Locus Awards

Tue 4 Apr 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kate Wilhelm, Kelly Link, Year's Best Fantasy & Horror | Comments Off on Locus Awards | Posted by: Gavin

Amazing results (and a great reading list) from the Locus Poll: Storyteller by Kate Wilhelm is a Locus Awards Finalist for Best Non-Fiction and Kelly Link is a finalist for Best Novella (“Magic for Beginners“), Best Short Story (“Some Zombie Contingency Plans”), and Best Collection (Magic for Beginners) — thank you to everyone who voted.

The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror Eighteen is also a finalist for Best Anthology, yay! The latest edition is going into galleys and will be out in July. Updated the pages for the 17th and 18th editions and added the Table of Contents for the 19th edition (only in alpha order as yet).

The Locus Awards will be given out at the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle (which — along with the Experience Music Project — is a fun day out).

It’s a ballot that leans heavily toward male writers. Maybe someone (hello, Broad Universe) will go check out the historical gender breakdown of the finalists and winners and then we can continue the conversation which starts with “What’s up with that?”

Kelly in March

Fri 31 Mar 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link | Comments Off on Kelly in March | Posted by: Gavin

Hugo Award nominee: Best Novella: “Magic for Beginners“, Kelly Link (Magic for Beginners, Small Beer Press; F&SF Sep 2005)

Magic for Beginners was voted #3 in SF Site’s Editor’s Choice of 2005 and #5 in the Reader’s Choice. Yay for readers and voters. Voters!

“The Faery Handbag” in Hebrew!

Kate Wilhelm: Hugo Nominee

Thu 30 Mar 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kate Wilhelm | Comments Off on Kate Wilhelm: Hugo Nominee | Posted by: Gavin

Congratulations and good luck to all the Hugo Award nominees (inc. Small Beer authors Howard Waldrop and LCRW contributor Sarah Monette), especially:

Best Related Book Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, Kate Wilhelm (Small Beer Press)

Also worth noting: Kate Wilhelm will be Guest of Honor (with Jane Yolen) at WisCon, Madison, WI, May 26-29, 2006.

There’s a groovy excerpt from Storyteller, My Silent Partner, at SF Site.

In 2005 we donated $5 from each sale of Storyteller through our website to the Clarion Foundation. In early 2006 we sent in a check for $850 — thank you readers for helping us help future Clarion Workshop attendees.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Fri 17 Mar 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Uncategorized | Comments Off on Happy St. Patrick’s Day | Posted by: Gavin

Drive out the snakes! Don’t drink that green stuff. Go to bed early. (Pardon?)

Variety and other sources say Hugh Jackman’s production company has optioned Jim Sallis’s short novel, Drive. Yay! (Another link: Dark Horizons)

A couple of things. Karen Joy Fowler has a thoughtful piece on Octavia Butler on Salon. Among the letters is one from a guy who has never read Butler and therefore she must be completely unimportant. Makes a limited amount of sense. Not mocking, just hope he gets to read some of those messy, fluid novels sooner rather than later.

From the Times Argus in Vermont comes the best reason for someone to call you at 6 AM: “Katherine Paterson wins international award, $640,000 prize.” The award is the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature established by the Swedish government and is great PR. Hopefully other governments will pick up this idea and start new awards. More awards?! Sure, more book awards which pay like that!

On $$$, Borders revenues were $4bn in 2005. B+N’s were $5bn. Small Beer tops them all with $5.0000001bn! The surprise breakout bestsellerdom of LCRW No. 15 (1.14bn sold and counting [if you’re waiting for yours we just got the 291st printing in stock]) added an unexpected $5bn to Small Beer’s revenue which resulted in a year on year percentage gain in sales that is too large for our tiny calculator to calculate. Paradise Copies in Northampton, MA, who print LCRW, were reported as saying over and over again, “Sure, we can get this to you by Monday.”

Great art. Neko Case‘s new CD has cover and some interior art by Julie Morstad — see more of her art here or order a kid’s book she illustrated When You Were Small by Sara O’Leary.

AWP

Mon 13 Mar 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., AWP, Cons, Howard Waldrop | Comments Off on AWP | Posted by: Gavin

AWP, Austin, Texas: Well, you had to be there. Wait, too annoying? Ok. It was a blast. We will probably go back to AWP next year in Atlanta, Georgia. If you want to put together a panel, email us. The proposals have to be in by May 1.

Food in Austin is fan-foodie-tastic. Breakfasts at the must-go-back-to Las Manitas Avenue Cafe — where some newspaper piece warned of the possibility of running into Karl Rove. And me not exercising my right to bear arms (very necessary if any Friend of Cheney is around). Was that tipping the free speech card a little early? Back to food. Manuel’s has great margaritas (and wandering Iowa poets) which made waiting around survivable then the little bit fancy good Mexican food (and actually spicy salsa) was verrry welcome.

Reading at Book People seemed to go well — 6 readers and it didn’t run over long. Phew. Book People started off as “Grok Books” — how funny is that? Huge store, tons of great books, so much space for all the good books (and huge shelves of staff picks) that they have tons of, uh, junk? Or sidelines, you pick. Being we were overstuffed with books and lit mags and so on, we bought books, cards and a Keep Austin Weird T-shirt — which kind of campaign you might want to get behind if you likes your local town stuff before it all becomes McWal-Margeted. The reading was put together by Omnidawn, who successfully launched their new short fiction anthology Paraspheres. [Between that and the upcoming Firebirds Rising anthology that’s the start of a pretty good year for spec. fic. short stories.] Tons of new fiction and some fave stories from Kim Stanley Robinson and Alasdair Gray.

Did it suck that SXSW was starting as we were leaving? Yes. But we wouldn’t have had a place to stay or tix to see anything. Before we left we had breakfast with Howard Waldrop and Martha Grenon at Guero’s (another great breakfast, oy!). Will need to add her site which has many excellent pix from Kosovo and Albania. In the meantime there’s this book site.

On our second try, we saw the bats!

One flying thing: if you can avoid United Airlines: do. Good lord. Fortunately there was plenty to read while waiting including the Backwards City Review and the Doris anthology.

Future books

Wed 1 Mar 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ellen Kushner, Maureen F. McHugh | Comments Off on Future books | Posted by: Gavin

Since we’re talking about the future, two more books: June 1, 2006: Small Beer will publish a trade paperback of Maureen F. McHugh’s Story Prize finalist collection, Mothers & Other Monsters. This will have added material (no extra stories, so no worries there, completists) for book clubs and reading groups. There’ll be an interview with the author, questions, and a reprint of Maureen’s fabulous essay, “The Evil Stepmother.”

You can pre-order this one on Book Sense, Powells, Amazon, etc. or from here. Do not miss!

September 1, 2006: Small Beer is happy to announce that they will publish a small hardcover edition of Ellen Kushner’s new novel The Privilege of the Sword. This edition will complement the Bantam trade paperback edition (available here). The publication date is Sept.1 This one won’t be on Amazon, etc., for a bit, so if you want to make sure you get your copy of the first edition (which by our contract is pretty small), order it here.

Kelly in February

Tue 28 Feb 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link | Comments Off on Kelly in February | Posted by: Gavin

28 – The Nebula finalists list came out: congratulations to those on it — Kelly Link from our list, lots of other good writers, mais oui.

12 – Kelly Link Q&A (Charlotte Observer).

Q. Do you have a writing ritual?

My husband and I work at home, so it’s difficult for me to write there. So what I do when I’m in Northampton is I walk or bike into town and I meet a writer at a coffee house. We’ll meet for anywhere from two hours to five hours. We’ll just sit in the cafe and work together on our laptops. It’s very comfortable working with someone else. If we’re stuck on something, we’ll ask each other questions. We’ll ask ‘How does this sound?’ We’ll bounce ideas off each other and we’ll problem-solve for each other. The walk is a part of the process. By the time I get there, I’m anxious to work on a story.

10 – A picture of Kelly Link reading summer ’05 at Malaprop’s in Asheville. (Thanks, Carrie.)

Assumptions on the Readership of this Luxury Product

Thu 16 Feb 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW | Comments Off on Assumptions on the Readership of this Luxury Product | Posted by: Gavin

Matt Cheney has posted a poem from LCRW 16: “Scorpions” by Chris Fox.

Matt has a great piece on the accessibility of texts on Strange Horizons. A long time ago (LCRW 4, 1999…eek!) we listed a few “Assumptions on the Readership of this ‘Luxury Product'”:

You read.(1)

You read English.

You have a home.(2)

You are not chronically hungry.(2)

You will not Disappear. (2)(3)

You regard some part of your income as ‘disposable.’ (1)(2)(3)(4)

And, oddly enough, you occasionally go beyond mass media products and read tiny magazines with great fiction, poetry and odd little ideas.

Unless you found this in the trash.

You need not fear for your life by reading or possessing this or any other text or idea, samizdat or other.

You sometimes consider where the money you work for goes. You sometimes try economic support of ideas and ideologies. You don’t always fall for the hype. You shop as a pastime. You don’t always buy ‘brand’ names. This may be time-consuming and wear you out. In 5 years you will be going to the mall thinking of all the time this is saving you.

Meet Howard

Mon 13 Feb 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Howard Waldrop | Comments Off on Meet Howard | Posted by: Gavin

Updates on where you can meet, greet, and buy Howard Waldrop a beer this year. The man says these are the only places he’s going this year. (We had it wrong before, sorry.) Our Peapod edition of Howard Who? won’t be out until the second of these convention things:

May 26-28 — Conquest, Kansas City, Missouri

August 11-13 — Armadillocon, Austin, TX

November 2-5 — World Fantasy Con in Austin, TX

Note that two of these conventions are in Austin (look out for a reading there, too). Howard is an iconoclast who has always lived only on his income from his fiction. And, for the most part, he’s a short story writer. As you can imagine, his travel budget isn’t great. Buy that man a beer, make him write some more.

Sun 12 Feb 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., To Read Pile | Comments Off on | Posted by: Gavin

Lydia Millet’s Oh Pure and Radiant Heart is an incredible, immersive experience. It is at once hopeful and also a dark, depressing journal of our national and and international potentially-fatal nuclear fascination.

Millet imagines the consequences and fallout of the sudden appearance of three nuclear scientists from the 1940s in 2004. Most of the novel is told through the eyes of Ann and Ben, a quiet and content couple from New Mexico. They have found places in the world, a library, gardens, to work and to love.

Ann is one of the first to recognize and then believe in the scientists, Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and Enrico Fermi. Ben is less convinced but goes along with Ann as she gives the scientists a place to stay. She, as are most others, is most taken with Oppenheimer. A cult of personality forms around the scientists even as they try to get the government to acknowledge their existence and listen to their message of nuclear nonproliferation. Millet makes occasional swipes toward explaining the scientists’ reappearance, but for the most part they are taken as an unexplained natural phenomena which people interpret to fit their preconceived beliefs.

Oh Pure and Radiant Heart is a dark, brilliant novel by an author not afraid to look into our hearts and see our best and the worst. If the end is inevitable and unsurprising it is also commentary on our times that make it so.

Sun 12 Feb 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., To Read Pile | Comments Off on | Posted by: Gavin

Writer Rowe

Wed 8 Feb 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Zines | Comments Off on Writer Rowe | Posted by: Gavin

Apex Digest just posted their Feb. ish and the writer of the month is Christopher Rowe. Read an interview, a new short, “Queen of the Moon,” and, from Bittersweet Creek, “Men of Renown.” Chunk of interview:

Apex: You publish a critically acclaimed small press magazine titled Say…. What are your thoughts about the supposed impending doom of the small press, and literary digests/zines in general?

C.Rowe: I hadn’t heard about the impending doom of the small press, just plenty of talk about the impending doom of the, well, I guess you’d call it the medium press now. Asimov’s, Analog, those guys if we’re talking about genre fiction magazines. And sure, those magazines are going to have to do something pretty drastic pretty quickly (luckily, I’m not in a position where I’m required to identify the something) to survive while looking anything like what they do now. As for the small press and literary magazines in general, pshaw. “This is the golden age of the small press.” Jim Minz, big deal New York editor, said that and he only lies about half the time.

Kelly update

Tue 31 Jan 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link | Comments Off on Kelly update | Posted by: Gavin

Check out the great illustration and read an excerpt of a new Kelly Link story, “Origin Story,” on the site of a new mag, A Public Space.

Jason Lundberg does the Creative Commons thing and podcasts (ie reads) Kelly Link’s “The Specialist’s Hat.”

There are two 2005 Best of the Year lists on Locus that include Magic for Beginners: Claude Lalumiere and Matt Cheney. Some good books (and other things) on those lists.

Nancy Pearl

Thu 19 Jan 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Maureen F. McHugh | Comments Off on Nancy Pearl | Posted by: Gavin

On Morning Edition today Nancy Pearl (the action-figure’d Librarian! and author of Book Lust) in her regular NPR feature, “Librarian’s Picks,” chose some “Books for a Rainy Day” including Maureen F. McHugh‘s Mothers & Other Monsters. She called it “fabulous” and so on. Whee!

(Nancy, email us if you want any more books!)

Faery film

Sun 15 Jan 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link | Comments Off on Faery film | Posted by: Gavin

Well, that’s a first: FILM RIGHTS: Kelly Link’s Hugo Award-Winning short story “The Faery Handbag,” included in her collection Magic for Beginners, optioned to David Kirschner of David Kirschner Productions, by Sarah Self at The Gersh Agency, on behalf of Renee Zuckerbrot.

Storyteller ebook

Mon 9 Jan 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kate Wilhelm | Comments Off on Storyteller ebook | Posted by: Gavin

Added another ebook: Storyteller, Kate Wilhelm’s book on writing and the Clarion Writers’ Workshop. Will get some more of these books added to Fictionwise at somepoint soon.

PreliminNebs

Fri 6 Jan 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Jennifer Stevenson, Kelly Link | Comments Off on PreliminNebs | Posted by: Gavin

Congratulations to Jennifer Stevenson! Her debut novel Trash Sex Magic made the preliminary Nebula Ballot. We have a signed copies if you like that sort of thing or you can get an ebook edition. All this commerce. Or, the lack of it.

Congrats also to Kelly Link whose “novelette” (long story!) “The Faery Handbag” and “novella” (longer story) “Magic for Beginners” also made the ballot. Congrats and good luck to all the peeps on the ballot (inc. Small Beer authors Carol Emshwiller, Ben Rosenbaum, and Ray Vukcevich). The jury will add some booksto the young adult category but it’s groovy to see Holly Black’s dark and tasty YA novel Valiant sitting in the Norton Award catbird seat.

Tiptree

Tue 3 Jan 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., To Read Pile | Comments Off on Tiptree | Posted by: Gavin

A book for yous to read: The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2, edited by Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin, and Jeffrey D. Smith. So why do you need it?

One of the best short stories of the previous decade: “Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation” by Raphael Carter.
An essay by Nalo Hopkinson.
Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, and Eileen Gunn & Leslie What.

All of that (and more) would have been enough to make this an anthology worth your while. But what really makes it a must read is a second essay and a letter.

The essay, “Talking Too Much: About James Tiptree, Jr.”, is by Julie Phillips, author of this summer’s big biography: James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. Why do I say “big”? Because the letter is by James Tiptree, Jr. (aka Alice Sheldon) and it’s great. It’s the kind of letter that should give any writer pause when next they dash of an email. It’s not that long but it was enough to make me look forward to this 480 page bio. Making space on the calendar now.

The Tiptree Award anthology series is a great idea, well executed, with beautiful design by John Berry. This one’s just hitting the stores now: go on, start the new year off right.