A. DeNiro in Chicago

Wed 28 Jan 2015 - Filed under: Not a Journal., A. DeNiro, Ayize Jama-Everett, Karen Lord, Michael J DeLuca, Sofia Samatar| Posted by: Gavin

Look 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!

So much news: 2015 edition!

Thu 23 Oct 2014 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Angelica Gorodischer, Ayize Jama-Everett, Nicole Kornher-Stace| Posted by: Gavin

Here’s a large part of it: 4 new books for early 2015! Two of them are from Ayize Jama-Everett, The Liminal War (June) and The Entropy of Bones (August). You can read about how the covers came about today on Tor.com. The covers are both by John Jennings, check out his tumblr which is full of excellent art. You can read the first three chapters of Ayize’s first novel The Liminal People here. The books are all connected, but can also stand alone. More on these two pageturners soon-ish.

Two more books! First, another translation of an Angélica Gorodischer novel! Prodigies (translated by Sue Burke) is considered by the author and many others to be her best novel. After Sofia Samatar reviewed Kalpa Imperial so thoughtfully we asked her to have an early look at Prodigies and this is what she said:

“Gorodischer’s rhythmic and transparent prose reveals the violence underlying bourgeois respectability. Prodigies is both incisive and incantatory.”—Sofia Samatar, author of A Stranger in Olondria

The fourth book is the first Big Mouth House title of 2015, Nicole Kornher-Stace’s debut YA novel Archivist Wasp. It’s a dark, thrilling ride (wait, did I really write that? Yup. Sorry! But, you know: true!) set in a deeply imagined future. Just wait. Here’s a better description:

“Goes off like a firecracker in the brain: the haunted landscape, the sure-footed, blistering prose — and, of course, the heroine herself, the most excellent Archivist Wasp.” — Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

Around Small Beer

Mon 14 Jan 2013 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Alasdair Gray, Ayize Jama-Everett, Elizabeth Hand, Karen Lord, Kathe Koja, Kij Johnson, LCRW, Under the Poppy| Posted by: Gavin

Just because the government tells you something doesn’t mean you have to believe it.

Tomorrow: Julie Day reads Kij Johnson’s “The Empress Jingu Fishes” on the Small Beer podcast on the tavern with beer and food.

And check out Wired.com’s Geek Mom interview with Kij. Kij is off to Oxford to give the JRR Tolkien lecture on fantastic fiction and to teach a workshop: lovely!

Ayize Jama-Everett’s The Liminal People was on the Identity Theory Holiday Reading List. Add it to all your comix-and-sf-reading lists!

I just interviewed Karen Lord, whose lovely new novel The Best of All Possible Worlds comes out from Del Rey next month, for BookPage. That should go up at the start of February.

In April it’s last chance to see Under the Poppy in Detroit. Do it!

The Village Voice gives Errantry a stormer of a review:
“With grand feeling and inventiveness, Hand writes of modern life edging just into the impossible. Her ragged modern characters, often lost or stoned or just unfixed in their lives, set out over moors or into hidden parks in search of realities less dispiriting than our own.”

Kelly’s “The Faery Handbag” is this week’s story on the Bookslinger app.

The first review has come in for the new ish of LCRW. Here’s Sam Tomaino at SF Revu on LCRW 28:
“Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet is the kind of magazine that you want to read slowly. Read a story. Put the magazine down. Absorb what you have just read. Then, after a while, read another story. Repeat. After more than a year’s absence here is issue #28 with more of their very different stories.”

Scottish Television loves Alasdair Gray almost as much as we do. He’s doing another piece of public art in Glasgow—can’t wait to go over next summer and see it all—this time at the Western Baths Club. (Ok, so I may not be able to go see this one). Here’s the video of the unveiling of his previous mural in the Glasgow subway. It’s based on the art from Old Men in Love.

That’s it, out of time.

Publication Day!

Tue 10 Jan 2012 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ayize Jama-Everett| Posted by: Gavin

Here’s the deal: order a copy of The Liminal People from us today, January 10, 2012, and we’ll throw in the ebook for free as well as a copy of Ayize’s original edition that you can either keep in your amazing book collection or give it to a friend.

Read the first three chapters here here, but be warned: you may get hooked!

Ayize self-published the book and Nalo Hopkinson did us a huge favor and suggested he send the book to us. It’s a fast-paced science fiction thriller that grabbed me from the get go and I read it right through.

Early readers love it but we somehow managed to score a 0/4 trade reviews—eek! It’s been a while since we did that and now we need to get the word out asap! The book is in indie stores (and yes, online monoliths) just waiting for Guillermo Del Toro to discover it.

Anyway: read it and come back and tell me what you think. Ayize is working on another novel set in the same world and I am trying to get him to send it to me now! and after you’ve read it I think you’ll be saying the same thing.

get liminal!

Tue 27 Dec 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ayize Jama-Everett| Posted by: Gavin

Annalee Newitz reviews Ayize Jama-Everett’s debut novel and if you read the review you’ll see why we had to publish the book:

“You’ll be sucked into a fast-paced story about superpowered people struggling for control of the underground cultures they inhabit…. The novel is a damn good read. It’s a smart actioner that will entertain you while also enticing you to think about matters beyond the physical realm.”
—Annalee Newitz, io9

Read the first three chapters.

Next week (+ giveaway)

Fri 9 Dec 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ach, Ayize Jama-Everett, podcast, Three Messages and a Warning| Posted by: Gavin

We have a new episode of Who Is Amazon Trying To Stomp Out of Business/Subsume/Buy Out This Week. Then we will keel over in shock, shock I tells you when we discover that the $34-billion WalMart-wannabe has disclosed its teeth to the public once again. You should see what they’re like behind closed doors. Not pretty. They’ve hired some great people, they’re going to buy some great books for their publishing arm, but, man, those people are, um, not nice.

Besides that, we have a new installment of Julie Day’s excellent Small Beer Podcast. This one features two stories from Three Messages and a Warning as well as actual and real beer from our new fave beer store, TruBeer, in Easthampton.

Want to preview the anthology? You can read two stories here.

We’ll also have office copies of at least one of our January books (yes, they were December, they slipped, darn it!), Ayize Jama-Everett’s The Liminal People. We will have giveaways for that, so be ready to define liminal.

In fact, we’ll send a free galley to the first five commenters (US/Canada only, sorry) on this post who post comments either on people or liminality(!).

Remember the holiday shipping deadlines—and how they don’t apply to our ebooks!

And: we will be posting some new books. Preorders welcome! We love preorders! We send them out asap so that you get the book long before it reaches the distribution system. Go, baby, go.

What else? Next week we will be trying to finish up a lot of work before 2011 goes quietly into the night. You never know, might get it done!

Liminal People giveaway

Thu 30 Jun 2011 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Ayize Jama-Everett, Free books| Posted by: Gavin

Git git git over to Goodreads and git yourself a copy of this science fiction thrill-ill-iller! We’re publishing it in December but we have 20 copies for going-to-be-happy readers to enjoy long before that cold cold month comes along.