AWP Reading/Party: Thu April 9, 7 pm

Wed 1 Apr 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

In less a week or so we will be in the Twin Cities (where our distro, Consortium is based, woohoo!) at the AWP Conference and Bookfair. To celebrate 1 million poets, writers, editors, publishers, readers, teachers, students, preachers, itinerant educators and professional argumentors getting together we are hosting a party with a few readings in it. Here are the salient details!

When: Thursday, April 9, 7 -9 pm
Where: Peterson Milla Hooks, 1315 Harmon Pl, Minneapolis, MN 55403 (4 minutes by car from l’hotel, says Google Maps)
What: Party — with short readings from . . .
Who:
Amalia Gladhart (translator of Angélica Gorodischer’s Trafalgar)
A. DeNiro (Tyrannia)
Kelly Link (Get in Trouble)

We’ll also have a table in the Bookfair, #324, and will be there be most of the time (multiple snack breaks will be taken) while the Bookfair is open:

4/9     Thu. 9 am – 5 pm
4/10   Fri. 9 am – 5 pm
4/11    Sat. 9 am – 5 pm

and at said table on Friday morning we are very happy to announce that we will have those lovely writers in for signings!

Friday, April 10, 30-minute signings:
10 am  Kelly Link
10:30 am  Amalia Gladhart
11 am  A. DeNiro

This post will be updated with panel info and anything else that seems appropriate. Can’t wait to be standing there in the bookroom with 1000 (sounds about right, yes?) other indie presses. I am going to go and buy me some books, chapbooks, and journals. And maybe a T-shirt if I am lucky. Whomsoever brings the pink T-shirt, I am your buyer!


A. DeNiro in Chicago

Wed 28 Jan 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Tyrannia and Other Renditions coverLook at me resisting writing Chitown! I am so strong.

What: Tuesday Funk with A. DeNiro, Cameron McGill, Patty Templeton, Christa Desir and H.Melt, hosted by Andrew Huff and Eden Robins.
When: Feb. 3rd, 7 pm for 7:30 start.
Where: the Hopleaf (where the Bookslut readings used to be and very close to the excellent Women & Children First!), 5148 N. Clark St., Chicago 773-334-9851

Get ye along for there won’t be another chance to see A. until AWP in April — where we will have a reading, a table, a banner, but probably not 100 mugs on a table the way Isaac Fitzgerald had on The Rumpus table in Boston a couple of years ago. Wait. We could totally rip that off.

A. might read from their latest book, Tyrannia, which if you like weird political poetic poemic polemic stories: is for you.

In other news: Sofia Samatar has been burning up the internet! Here are a few links to keep you busy while we work on getting her second novel The Winged Histories ready to drop next year: twitter · The Guardian · Post 45.

Also: Karen Lord’s new novel The Galaxy Game just came out from Del Rey and is getting great reviews. You can read an interview with her here.

Ayize Jama-Everett is working on the final final line edits of The Liminal War. That book is going to Knock People Over.

Michael J. DeLuca was just out here in Western Mass. and we talked about his guest editing an issue of LCRW — and drank some delicious beer. He also shoveled our drive, whoa! Snow days!

 


2013 in SBP books

Wed 18 Dec 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Sometimes I miss Badreads, the community reading site that AFAIK closed down earlier this year. I haven’t yet really migrated to LibraryThing (there’s that part ownership thing) or any of the others. I certainly liked seeing what other people were reading and keeping up with what I was reading.

Now, who knows what I read? I barely do. Although I really enjoyed the most recent issue of Pen America. Not just because they reprinted two stories from Three Messages and a Warning either. The whole thing was great, from the forum on teaching writing (Dorothy Allison, Paul La Farge . . . and Elissa Schappel’s heartbreaking piece) to the poetry by Ron Padgett (“Advice to Young Writers”) and two graphic narratives (comics!) by the fab David B. and Jean-Pierre Filiu (translated by none other than Edward Gauvin!) and Brian Evenson and Zak Sally. Anyway, you want a good magazine? Go read it.

I joined Pen a couple of years ago (teenage me: so proud!) and now Kelly’s a member, too. Are you a writer or editor? Do you care about intellectual freedom? If you can swing it, sign up here!

Ok, so, Small Beer: What have we been up to this fine year almost done and gone?

2 issues of LCRW! A record! Well, for recent years. We are planning 2 more for 2014. Phew!

A banner year for Weightless, yay!

And the New York Times just gave a great review to one of our final books of the year, Howard Waldrop’s new collection. I always think our books are so good that they all should be on NPR, in the WaPo, the LA, NY, St. Petersburg, Seattle, and London Times, etc., etc., so sometimes I surprised when they aren’t. I know: different strokes for different folks and all that, although really I think since all our books are so good they should overcome any reader prejudices. (“Short stories! Pah!”) The real reason they’re not reviewed anywhere? All the papers and magazines find it hard to justify reviewing half a dozen or more books from the same publisher. Right? Right!

BTW: if you would like to order Small Beer books (we have many signed copies!) to arrive in time for the holidays, please select Priority Mail. We are shipping until 5 pm on Thursday December 19th this year.

Here’s a picture of all the books we published this year and below, a little bit more about each book.

2013 books

BOOKS!
Authors!

Chuntering on!

Reviews!

CRY MURDER! IN A SMALL VOICE
Greer Gilman

What, another chapbook? That’s two in two years! The last one we did was in 2004 (Theodora Goss) and the next one should be 2014. Woo! This one is a dark, dense and intense serial killer story with Ben Jonson, detective and avenging angel.

“A jewel of a novella.”—Strange Horizons

NORTH AMERICAN LAKE MONSTERS
Nathan Ballingrud » interview

The darkest book I expect we will ever publish! Bleak? Check. Monsters? Check? Fabulous, fabulous writing? Check!

“Matched to his original ideas and refreshing re­furbishments of genre set pieces, Ballingrud’s writ­ing makes North American Lake Monsters one of the best collections of short fiction for the year.
—Locus

“The beauty of the work as a whole is that it offers no clear and easy answers; any generalization that might be supported by some stories is contradicted by others. It makes for an intellectually stimulating collection that pulls the reader in unexpected directions. The pieces don’t always come to a satisfactory resolution, but it is clear that this is a conscious choice. The lack of denouement, the uncertainty, is part of the fabric of the individual stories and of the collection as a whole. It is suggestive of a particular kind of world: one that is dark, weird, and just beyond our ability to impose order and understanding. These are not happy endings. They are sad and unsettling, but always beautifully written with skillful and insightful prose. It is a remarkable collection.”
—Hellnotes

SPIDER IN A TREE
Susan Stinson » Rick Kleffel interviews Susan Stinson (mp3 link).

Flying out the door in our town (Broadside Books alone has sold 140+ copies!) and now all over the country. Jonathan Edwards, we hardly knew ye. Until Susan brought you and your family and your town back to life.

“Ultimately, ‘Spider in a Tree’ is a lesson in what not to expect. Stinson eludes the clichés usually associated with religious extremism to peel away the humans underneath. We speak of a loving God, who asks us to embark upon a deadly war. We most easily see the sins in others that we are ourselves guilty of. Every ambition to perfect ourselves has a very human cost. As we reach for what we decide is the divine, we reveal our most fragile human frailties. Words cannot capture us; but we in all our human hubris, are quite inclined to capture words.”
—The Agony Column

A STRANGER IN OLONDRIA
Sofia Samatar

We still have a few hardcovers of this left, unlike most other places. Some reviewers have really got this book including Jane Franklin in Rain Taxi who just gave it a huge excellent review. Yes, it’s a fantasy novel. Yes, it’s fantastic. Sofia sure can write.

“Sofia Samatar’s debut fantasy A Stranger in Olondria is gloriously vivid and rich.”
—Adam Roberts, The Guardian, Best Science Fiction Books of 2013

“For its lyricism, its focus on language, and its concern with place, it belongs on the shelf with the works of Hope Mirrlees, Lord Dunsany, and M. John Harrison — but for its emotional range, it sits next to books by Ursula K. Le Guin or Joanna Russ.”—Jane Franklin, Rain Taxi

TRAFALGAR
Angélica Gorodischer. Translated by Amalia Gladhart.

Our second Gorodischer—and we have high hopes of a third and maybe even a fourth! This one is a discursive, smart, self aware science fiction. Don’t miss!

“Perhaps the strangest thing about these tales is how easily one forgets the mechanics of their telling. Medrano’s audiences are at first reluctant to be taken in by yet another digressive, implausible monologue about sales and seductions in space. But soon enough, they are urging the teller to get on with it and reveal what happens next. The discerning reader will doubtless agree.”
—Review of Contemporary Fiction

HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR: STORIES
Howard Waldrop

We keep getting letters from Waldrop fans who are so pleased he has a new book out: and that after 40 years he’s in the New York Times! Spread the joy!

“What’s most rewarding in Mr. Waldrop’s best work is how he both shocks and entertains the reader. He likes to take the familiar — old films, fairy tales, Gilbert & Sullivan operettas — then give it an out-of-left-field twist. At least half the 10 tales in his new collection are prime eccentric Waldrop . . .  as he mashes genres, kinks and knots timelines, alchemizing history into alternate history. In “The Wolf-man of Alcatraz,” the B prison movie rubs fur with the Wolf-man; “Kindermarchen” takes the tale of Hansel and Gretel and transforms it into a haunting fable of the Holocaust; and “The King of Where-I-Go” is a moving riff on time travel, the polio epidemic and sibling love.
“Among the most successful stories is “The Horse of a Different Color (That You Rode In On),” an improbable confluence of vaudeville (two of the main characters perform in a horse suit) and the Arthurian Grail legend that manages to name-check Señor Wences, Thomas Pynchon, “King Kong” and more as Mr. Waldrop tells of the Ham Nag — “the best goddamned horse-suit act there ever was.” It’s certainly the best horse-suit-act story I’ve ever read.”
—New York Times

TYRANNIA AND OTHER RENDITIONS
A. DeNiro

A.’s second collection marries absurdity to with politics and heart. Every writer is unique. A.? A. is like a superhero made up of the best parts of half a dozen of our favorite writers. Read these two excerpts to see why: “Tyrannia”, Walking Stick Fires [excerpt].

“Most of Tyrannia‘s rambunctious, immensely entertaining stories — seven of them science fiction — blend bizarre speculations with intermittent humor. When there isn’t humor, there’s weirdness — often extreme weirdness, funny in its own right. Fair warning: what I’m about to describe might not always make sense. That’s in the nature of this highly unconventional collection.”
—Will George, Bookslut

DEATH OF A UNICORN & THE POISON ORACLE
Peter Dickinson

We added Reading Group Questions to the former and the latter includes an author interview carried out by none other than Sara Paretsky. These two sort of mysteries are filled with bon mots, memorable characters, and the strangeness of the 1950s, 1970s, and 1980s. There is nothing as haunting as the last line of The Poison Oracle.

“Dickinson’s crime novels are simply like no other; sophisticated, erudite, unexpected, intricate, English and deeply, wonderfully peculiar.”
—Christopher Fowler, author of The Memory of Blood


We all live in Tyrannia

Tue 19 Nov 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Tyrannia and Other Renditions cover - click to view full sizeI’ve been looking forward to this day for a year! Well, not the one where we all live in Oceania with the all-seeing government watching us from the cameras in our laptops (all the NYT journalists cover the cameras with yellow stickies now . . . ), rather the day where A. DeNiro‘s new collection Tyrannia and Other Renditions comes out and blows everyone’s minds. A.’s stories are about the person on the ground (or the monster on the motorbike) affected by the weird goings-on in politics, for ecstatic poets, worried artists, table top adventurers, and should be required reading for all politicians.

Booklist said: “With just one novel and one story collection under [their] belt, DeNiro has already garnered a reputation as a genre-bending experimental author with an indescribably quirky but captivating prose style.” Of all the trade reviewers, they really seem to get their writing.

The cover map of the (ok, imaginary) Tyrannian lands and the typography is by Kevin Huizenga, and it was so right that we carried it on through the book. And then there is A.’s incredible new author portrait by Shelly Mosman. I love A., but they are the weensiest bit scary here.

You can get A.’s book in all good bookstores, the usual online slavedriving warehouses, or from here. And of course you can always get our DRM-free ebooks here on Weightless.


Busy week coming

Mon 11 Nov 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Tyrannia and Other Renditions cover First, tomorrow, the lovely (well, in the USA), 11/12/13, we celebrate publication day of Howard Waldrop’s Horse of a Different Color: Stories.

On Wednesday there are two readings for you to drop all and get your plane tickets for. How will you decide which to go to? Flip a coin?

For those nearer Massachusetts, Susan Stinson will be reading from Spider in a Tree at 8 pm at Amherst Books in Amherst. The Concord Monitor just chimed in with a lovely review that captured the same sense of surprise I found in myself when I was grabbed by this novel of life in 1740s Northampton:

Massachusetts author Susan Stinson’s Spider in a Tree: a Novel of the First Great Awakening surprised me. I knew the basic history of the period, including a bit about Jonathan Edwards, and frankly, thought it dull. But Stinson takes readers into Edwards’s home, into the lives of his family, their slaves, neighbors, relatives, and yes, even the spiders and insects of colonial Northampton, Mass. Suffering and joy, religious ecstasy and secular sorrow, the conflict between formal theology and individual conscience all make vivid fodder for Stinson’s story, which follows Edwards’s trajectory from 1731, during the religious revival that gripped New England, to 1750, when his congregation dismissed him.

and you can read an interview with Susan on Bookslut.

For those in the middle or left side of the country, A. DeNiro is also reading on Wednesday night. They are reading at 7 pm at SubText: a Bookstore in St. Paul, MN. A.’s second collection, Tyrannia and Other Renditions comes out next week and you can read an excerpt from “Walking Stick Fires” on tor.com.

Make your choice!

Susan Stinson
8 pm, Amherst Books, Amherst, Mass.

A. DeNiro
7 pm, SubText: a Bookstore, St. Paul, Minn.


A. DeNiro on “The Philip Sidney Game”

Thu 7 Nov 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Tyrannia and Other Renditions cover - click to view full sizeI’m delighted to see A. DeNiro’s new story “The Philip Sidney Game” is up on Interfictions. When I asked A. for more about the story, this is how they replied (posted with A.’s permission, of course):

Diving into the writing of “The Philip Sidney Game” was a strangely autobiographical process. I had to let my wife Kristin know that I was writing her as a character in the story. After she read it, she said that she didn’t sound like herself. I probably didn’t sound like myself either, but there was a version of me within the core of that story that was added to the many other layers of “me.” That, too, is a speculation, just as much as Philip Sidney’s use of magic. But as the rails fell off the story (by design) near the end, I entered a place where I wanted to write directly, as A. DeNiro, to my readers — and a poem seemed to be the best way to do that. So it was fun to be able to incorporate that other side of me into a story.


Tyrannia is coming!

Thu 24 Oct 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Watch out!

And in the meantime: “The Philip Sidney Game” is now live at Interfictions.


PW on Tyrannia

Wed 4 Sep 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Great review of A. DeNiro’s forthcoming Tyrannia in Publishers Weekly:

“DeNiro (Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead) has crafted the rare work whose setting is the realm of pure imagination.” Read it here.


Tyrannia isn’t a geographical location

Tue 27 Aug 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Spolia #1

As Gus Iversen notes on the Spolia magazine intro page to A. DeNiro’s story “A Rendition”

Tyrannia isn’t a geographical location as much as a frame of mind. 

Read the intro (“Tyrannia: Population: A. DeNiro“) here and the full story here.

 


Tyrannia, free?

Mon 12 Aug 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Good news! We have 15 copies of A. DeNiro’s excellent new collection, Tyrannia and Other Renditions to giveaway* on LibraryThing.

A.’s stories are like no one else’s.* Tyrannia—with a fab cover by Kevin Huizenga—has eleven stories that have been published in Asimov’s, Caketrain, Strange Horizons, Spolia, and other fine books and magazines. This book will knock you over and if you’re lucky, it will do it for free.

Good luck!

* Yes, we used to do Mehgoodreads giveaways but since they got bought by Amazon I closed my account. Bitter? Me? No. Yes, LT are part-owned by the evil empire, too. Meh.

** Yes, I know this is true of everyone. But it’s more true of A.!


Audio book news

Tue 23 Jul 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

We sent out the following note this morning. More below:

EASTHAMPTON, MA, July 23, 2013 — Small Beer Press is delighted to announce that audio rights to seven new and forthcoming titles have been acquired by Audible.com.

The first release will be award winning North Carolina writer Nathan Ballingrud’s debut collection, North American Lake Monsters: Stories. Also forthcoming within the next year are:

Gavin J. Grant, Publisher of Small Beer Press stated, “We love the books we publish and getting audio editions out there is becoming more important day by day. We’ve worked with many of the best audio publishers and are happy to add Audible to the mix.”

Audible, Inc., is the leading provider of premium digital spoken audio information and entertainment on the Internet, offering customers a new way to enhance and enrich their lives every day. Audible is also the preeminent provider of spoken-word audio products for Apple’s iTunes® Store.

Small Beer Press is a Massachusetts based independent publisher headed by the husband and wife team of Gavin J. Grant and award winning author Kelly Link. Small Beer publishes a dozen or so select titles per year and also runs the DRM-free ebooksite, http://weightlessbooks.com. For more information, visit our website at https://www.smallbeerpress.com.

————–

This should be good news for authors and audio fans everywhere. Previously we’ve worked with

And we were very happy when Brilliance did the audiobook of Steampunk! and Recorded Books did Kelly’s collection Pretty Monsters.

Audiobooks are a growing part of the book business and we want our books read—or listened to—so I expect we will be selling more titles to Audible in the future but we will also shop them around to make sure we do well by our authors and readers.

And if none of this is fast enough for you and you want to listen to a good story right now, then I recommend our podcast which you can listen to here or subscribe to using iTunes or the service of your choice:

 rss feed


New A. DeNiro story in debut issue of Spolia

Wed 17 Apr 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

SpoliaVery excited by this. Just got my copy (pdf, for those who like to know: it’s also available as an epub or mobi, but I like seeing what the pages look like) of the debut issue of Jessa Crispin’s new magazine, Spoila. A.’s story, “A Rendition” will be part of their new collection, Tyrannia and Other Renditions, coming out in October.

The Natalya Goncharova Portfolio is fabulous and I’m also looking forward to checking out the rest, including, bonus points!, two translations. Subscription is coming, here’s the manifesto, and please go get your copy here.

Table of Contents

Daphne Gottlieb, “Bess”

Peter Vermeersch, “Gone” (translated by Florian Duijsens)

Phil Sorenson, “December, December, Night, Night”

Jessa Crispin, Jane Pritchard interview

Leah Triplett, “Filling In the Archive: The Afterlife of Natalia Goncharova”

Natalya Goncharova Portfolio

Greer Mansfield, “A Natalia Goncharova Catalog”

Lightsey Darst, “Living with Art”

Olivia Cronk, “Four untitled poems”

A. DeNiro, “A Rendition”

Mikhail Shishkin, “Of Saucepans and Star-Showers” (translated from the Russian by Leo Shtutin)

Hoa Nguyen, “Mekong I, Cause the Shine, For Love Red, Hid”


Vid, discounts, art, made-up stories, and —

Wed 2 Dec 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

so on. Wait: aren’t all stories made up? No! Because, wait for it, some of them are True. Riiiight, on with the show.

We added a short intro video (see below) to the Writer’s Daily Planner since it is so late to hits stores — managed to post it on Facebook and IndieBound, not sure if it will end up on Powell’s. Used the Flip camera, then upped the sound. Need a better mic!

And: we’ve added discounts! (Not sure if we will get organized enough to do a sale before the year ends. Hmm.)

A. DeNiro chats up LibraryThing. And, they have a new story on Strange Horizons.

Adam Roberts’s idiosyncratic take on Cloud & Ashes — he likes the story, not the dialog. (Do read his Kevin Anderson review as well, it’s v. v. funny.)

And: Greer gets some fan art.

Nice review of Hound @ Fictionophile: “If bibliophilia is an illness, then Henry Sullivan is terminal!”

Ed Park pulls a thread and finds a story in American Fantastic Tales.

And, you know, other stuff.

Many ‘ands make light work?


A., John, Vincent, Elissa, Bruce & Henry, & more

Wed 25 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Publishing seems to take today off as part of the Thanksgiving holiday—maybe everyone on NYC is taking the day off to empty the oven of books so that they can try and cook a turkey?—but we in indie press land don’t recognize your bourgeois concept of “holidays.” All days are holidays here!

And in the meantime, coming up soon we have an interview with Daniel Rabuzzi author of The Choir Boats and we’re looking forward to the new issue of Xerography Debt (with a few reviews by yours truly).

Hilarious post by Elissa Bassist: What We Were Really Saying:

Me
I verb you.

Him
I similarly feel for you in this way, but I’ll never say the word verb in front of you or even behind your back to my friends. I have feelings only sometimes, and only when I feel like it.

Elsewhere, tangentially related to SBP: A. DeNiro (Skinny Dipping…) is celebrating the release of his first novel, Total Oblivion, More or Less, by hosting a fundraiser for MercyCorps—and if you donate and send A. an email he’ll send you a piece of postapocalytic ephemera.

Bruce Sterling gives the Wired thumbs up to Henry Jenkins intro to Interfictions 2: “Man, Henry Jenkins is the guru.”

Nice review of Hound:

Hound is a leisurely mystery, the action is secondary to the pace of life, the thoughtfulness, the focus on books and things literary. This isn’t fast-paced, action-filled. The story develops at it’s own pace, not to be rushed but rather to be savored. Indeed, the crime-solving is secondary to the portrayal of Henry, the sensitive bibliophile’s efforts to make sense of life. This is a “literary” novel with a mystery inside. It’s full of asides and memories of the character’s youth. The reader needs to relax and enjoy. Initially, I wasn’t sure I was going to like this, but my affection for this book and it’s characters grew as I read, until by the end I was quite satisfied. I look forward to the next in this different, intriguing series.

This generic image should make people rethink getting shiny new electronics for Xmas:

http://www.booksequalgifts.com/banners/Book_and_Bow.jpg

John Kessel (The Baum Plan…) is interviewed at Marshall’s Sekrit Clubhouse (shh, it’s a secret!) and can be seen on UNC TV’s Bookwatch here:

John Kessel
Play Video

Link dumps

Sat 21 Nov 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Mini-io9 linkdump:

  • One of our authors Karen Lord’s debut novel Redemption in Indigo makes a list of 20 SF books to look forward to. And they are right! (Although it is the first edition, not only the first US edition. Hey, but rights are available… ) Anyway, it’s great and great fun and wethinks you will enjoy it.
  • SBP gets hauled out in a list of publishers reinventing publishing. Don’t know about that but it’s a list with some great people on it. (We all make that face when we pick up the mails as it is always the bills.)
    -> Have you see Jeremy’s letter in Locus about getting to use a Richard Powers cover? (Ah, googlefound here) It is awesome and Eclipse 3 is on the the TBR list.
    -> We will start an ebook store at some point and reinvent publishing. We will move from selling ideas on paper to just painted electrons on that gadgety new Apple tablet thing that we’re all going to get in spring.

Mini-Scotsman linkdump:

Mini-Guardian linkdump:

Mini linkdump:


Sunday morning

Sun 12 Apr 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Ok, so this is why newspapers are in trouble: it has something to do with the 150-people rule and something to do with those friends providing better morning reading than the papers:

Photo012Maureen on vodka infusions, mmm! We tried this, great fun: we got better results with dried things—peppercorns, coffee, and vanilla—over green—basil, cucumber, lemongrass—but passion fruit was the real surprise winner.

Gwenda reported on a doll parts horror scare (with optional fuzzy unicorn posters).

A. really got things going with a post on Kutiman, which has been everywhere recently, but it was the voice of authority/trusted recommendation that made it worth looking at. And then, dancing Sunday mornings, Batman, that is great stuff. (Looks like their site is down, so will just keep listening to it on YouTube for now.) Yeah.

Autobloggreen (ok, it’s more newsy than people) says that our fave jellybean will arrive over here . . . only another 2 years to wait, dur. We saw the non-electric version in Japan in 2007, so what’s 4 years to wait for a jellybean? (Why so loved? Maximum space, minimum ride!)

But then The Scotsman showed its mettle with a piece on ear symmetry and dancing skills! So get your dancing shoes and calipers out:

At the Edinburgh Science Festival event, good dancers will be asked to put themselves forward for a dance-off to find the five best among them. The five worst dancers, Prof Wiseman said, would be easier to spot.

Then the ear measuring will commence. Prof Wiseman said researchers suspected the best dancers would have the most symmetrical ears, while the worst dancers would be less equal – though there may only be a few millimetres difference.


we get around

Wed 16 Jul 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Wednesday John Kessel will be showing the kids a good time in New York City at the KGB Bar (can’t be there, boo!) with JoSelle Vanderhooft. Order a Baltika for us. Then John goes to Readercon outside Boston next weekend (more on that below), and on Tuesday the 22nd he (and David J. SuperSchwartz) read at Odyssey Books in South Hadley (near Northampton). He should be on the local radio, will link to it if and when.

That Readercon thing:

  1. We’re on some panels.
  2. So are you.
  3. We’ll have a table (and maybe a surprise) in the dealers room.
  4. So will you!
  5. We’ll have LCRW 22 (and some old ones, The Best of, etc.) as well as Dr. Kessel’s mighty collection—get it signed here!—as well as all the usual good stuff. We’ll have galley give aways and pre-ordering opportunities.
  6. One of them involve one of next year’s Guests of Honor. (Check the programming book!)
  7. Geoff Ryman will be reading from The King’s Last Song on Saturday at 3 PM. We will have galleys around to look at but the book won’t be on sale until September
  8. Benjamin Rosenbaum’s book hilariously ships on Tuesday July 22, just after the convention. Ha. Cough.
  9. See you at the Meet the Prose party.

A. DeNiro in a pod

Thu 17 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | 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.)

 

 

 


A.

Tue 8 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

A. DeNiro paid us a lot of money to publish their book. Unknown to us their family was one of the earliest to make millions from salting maps. When their people flew us to Arctangent City we weren’t quite sure what to make of it.

This wasn’t our experience in publishing (which was more along the lines of breaking into adjunct English teacher lounges and leaving copies of our books around in the hope that they would be adopted and taught).

But A.’s people were, as Locus said of their stories, “deeply weird.” But also persuasive. So we went for it, took their money (a lie), printed 100,000 hardcovers (also a lie), sold foreign rights to Rabitton, Utopia, and so on, and tried to get A. to stop going on Oprah (all lies) so that we could work on other books rather than reprinting theirs.

It’s been a wild ride. Something akin to reading their collection, Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead.

  • Read a couple of the stories in a funsize PDF edition.
  • Get A.’s unique reading guide/drinking game guide for the book: here.

A. DeNiro in the house

Sat 28 Apr 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Literally. If you have any questions for A. (for an interview we’re going to do), email us! A’s on a panel this afternoon and then reading tonight at the UMass Amherst Juniper Literary Festival:

2:15-3:15 PM Roundtable Discussion: Weird War: Politics & the Politics of Whimsy (at Emily Dickinson Homestead): investigating the relationship between world events and various literary responses to them, from the overt championing of a particular cause to the less explicit approaches of lyric, personal history, and invented parallel worlds; with Chris Bachelder, A. DeNiro, Paul Fattaruso, Sabrina Orah Mark, Eugene Ostashevsky, & Matthew Zapruder

7:30 PM Poetry & Fiction Reading with Eric Baus, Lucy Corin, A. DeNiro, Julia Johnson, Sabrina Orah Mark, Eugene Ostashevsky, Imad Rahman, Michael Robins & Shauna Seliy at University of Massachusetts’ Memorial Hall

We went to the opening reading last night where Rachel Sherman read a hilarious story (that A. says was published in n+1) that occasionally required her to read in the voice of “The Reaper”—not the reaper you’re thinking of. 6 good readers (none of whom went too far over time!), beer + cookies = fun night.


A. & the LBC

Tue 13 Feb 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the DeadForced to post yet again despite the comfy couch, big old book, and cup of crabby green tea (too lazy to go see what the proper name is) by Pinky‘s rather exciting news from the Lit Blog Coop announcing that Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead is one of three Read This! picks for Spring ’07:

The Cottagers by Marshall Klimasewiski (W.W. Norton)

Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die! by Mark Binelli (Dalkey Archive Press)

Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead by A. DeNiro (Small Beer Press)

So at some point this spring all the lit bloggers who take part in the LBC will be talking about these books on their own blogs and at LBC central. There will also be podcasts, interviews, free donuts (ask at your local coffee shop, say the LBC sent you), and so on.

This is fantastic news — thanks to the bloggers who nominated Alan’s book and everyone else who has anything to do with this. Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead is a fantastic book on many levels and an incredibly strong debut collection. Alan’s writing moves carefully and easily across and through familiar genres creating a unique and unmistakably individual voice. We very much look forward to following the conversations about the book.

Recent Read This! selections (yanked right from the LBC homeship) have included:

———-

Update: But will any of the conversations be as deep (and wacky) as Chris Nakashima-Brown‘s?


Cleveland gets DeNiro

Thu 14 Dec 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

— Added an exciting reading: A. DeNiro will read with Christopher Barzak and Sean Thomas Dougherty on Jan. 4 at Mac’s Backs in Cleveland Heights. Great store, we love doing events there. Don’t forget to eat at Tommy’s next door. Yum. (Reading calendar.)

— Also, John Kessel took a look at A.’s book in F&SF:

About fifteen years ago, in an essay I wrote comparing sf and mainstream fiction, I quoted Raymond Carver’s assertion that short stories are more like poems than novels. I protested that you would be hard pressed to find more than a handful of sf stories published every year of which this was true.

I don’t think that’s true anymore.

— Nice little story about another fave bookshop (we have so many…): Malaprop‘s in Asheville. Which is very near Salsa’s. Ah, the food of the traveling days. Malaprop’s also picked Magic for Beginners as one of their faves of 2006.
— Elsewhere: an interview with Kelly Link by Bat Segundo. (Download.)

— And: a review of Julie Phillips’s biography of Alice Sheldon. (This was necessarily foreshortened to fit the space available. What can you do?)

Besides all the other great reviews The Double Life… received, it was just picked as a Salon Book of the Year and there’s an interview with Julie here.


Signed Waldrops; Suggestion Plea

Tue 21 Nov 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Howard Who?During a brief sidetrip to Texas (where a bunch of plausible fabulists were gathered and wondering where a certain Mr. B. Rosenbaum was {Swizzerland, it seems}), we asked a boon of Mr. Howard Waldrop. He consented (when approached with ice cream and beer: Texans!) to apply his signature to his book. Huzzah, we announced, to the surprised gila monsters everywhere. Huzzah.

Then we returned to Gueros again. For: verily, the tacos are unbeatable. Also, Las Manitas. Oh, the joy that was in our hearts, even as it was enspicened by the knowledge that we would have to leave this city of joyous eats and head away, away.

Even Joe’s Cafe was a place of wonders in this time of joy. (Joy especial as the fabulist gathering was on the edge of the City of Great Foods so to be in the center was akin to being the chocolaty center of a bon bon.) There, and a few other places, we were able to speak with Mr. N-B (interviewed here) whom, should you get the opportunity to see him read, you should take as he is, really, quite wonnerful.

Eventually retured to the Small Beer HQ and enstrengthened by our collection of Waldropian Signatures (for he is Mighty with his pen or typewriter), we are making these books, this debut collection, Howard Who? which is its name, available for sale.

Lo, it is done.

Other titles we have signed copies of: many. Move thy clickity thingy over here to see. (Kelly Link, Ellen Kushner, A. DeNiro, Carol Emshwiller).

Now your turn: Please send us Suggestions for what kind of sale we should put on this year. Suggestions welcome by email or in the comments below.

Other tiny updates: everywhere on our site. Because the paper in the office it overwhelming, of course.

A. is reading at the Erie Bookstore on Dec. 30th at 2 PM. Drop by and see him!

Added links to a couple more audio recordings (almost like podcasts!) of Kelly (or readers reading Kelly’s stories) here — includes a Real Audio (oh well) file from November 2005 from Prairiie Lights where she read “Monster.”

Kelly also got a nice mention in this piece about short stories by Kevin Sampsell (micro emperor!).


Rust Belt Surrealist

Tue 10 Oct 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | 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.


A. in NE

Tue 11 Jul 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Tons of people at the reading in Boston last night — yay! Now A. + Kristin are off back to Minneapolis and he gets a break until the next reading. The Boston Phoenix blog points toward Alan and Theodora Goss’s reading tonight.

Last night’s reading at the Amherst Bookshop was great fun. To celebrate the new issue of LCRW we had a couple of people read pieces from the new issue.

Caitlin Beck and Lauren Smith read (or, really, performed) David Schwartz’s story “Play” — a playful story in two voices which was hilarious. Michael DeLuca read Fred Coppersmith’s short piece “At Uncle Ogden’s House.” Then the three of them read Dear Aunt Gwenda‘s latest column — with Caitlin reading Aunt Gwenda’s incisive and informative responses while wearing an orange boa! Jeanette Westwood (whose story “Crimson-lady at the Auction, Buying” is in the issue) dropped by to say hello but couldn’t stick around for the reading. Next time!

Nice people from One Less and Zygote Games and lots of readers turned up for the wine and the reading. The evening was recorded so at some point we may be able to add it to the audio pages. We’ll send you an email when and if . . .


TOChicago

Mon 10 Jul 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Time Out Chicago likes Skinny Dipping:

“DeNiro’s greatest gifts are those of a poet, and his prose is filled with stunning images and incantatory rhythms. Debuts often come along with press releases touting them as “assured,” and sure enough, DeNiro’s was no different. But with talent as deep as his, it’s no wonder Deniro is confident in touring us around his strange worlds.” —Jonathan Messinger

Tonight: a reading!


Book Sense!

Thu 6 Jul 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Big News: A.’s book is a Book Sense Pick for August with a great quote from Caleb Wilson of Davis-Kidd who obviously got the book. (Thanks go all those bookshops who nominated it!) So now the bookshops should have it and hopefully be selling the heck out of it!

SKINNY DIPPING IN THE LAKE OF THE DEAD: Stories by A. DeNiro
“This is a great debut collection of loopy, off-the-wall, and still-somehow-packing-emotional-weight stories; DeNiro can weld words into some mighty strange configurations.”
— Caleb Wilson, Davis-Kidd Booksellers, Nashville, TN

If you are in Massachusetts, come meet A. Deniro, hear him read, pick up a reader’s guide (and drinking guide), join the LCRW launch party, and see him and Theodora Goss all in the next few days:

7-9: Readercon 17, Burlington, MA (where Small Beer will have a table and many interns will attend!)

10 (Monday): Amherst Books, 8 Main Street, Amherst, MA 01002 413.256.1547 — 800.503.5865
— with LCRW 18 launch party

11 (Tuesday) — Porter Square Books, Porter Square Shopping Center, 25 White Street, Cambridge, MA 02140 · (617) 491-2220
— with Theodora Goss (In the Forest of Forgetting)

Also on the Book Sense list in case you didn’t believe us earlier. This is a damned good book:

JAMES TIPTREE, JR.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips (St. Martin’s)
“Alice Sheldon trekked across Africa with her parents in the 1920s, became an accomplished painter, joined the Women’s Army Auxiliary, worked for the CIA, received a Ph.D. in psychology, and married twice. She also had a career as an influential writer of science fiction as James Tiptree. Her complex gender identity and sexual orientation is utterly fascinating, as is her remarkable life, which is made all the more vivid in this rich biography.”
— Kris Kleindienst, Left Bank Books, Saint Louis, MO


20 rainstorms

Mon 3 Jul 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

In 20 Epics there is some rain. We sold all the copies we had at Readercon. It was an epic job of salespersonship by interns, friends, us, others. Finding the epically designed books was a long sordid tale of hidden icons, misdirection, and dead letter offices which was only concluded when Mary “I live in Iceland” Robinette “Shimmer” Kowal tracked them down far into the Labyrinth past the Steaming Kitchens of Despair. The books sold grandly, richly, with bread and cheese and some ale. They found spots by the fire in inns, they were purchased by plucky, heartfelt, surprisingly good looking kids who in a certain light looked like writers. The books were prizes, ill-gotten gains, kept in saddlebags, used as hats, ripped in two and kept by distance-separated lovers. There are at least twenty epics in the book but you only have to buy one. Lulu. Powells.

– Damn rainmakers. Damn rain gods. Damn all the Rain Cowboys. Living in the rain forest. No rainbows. Would love a rain check on the rain, thanks. Refuse to get out the rain wear. This is more of a squall than a storm. Being rained out. Sad not to be rain proof.

– A. DeNiro interviewed by John “Whatever” Scalzi. Read a couple of the stories in a funsize PDF edition.


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