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.