance he is reading tonight at Haven of Dreams Books in the Thin Cities. Twin Cities. Those cities. Your cities? One city split by a river? No. Twin cities.

Go see him read, see him fulminate, see him change the world as he reads.


Harlan Ellison: eejit

Mon 28 Aug 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Comments Off on Harlan Ellison: eejit | Posted by: Gavin

This can’t go on.

Gwenda points to

the chatter that Harlan Ellison groped Connie Willis (scroll to 3) — sans permission, natch, as the verb groping more or less implies — on stage during the Hugos.

Why was there no groping in Glasgow? Kim Newman and Paul McAuley would have been far less disturbing (and funnier), I’m sure.

But seriously, I think this news is going to remind a lot of us of a certain ICFA banquet gone terribly wrong. It must stop.

Worldcon: sorry, the eejit has put you on the spot and a public statement is needed.
What’s up with these dirty old men? They’re taking all the fun out of being in the genre and not inspiring anyone with anything but horror and the urge to vomit and throw out their books.
No matter how Connie Willis feels (bemused? horrified?), Ellison needs to be censured. And/or, of course, never again invited to any public event where there are women.

Best Cousin

Sun 27 Aug 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Comments Off on Best Cousin | Posted by: Gavin

StorytellerCongratulations to all last night’s Hugo Award winners (win your own French writer!) especially Kate Wilhelm, whose book Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop won the Hugo for Best Related Book. Storyteller also won the Locus Award a couple of months ago. That’s pretty amazing. The little book that could and all that.

Kate was one of the co-founders of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop — of which there are now three: Clarion East (Michigan), Clarion West (Seattle), and Clarion South (Australia) — and taught there for 27 years (hence the book title!). She is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Clarion Foundation, a nonprofit organization she helped establish in 2005 to ensure that the Clarion Workshop will continue. It’s a lovely book, formal where it needs to be (while writing about writing) and informal where it can be — the fun parts.

There were a couple of fun parts about publishing the book — the first was reading it over and over (as well as the usual editing and so forth the book had to be retyped!) and thinking about the book and the lessons within; and the second was hearing from readers who took different things from the book. “Yes — it was like that!” “Ah, that’s the secret.” “Huh.” “Six weeks sounds like a long time.” “Bum on the seat every morning….” “Wonder if I could go.” “What a laugh.” Kate’s been writing for a long time and has readers all over the map so it’s not just Clarion alumni and haters (hello!) who’ve been reading it.

Anyway, if you want a taste there are three excerpts available online:

  1. Can Writing Be Taught?
  2. Trivia Vs. Writing Real Stories now available at the Online Writing Workshop.
  3. My Silent Partner at SF Site.

Again with the congratulations to all and sundry winners and as ever those who didn’t get a rocket know it’s an honor to be nominated. Those who weren’t nominated: eh, what you gonna do? (Go see the lumberjack competition at a local fair or brave the cold rain(!) at the tomato fest.)


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