20% of the List is (or isn’t?) Small Beer

Fri 13 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Booklist, Sarah Pinsker, Top 10| Posted by: Gavin

We are celebrating having two titles on the recent ⁦⁦ALA Booklist Top 10 Debut SF&F list — and they’re both short story collections: shout out to Abbey Mei Otis for her Top 10 debut Alien Virus Love Disaster and ⁦⁦Sarah Pinsker for her Top 10 debut Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea.

 

---

Nuekom Award Shortlists

Thu 9 May 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Awards, Claire G. Coleman| Posted by: Gavin

These are words to brighten the day: there are two Small Beer titles on the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Debut Award Shortlist:

 

Last year, the inaugural year for the awards, Juan Martinez’s Best Worst American and Christopher Rowe’s Telling the Map were both finalists for the award with Best Worst American being one of the winners.

Here’s the full press release with all of the finalists, congratulations, one and all!

These 10 Books May Be Telling Us the Future

HANOVER, N.H – May 9, 2019 – Ten books that dare to imagine how society collides with the future have been named to the shortlist of the 2019 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards.

From the challenges of life on a floating Arctic city, to epidemics of forgetfulness and zombification, to an Earth occupied by amphibious aliens, the Neukom shortlist forces readers to grapple with uncomfortable twists to familiar storylines of climate change, social justice and technological innovation.

The second annual speculative fiction awards program will be judged by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. Awards will be presented for a debut book and for a book in the open category.

“Artists and writers continue to take on the important role of challenging us with their visions of ‘what if,’ often picking up where scientists and technologists either neglect to or forget to go,” said Dan Rockmore, director of the Neukom Institute. “This year’s entries are testament to the extraordinary creativity and thoughtfulness that is finding its means of expression in speculative fiction.”

2019 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards Shortlist of Books:

Open Category

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller (Ecco, 2018)

Plum Rains by Andromeda Romano-Lax (Soho Press, 2018)

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas (Little Brown, 2018)

The Night Market by Jonathan Moore (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017)

Theory of Bastards by Audrey Schulman (Europa, 2018)

Debut Category

Alien Virus Love Disaster: Stories by Abbey Mei Otis (Small Beer Press, 2018)

Infomocracy by Malka Older (Tor, 2016)

Severance by Ling Ma (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018)

Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman (Small Beer Press, 2018)

The Book of M by Peng Shepard (William Morrow, 2018)

“It’s been gratifying to play a part in reading and selecting such unique and strong fiction from so many different points of view. We’ve particularly enjoyed encountering writers we had not read before—and it’s especially gratifying to find so many new voices, who we believe readers will be encountering for decades to come. The Dartmouth prize is a much-needed addition to the current slate of science fiction awards,” said spec fic writer and co-judge Jeff VanderMeer.

The winning books will be selected from the shortlist in late May.

Each award winner will receive a $5,000 honorarium that will be presented during a Dartmouth-hosted panel to discuss the genre and their work.

“We’re looking forward to selecting the winners. This is such a strong list and a difficult choice for us but a very good problem to have! It’s wonderful to see so many writers taking chances and showing us other ways to view the world we live in today and what our tomorrows could be,” said spec fic editor and co-judge Ann VanderMeer.

The Neukom Institute for Computational Science is dedicated to supporting and inspiring computational work. The Literary Arts Awards is part of the Neukom Institute’s initiative to explore the ways in which computational ideas impact society.

###

About the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards

The Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards is an annual awards program to honor and support creative works around speculative fiction. Established in 2017, the awards program is an open, international competition sponsored by the Neukom Institute for Computational Science at Dartmouth College. The awards aspire to raise general awareness of the speculative fiction genre, as well as the interconnectivity between the sciences and the arts. The awards serve as part of the Neukom Institute’s initiative to explore the ways in which computational ideas impact society.

---

AWP 2019, #8046

Mon 25 Mar 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Juan Martinez, Karen Joy Fowler, Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin

Later this week we’ll be one of a million publishers and journals and writing programs taking part in the bookfair at the annual AWP Conference.

I’ll be at Booth 8046 most of the time; Kelly will be there sometimes (see panels below and the next item), and our kid will be with us, swimming, living in Powell’s if she can, reading under the table, or selling zines . . . !

Zines?

Due to shipping snafus on my part — ugh, everything delayed by short term sickness, all gone now, phew — some of our books won’t be on the table until Friday, darn it, so Kelly and Ursula went into overdrive and made some zines:

ziiiiiiiines for AWP pic.twitter.com/rFBvptT5dE

— Karen Carpenter’s The Thing (@haszombiesinit) March 25, 2019

And here are a few things to potentially add to your sched. We will have copies of books by Kelly, Karen, Juan, and Abbey at their table signings.

Say hi if you’re there!

Thursday March 28
1:30 – 2:45 pm
B117-119, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1

R224A. Light is the Left Hand of Darkness: A Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin. (Alexander Lumans,  Emma Eisenberg,  C Pam Zhang,  David Naimon,  Kelly Link) “Truth,” Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in her novel The Left Hand of Darkness, “is a matter of the imagination.” In 2018, one of America’s greatest science fiction writers passed on, leaving behind a library of literary and social achievements. Through her imaginative narratives, she scrutinized politics, gender, and the environment, creating alternate worlds and new societies as a means to convey deeper truths about our own. This panel celebrates her influential work and pays tribute to her legacy.

Friday March 29

11:00 – 11:30am
Kelly Link
Table signing, #8046

4:30 – 5:45 pm
F149, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1

F310. Speculative Fiction, Genre, and World-building in the Creative Writing Classroom. (Brenda Peynado,  Ploi Pirapokin,  Kelly Link,  Karen Joy Fowler,  Trent Hergenrader) With more and more writers interested in speculative fiction, magical realism, and genre, how can workshops, teachers, and programs embrace all these forms? Panelists who teach in the Clarion Writers Workshop, UCLA Extension Programs, MFAs, and undergraduate programs discuss specific approaches to teaching, including speculative fiction in literary fiction workshops, classes and programs tailored for genre forms, and guiding students to build sound, imaginative, and diverse worlds.

Saturday March 30

10:30 – 11:00am
Karen Joy Fowler
Table signing, #8046

11:00 – 11:30am
Juan Martinez
Table signing, #8046

1:30 – 2:45 pm
B117-119, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1

S219. Getting Home: Writing & Publishing Debut POC Story Collections. (Ivelisse Rodriguez,  YZ Chin,  Abbey Mei Otis,  Juan Martinez) Finding a home for a story collection is hard. It’s harder still for people of color writing about worlds bypassed by the larger reading public. This panel features debut authors whose collections explore what it means to speculate on racialized experience in the US, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, and Colombia. They discuss how perceptions of identity wind through issues of craft and cultural expectations: What do readers seek in their work? To what degree do authors fulfill or frustrate assumptions?

3:00pm to 3:30pm
Abbey Mei Otis
Table signing, #8046

---

2018 SBP x Locus

Mon 25 Feb 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Andy Duncan, Claire G. Coleman, John Schoffstall, LCRW, Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

Following up on my earlier 2018 wrap-up, I’d meant to post something near the start of February about the 2018 Locus Recommended Reading List but so it goes. The whole issue is worth digging into if you like weird or sff&h or genre fiction at all as between these reviewers they’ve tried to see everything that came out last year. Not everything is included in their write up but many are and I’m proud to say that 4 of our books and 3 stories we published in collections and one in LCRW were included.

I’m going to start with a lovely quote from Gary K. Wolfe and then put some reviews for each title:

2018 Locus Recommended Reading List

Andy Duncan · An Agent of Utopia
“An Agent of Utopia”, Andy Duncan (An Agent of Utopia)
“Joe Diabo’s Farewell”, Andy Duncan (An Agent of Utopia)

“Dying Light”, Maria Romasco Moore (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #37, 7/18)

Abbey Mei Otis · Alien Virus Love Disaster

John Schoffstall · Half-Witch

Vandana Singh · Ambiguity Machines & Other Stories
“Requiem”, Vandana Singh (Ambiguity Machines)

Readers can go and vote for their own favorites in the Locus Poll and Survey (deadline 4/15).

Reviews

Vandana Singh · Ambiguity Machines & Other Stories

“A major short story collection.” — Jonathan Strahan

“An essential short fiction collection in a year that saw many good ones. Singh’s superb work has appeared in a wide range of venues, and it is good to have a representative selection in one place.” — Graham Sleight (Ten books of the year)

John Schoffstall · Half-Witch

“Other highly recommended titles are Half-Witch from John Schoffstall, a traditional fantasy except that the sun orbits the world and God takes part as a not-very-helpful character . . .” – Laurel Amberdine

“Though billed as YA, had plenty for all to chew on in its vision of a magic-inflected Europe and a protagonist with a direct (if interference-riddled) line to God.” — Graham Sleight (Ten books of the year)

P.S. We just sold audio rights to Tantor on this title so listen out for that later this year.

Claire G. Coleman · Terra Nullius

“Searing.” — Gary K. Wolfe

Abbey Mei Otis · Alien Virus Love Disaster

“Abbey Mei Otis publishes in literary journals as well as SF magazines, so many of the weird SF and fantasy-infused stories in Alien Virus Love Disaster will be new and delightful for our readers.” — Tim Pratt

Andy Duncan · An Agent of Utopia

“Andy Duncan – in what might well be the collection of the year – invoked everyone from Sir Thomas More to Zora Neal Hurston in An Agent of Utopia, which also brought together some of his most evocative tales about the hidden corners of Americana, from an afterlife for Delta blues singers to the travails of an aging UFO abductee.” — Gary K. Wolfe

“. . . a book that showcased why he is a treasure.” — Jonathan Strahan

“An essential introduction to one of the great tellers of fantastic tall tales.” — Graham Sleight (Ten books of the year)

“Andy Duncan’s charming and affable stories abound with hidden depths, and An Agent of Utopia is no different, with a dozen stories, including a pair of originals that are generating a lot of buzz.” — Tim Pratt

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet

“My very favorite story this year may have been another story from a veteran of both SF and Mystery: ‘Dayenu’, by James Sallis, from Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. It’s an exceedingly odd and unsettling story, beautifully written, about a veteran of a war and his rehab – from injuries? Or something else done to him? And then about a journey, and his former partners. . . . The story itself a journey somewhere never unexpected.” — Rich Horton

---

Feb. 20: Abbey Mei Otis, Kelly Link, & Jordy Rosenberg

Wed 13 Feb 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Kelly Link, Northampton & environs, readings| Posted by: Gavin

(from Forbes Library’s press release)

The third reading in the Forbes Library Writer in Reading Series “Our Work And Why We Do It” is Wednesday, February 20th, from 7-9pm in the Coolidge Museum at Forbes, featuring three brilliant fiction writers:

Kelly Link
author of “Get in Trouble”, “Magic for Beginners”,
“Stranger Things Happen” and more!

Abbey Mei Otis
visiting from Ohio and author of “Alien Virus Love Disaster”;
first reading from this collection in the area!

Jordy Rosenberg
author of “Confessions of the Fox”
(a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection)

~this event is FREE and Wheelchair Accessible~

Books by the authors will be available for purchase at the event!

(You can read more about the writers here on the library’s website and here on Facebook!)

This series features writers of prose, poetry, nonfiction, and memoir, and beneath these broad categories, constellations of subgenres and forms. The series is interested in exploring how writing relates to work, to a sense of a collective project that seeks to respond to the political and social forms that produce it. The series hopes to affirm the role of creative written work as a measure of response to the exigencies that shape our world.

I’ve been calling this reading In The Offing, an attempt to name a theme I feel captures the character these writers share. While diverse in formally adventurous ways, each carves a unique path toward futures portended in the murk and bright of the present or dredge different possibilities for histories buried in the past. They contain, in the richness of their visions and the lyricism of their articulations, a spirit that echoes Ernst Bloch in his demand for utopia: “that is why we go, why we cut new metaphysically constitutive paths, summon what is not, build into the blue, build ourselves into the blue, and there seek the true, the real, where the merely factual disappears…”

To learn more about the writers and their worlds, you can find a brief interview with Kelly Link from the MacArthur Foundation here, the title story from Abbey Mei Otis’ collection here (with an introduction by Dan Chaon), an interview with Jordy Rosenberg here, and an excerpt from his novel here.

Also, on February 7th, Jordy will be reading at UMASS Amherst as part of their Visiting Writers series! More info here.

---

Meet a PKD Finalist

Mon 14 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Awards, Vandana Singh| Posted by: Gavin

I’m paperback-sf-delighted to see that both Abbey Mei Otis’s Alien Virus Love Disaster and Vandana Singh’s Ambiguity Machines are finalists for the Philip K. Dick Award, yay! — and congratulations to all the finalists!

Where’s your chance to meet a finalist?

Vandana Singh will be the Hal Clement Science Speaker at the Boskone convention which runs from Feb. 15-17 at the Westin Boston Waterfront, in Boston, MA. We’ll be there with her book in the dealers room.

And in the meantime, here’s the whole PKD Award nominee announcement, Cheers!

2019 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Announced

The judges of the 2018 Philip K. Dick Award and the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, along with the Philip K. Dick Trust, are pleased to announce the six nominated works that comprise the final ballot for the award:

TIME WAS by Ian McDonald (Tor.com)
THE BODY LIBRARY by Jeff Noon (Angry Robot)
84K by Claire North (Orbit)
ALIEN VIRUS LOVE DISASTER: STORIES by Abbey Mei Otis (Small Beer Press)
THEORY OF BASTARDS by Audrey Schulman (Europa Editions)
AMBIGUITY MACHINES AND OTHER STORIES by Vandana Singh (Small Beer Press)

First prize and any special citations will be announced on Friday, April 19, 2019 at Norwescon 42 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Seattle Airport, SeaTac, Washington.

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States during the previous calendar year. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the Northwest Science Fiction Society. Last year’s winner was BANNERLESS by Carrie Vaughn (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) with a special citation to AFTER THE FLARE by Deji Bryce Olukotun (The Unnamed Press). The 2018 judges are Madeline Ashby, Brian Attebery, Christopher Brown, Rosemary Edghill, and Jason Hough (chair).

---

2018 by the Numbers

Mon 19 Nov 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Andy Duncan, Claire G. Coleman, John Schoffstall, starred review, Su Wei, Vandana Singh, year's bests| Posted by: Gavin

Before this week disappears I wanted to post about the year in Small Beer. The year out in the world is very dark although I refuse to be pessimistic about the present and the future. I believe everyone rises together and that working with that in mind is the way to live. One of the ways I can deal with all the crap right wing antihumanists are throwing at us around the world — besides going to protests, calling politicians, tweeting in desperation, lying on the floor, donating to nonprofits, and listening to audiobooks instead of the news — is to keep making things. Some of those things go out into the world, some of them are breakfast, some of them are ephemeral toys me and my kid make. The biggest things I make, with Kelly and the work of many other people, come out from Small Beer Press.

Every year I want to look back and see that we’ve published stories I haven’t read before — seems like a good place to throw in a reminder that we’re always looking for work by women and writers of color; our submissions are always open and we still ask for paper subs because there are two of us and we want to read everything.

So, in 2018 we published 2 issues of our million-year-old zine — still the best zine named after Winston Churchill’s Cobble-Hill Brooklynite mother, Jennie Jerome — LCRW and 6 diverse and fascinating books. To break down the books a little:

7 starred reviews — feel free to grab the illo above and put it into the hands of Netflix, review editors, &c.
5 US debuts
3 novels, 3 short story collections
3 women, 3 men
1 translation
2 NPR Best Books of 2018
1 Washington Post Best of the Year
plus 4 reprints:
— Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands, 3rd printing, June 2018
— Kij Johnson, At the Mouth of the River of Bees, 5th printing, June 2018
— Kelly Link, Stranger Things Happen, 9th printing, November 2018
— Naomi Mitchison, Travel Light, short run reprint, November 2018
Somewhat related: 1 MacArthur Fellowship (so we had a sale — sort of still going)

The books:

Ambiguity Machines & Other Stories by Vandana Singh
“Magnificent.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review), Top 10 SF, Fantasy & Horror Spring 2018
“hopeful, enriching” — Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

The Invisible Valley: a novel by Su Wei, translated by Austin Woerner
“pleasantly picaresque” — Publishers Weekly
“complex, colorful characters” — Kirkus Reviews
“shocking and gritty” — Library Journal
“lushly atmospheric and haunting novel” — Booklist

Half-Witch: a novel by John Schoffstall
NPR Best Books of 2018
“Genuinely thrilling.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“a marvel of storytelling” — Amal El-Mohtar, New York Times Book Review

Alien Virus Love Disaster: Stories by Abbey Mei Otis
“A breathtaking reading experience.” — Booklist (starred review)
“An exciting voice. . . . dreamy but with an intense physicality.” — Washington Post “5 best science fiction and fantasy novels of 2018”

Terra Nullius: a novel by Claire G. Coleman
NPR Best Books of 2018
Stella Prize finalist
“Imaginative, astounding.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Highly recommended.” — Library Journal (starred review)

An Agent of Utopia: New & Selected Stories by Andy Duncan
“Zany and kaleidoscopic.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Evocative, playful, and deeply accomplished.” — Booklist (starred review)

The zine

fiction: 9 women, 3 men
nonfiction: 1 woman
poetry: 3 women, 2 men
2 first publications

So far next year, besides helping with the ongoing progressive revolution, we’re planning on making many Small Beer things including 2 (or maybe 3) issues of LCRW and at least 3 books:

1 debut
1 novel, 2 short story collections
2 women, 1 man
4 Reprints
— Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic, January 2019
— Laurie J. Marks, Earth Logic, February 2019
— Sofia Samatar, Tender: Stories, trade paperback, April 2019
— Sarah Rees Brennan, an, In Other Lands, trade paperback, September 2019

And one or both of us are planning to be at Boskone (Boston, February), AWP (Portland, OR, March), WisCon (Madison, WI, May), Readercon (Boston, July), Brooklyn Book Festival (September), & maybe more, who can say?

We published a lot of things to read this year and we know at least 2 people (us!) loved them. Hope you get a chance to read and enjoy them, too.

---

Read Moonkids

Tue 30 Oct 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis| Posted by: Gavin

by Abbey Mei Otis. Now online at The Offing:

No denying it, though. Moonkids, they’re kind of stubby.
On account of them growing up on the moon. Your muscles
learn differently in moon gravity. Your bones form light like
a bird’s. Used to not even be possible to make the transition,
you’d touch down into earthpull and collapse like fast-melting
candles. Too many fractures for all the king’s horses and all the
king’s men. Way, way too many for Earth doctors to deal with.
(Earth doctors are known for not giving a shit.) Now, though,
they’ve got ways around it. They’ve got operations and stuff.
Every moonkid’s got incision scars in the same places.
Colleen likes that her friend Tesla works for Suzo too. Tesla
got promoted to assistant manager a couple weeks ago, because
she’s so bomb with the business side of things. Encouragement
is good for Tesla. The people side of things, she has more trouble
with.

---

Malaprop’s and Moon Palace

Wed 19 Sep 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Nathan Ballingrud, readings| Posted by: Gavin

Do you live in Asheville or Minneapolis and just read Gary K. Wolfe’s review column and were wondering what Abbey Mei Otis’s stories sounded like? Good news pour vous! We’ve just added two more readings for Abbey Mei Otis in those very towns! The first is on Sunday, September 30 at 3 pm in the afternoon, where Abbey will be in conversation with Nathan Ballingrud, author of North American Lake Monsters.

Sun., 9/30, 3 p.m. In conversation with Nathan Ballingrud
Malaprop’s
55 Haywood St., Asheville, NC
828-254-6734

And the second reading is at Moon Palace (yes, the store that just added LCRW!), where Abbey will read with Anya Johanna DeNiro:

10/23, 7 p.m.
Moon Palace Books
3032 Minnehaha Ave., Minneapolis MN  55406
612.454.0455

Recent Reviews

“Otis actually belongs with writers like Kelly Link, who freely borrow genre materials to construct elegant literary fictions far more about character than spectacle. . . . As odd as these worlds are, they are populated by sharply drawn characters we come to care about through Otis’ luminescent prose.” — Gary K. Wolfe, Chicago Tribune

“Otis doesn’t use science fiction to lift the veil of the familiar and peer at what’s beneath. Instead, with great shrewdness and courage and originality, she reveals that the veil was itself an illusion, and the familiar a construct of anything but.” — Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, IGMS

“Dreamy but with an intense physicality that belies the violence behind the longing.”— Everdeen Mason, Washington Post Book World

“It’s a collection that will keep your heart half in your throat and half in your toes, and I recommend it.” — Tor.com

“In these stories, yes, there are aliens, robots, sex dungeons, chicken puppets, ghosts, and blobs of unknown origin and nature. But there is also tenderness and the absence of it. There is prose that delights. There are plastic people, and people not sure if they can bleed. What these stories do best is sci-fi. What these stories do best is love. And if you need to distinguish between the two, then Abbey Mei Otis is here to deny you. For if barriers between what is ‘science fiction’ and what is ‘literature’ haven’t already broken down, then this collection is Abbey Mei Otis burying a glowing-neon hammer into that tired beige wall.”— Columbia Journal

“Many of the stories share an emphasis on physicality and embodiment, whether it be bodies distorted by alien environments or artifacts or people thrown into their own bodies through suffering at other, human hands. . . . highly recommended for anyone interested in weird fiction, sf, or just a breathtaking reading experience.” — Booklist (starred review)

“Abbey Mei Otis’s stories are incandescently dark, if you can imagine such a thing (but maybe only she can). Full of danger and strangeness, but written in carbonated and astounding prose that is all her own, these stories create worlds and will make you contemplate (and worry about) our own.” — Elizabeth McCracken, author of Thunderstruck & Other Stories

“These are amazing, electric stories—you can feel the live wire sizzling in them from the first sentence, and you know you’re about to take a wild, unforgettable trip. Abbey Mei Otis is my favorite kind of writer: her worlds are uniquely strange yet eerily relatable, and she knows how to make you laugh and weep at the same time.” — Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will

“Abbey Mei Otis deposits the reader in bargain bin worlds remaindered from the near futures of the more fortunate, worlds filled with space junk and toxic glitter, gel candy and gutted elk. These are stories for the many, for lovers and mourners, for those who want to split their minds from their bodies and those who know how to merge their organs in a single skin. In Alien Virus Love Disaster, language itself is in phase change. This book is a volatile, dangerous gift.” — Joanna Ruocco, author of Dan

“After I read this book, I woke up with bumpy, reddish growths along my spine. They burst, releasing marvels: aliens, robots, prefab houses, vinyl, chainlink, styrofoam, star stuff, tales from the edge of eviction, so many new worlds. Alien Virus Love Disaster is a super-intelligent infection. Let Abbey Mei Otis give you some lumps.” — Sofia Samatar, author of Tender

“Abbey Mei Otis speaks for a generation of people with fractured futures and complicated hopes. It is a collection about right now.” — Maureen F. McHugh, author of After the Apocalypse

“The aliens have already arrived in ‘Blood Blood.’ Abbey Mei Otis has them visiting in a way we’ve seldom seen before in genre science-fiction: Not as hunters, conquerors or even ambassadors, but as wildlife observers. . . . As brilliant as this cosmos and narrative is, Otis also manages to supply rich characterizations. It’s a concept sci-fi piece that tries something new and succeeds on every level.” —Matt Funk, Full Stop

---

Author exposes Scuppernong to ‘Alien Virus’

Mon 20 Aug 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis| Posted by: Gavin

Not our title, but a little irresistible: Ian McDowell reviews AVLD and interviews Abbey Mei Otis in NC’s YES! Weekly — obviously I am going to love any paper with an exclamation mark in the title —  Author exposes Scuppernong to ‘Alien Virus’.

If you’d rather listen to an interview, T. Hetzel interviewed Abbey for WCBN’s Living Writer series.

Also, Columbia Journal: “What these stories do best is sci-fi. What these stories do best is love. And if you need to distinguish between the two, then Abbey Mei Otis is here to deny you.”

---

Whee!

Tue 14 Aug 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, readings, tour| Posted by: Gavin

And off it goes! Today we are publishing a fantastic first book of stories, Alien Virus Love Disaster by Abbey Mei Otis. This book tore into our hearts and then knocked our heads off. This is contemporary fiction through an sf&f lens. Things drop out the sky, there are aliens, there are crappy jobs, there are families doing what it takes to not lose the family house. Booklist gave it a starred review (you can read that here), Everdeen Mason liked it (as per the Washington Post Book World), and Brit Mandelo just reviewed it (“It’s a collection that will keep your heart half in your throat and half in your toes, and I recommend it”) yesterday on Tor.com.

At AWP this March Abbey was part of a huge group reading with Juan Martinez and a number of Black Ocean and Third Man Books poets and writers at a bar in Tampa, FL, and she was amazing. Being a young and enthusiastic author Abbey is on tour starting tonight. Later in autumn she’ll be reading at Malaprop’s and then — if all goes well — Moon Palace in Minneapolis. Don’t miss her!

You can read 3 stories now:

The title story — as recommended by Dan Chaon — on Electric Lit’s Recommended Reading.
“Blood, Blood” on Strange Horizons.
“Sweetheart” on Tor.com.
Prefer print? Read “Rich People” in the new issue of Tin House.

So here’s your chance to catch an author at the start of it all. Get ye to a bookstore and see Abbey Mei Otis’s August 2018 Debut Tour

---

Washington Post Says

Fri 3 Aug 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis| Posted by: Gavin

This weekend, following quickly on the heels of the starred Booklist review, Everdeen Mason gives Abbey Mei Otis’s debut Alien Virus Love Disaster a standout review in the Washington Post Book World:

Abbey Mei Otis is an exciting voice in contemporary science fiction. Her new book “Alien Virus Love Disaster” (Small Beer) is a short-story collection that explores those left behind in typical sweeping science fiction adventures — the children, discarded robots, school dropouts and blue-collar workers with the misfortune of being near something toxic. A stand-out story is “Moonkids,” about young humans from the moon who find themselves living and working on a beach town on Earth after being expelled from lunar society. Humans born on the moon end up becoming physically changed from the atmosphere, and if they fail a high-stakes exam, they are returned to Earth with nothing to do but be gawked at by normal people. Like many of Otis’s stories, it’s dreamy but with an intense physicality that belies the violence behind the longing.

The book comes out on the 14th and Abbey will be reading at the following five fantastic indie bookstores:

Tue., 8/14, 7 p.m.
Mac’s Backs-Books on Coventry
1820 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
216.321.2665

Wed. 8/15 7:30 p.m.
Two Dollar Radio HQ
1124 Parsons Ave., Columbus, OH 43206
614-725-1505

Thu 8/16/18, 7 p.m.
Literati Bookstore
124 E Washington, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
734.585.5567

Tues. 8/21/18, 7 p.m.
Scuppernong Books
304 S. Elm St.
Greensboro, NC 27401

Wed. 8/22/18 7 p.m.
Flyleaf Books
752 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd., Chapel Hill, NC 27514

---

A Breathtaking Reading Experience

Tue 24 Jul 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, starred review| Posted by: Gavin

---

Abbey Mei Otis Tour Dates

Thu 19 Jul 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, readings| Posted by: Gavin

There will be Minneapolis and more dates added later in autumn but for the moment here are the dates for Abbey Mei Otis’s tour next month behind her debut Alien Virus Love Disaster.

I saw Abbey read at our AWP reading with Juan Martinez and many others in Tampa earlier this year and she was a standout so I highly recommend putting on your jetpack and getting to one of these fab indie stores to see her:

Tue., 8/14, 7 p.m.
Mac’s Backs-Books on Coventry
1820 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
216.321.2665

Wed. 8/15 7:30 p.m.
Two Dollar Radio HQ
1124 Parsons Ave., Columbus, OH 43206
614-725-1505

Thu 8/16/18, 7 p.m.
Literati Bookstore
124 E Washington, Ann Arbor, MI 48104
734.585.5567

Tues. 8/21/18, 7 p.m.
Scuppernong Books
304 S. Elm St.
Greensboro, NC 27401

Wed. 8/22/18 7 p.m.
Flyleaf Books
752 Martin Luther King Jr Blvd., Chapel Hill, NC 27514
919-942-7373

---

Upcoming

Sat 7 Jul 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis| Posted by: Gavin

Curious about Abbey Mei Otis’s debut collection, Alien Virus Love Disaster, coming next month?

Good news: you can read two of the stories right now and two more will be published online on storied sites we admire very much: one on Electric Lit and one on Guernica — Check out “Poet Wrestling with the Possibility She’s Living in a Simulation.”

Abbey’s work is the pure product and right of this very moment. Here are the stories that are available right now: Blood, Blood on Strange Horizons & Sweetheart on Tor.com. You can preorder Alien Virus Love Disaster here, it comes out August 14.

 

---

Incandescently Dark

Fri 15 Jun 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis| Posted by: Gavin

Elizabeth McCracken, author of Thunderstruck & Other Stories emailed us on Tuesday with this note about Abbey Mei Otis’s upcoming debut Alien Virus Love Disaster:

“Abbey Mei Otis’s stories are incandescently dark, if you can imagine such a thing (but maybe only she can). Full of danger and strangeness, but written in carbonated and astounding prose that is all her own, these stories create worlds and will make you contemplate (and worry about) our own.”

---

Read Abbey Mei Otis’s Rich People in the New Tin House

Tue 12 Jun 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis| Posted by: Gavin

Straight from the Tin House’s mouth:

Dive into Tin House #76 this summer and prepare for exploration of waters unknown. Start with one last short story by the late Ursula K. Le Guin, “Pity and Shame,” whose prose is, as ever, filled with her poignant intellect and humor. Plumb the mysteriously strange lives of “Rich People” with emerging writer Abbey Mei Otis, or find uneasy accommodation with Catherine Lacey’s “The Grand Claremont Hotel.” And Meghan O’Gieblyn’s essay “On Subtlety” will make you think twice about the stories you’ve been told and things better left half-said. All this and more in an issue as expansive as it is wild, mercurial, and tempting.

You can read the new Ursula K. Le Guin story here and pick up the new issue here:

Fiction from Ursula K. Le Guin, Abbey Mei Otis, J. Jezewska Stevens, Catherine Lacey and Leigh Newman, and New Voices by Ashley Whitaker and Carrie Grinstead

Poetry from Lia Purpura, Yusef Komunyakaa, Shane McCrae, Adam Clay, James Hoch, Philip Metres, Maggie Smith, Mildred Barya, Nomi Stone, Ira Sadoff, Teddy Macker, Sally Ball, Gerardo Pacheco Matus, and Rosebud Ben-Oni

Nonfiction from Ashleigh Young and Meghan O’Gieblyn

Books Lost & Found from Tabitha Blankenbiller, Jon Michaud, Joshua James Amberson, Cheston Knapp, and Ruby Brunton

And a Blithe Spirit from Elissa Schappell

---

Amazing, Electric Stories

Fri 1 Jun 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis| Posted by: Gavin

Dan Chaon, author of Ill Will just sent us this after reading Abbey Mei Otis’s upcoming debut Alien Virus Love Disaster:

“These are amazing, electric stories—you can feel the live wire sizzling in them from the first sentence, and you know you’re about to take a wild, unforgettable trip. Abbey Mei Otis is my favorite kind of writer: her worlds are uniquely strange yet eerily relatable, and she knows how to make you laugh and weep at the same time.”

---

Space Junk and Toxic Glitter

Fri 4 May 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis| Posted by: Gavin

We just heard from Joanna Ruocco, author of Dan, who read an advance copy of Abbey Mei Otis’s Alien Virus Love Disaster:

Abbey Mei Otis deposits the reader in bargain bin worlds remaindered from the near futures of the more fortunate, worlds filled with space junk and toxic glitter, gel candy and gutted elk. These are stories for the many, for lovers and mourners, for those who want to split their minds from their bodies and those who know how to merge their organs in a single skin. In Alien Virus Love Disaster, language itself is in phase change. This book is a volatile, dangerous gift.

 

---

A Super-Intelligent Infection

Tue 27 Mar 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Sofia Samatar| Posted by: Gavin

Sometimes I get great emails:

“After I read this book, I woke up with bumpy, reddish growths along my spine. They burst, releasing marvels: aliens, robots, prefab houses, vinyl, chainlink, styrofoam, star stuff, tales from the edge of eviction, so many new worlds. Alien Virus Love Disaster is a super-intelligent infection. Let Abbey Mei Otis give you some lumps.”
— Sofia Samatar, author of Tender

---

New Books? New Books!

Tue 17 Oct 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Abbey Mei Otis, Austin Woerner, John Schoffstall, Su Wei| Posted by: Gavin

It is boom time here at Small Beer! Books are rolling off the printing presses, more are being sent for quick reprints (whoopee!), I’m working on a couple of contracts, lining up some books for next autumn, and here here here are a few fun, mindblowing, immersive, weird and fantastic (so: just the usual then?) books that we will publish next spring and summer.

In reverse order they are:

Alien Virus Love Disaster, a debut collection of door-stomping-down stories from Abbey Mei Otis

Half-Witch, a debut YA novel of by John Schoffstall

and The Invisible Valley, a debut novel by Su Wei translated by Austin Woerner

Don’t like vertical images? Like ebooks? Check them out on Weightless!

---