Kelly in Boston, an interview
Fri 3 Oct 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Kelly Link reads tonight at the Harvard Book Store (which has a new owner, yay for them!) in Cambridge. One of the very amusing things about the store is that they own the url harvard.com but have nothing to do with the educational institution also named after a certain English man who left them some books.
Trap Doors, Ping Pong, and Pretty Monsters: An Interview with Kelly Link
Friday Oct 3, 7 PM, Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA
Tuesday, Oct. 7, 7 PM, Community Bookstore, Brooklyn
Sunday, Oct. 24, 4 PM, Flights of Fantasy, Colonie, NY
a big day here: Sale. Free Download.
Thu 2 Oct 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Creative Commons, Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Here’s another reason we were up late last night:
1) We’re having a Sale—and 20% of the proceeds will go to Barack Obama’s campaign.
- Celebrate, come on! We are celebrating many things by having a sale.
- 20% of the proceeds of this sale will be donated to Barack Obama‘s campaign for President of the United States of America.
Next month in the USA we get to show the world that the mistakes of the last eight long years will not be repeated. If you really want to buy these books but don’t want to donate to Obama, we won’t insist. But: we hope you will donate! And vote.
- Everything on this page is at least 25% off. Some of it is 60% off. Reason enough to celebrate!
- You can get every book we’ve published for $249—including those still to be published in 2008.
- We are publishing our first book for readers of all ages: Joan Aiken’s The Serial Garden and we want to make sure that the kid in your life (or you) gets it for the holidays.
- Kelly Link’s new collection, Pretty Monsters, is published today by Viking.
With the gracious and kind permission of her US and UK publishers, most of Kelly’s previous collection, Magic for Beginners, is being released free online for the period of a year as a Creative Commons download. (More free books.)
- We just got our tax bill and apparently we have to bail the government out all by ourselves.
- Hallowe’en is coming and we need to move some books out of the haunted warehouse.
- Suggestions welcome!
- Get some books!
2) To celebrate the publication of Kelly’s new collection, Pretty Monsters, most of Kelly’s previous collection Magic for Beginners is now available as a free download in various completely open formats with no Digital Rights Management (DRM) strings attached. It is licensed under a Creative Commons (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0) license allowing readers to share the stories with friends and generally have at them in any noncommercial manner. The book is provided below in these formats: Text file, HTML, rtf, and lo-res PDF.
Kelly Link and Small Beer Press would like to thank Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (USA) and HarperPerennial (UK) for their willingness to particpate in making these stories available online. Due to contractual obligations, “The Faery Handbag” and “Magic for Beginners” are not included in this download.
Small Beer Press CC-licensed downloads.
Order the book
US hardcover: Signed | Powells | local bookshop
US paperback: Signed | Powells | Amazon | local bookshop
UK edition: Amazon | John Smith | Waterstones
More editions: Japan | Germany | Romania | Poland | . . .
big day: 1
Thu 2 Oct 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Kelly’ new collection, Pretty Monsters, hits the stands* today and two great organization, The Black Arts and Skytemple, have been hard at work on a new super groovy site for the book (and Kelly). More stuff will be telemported up to the online world (Shaun Tan illustrations!) as the days go by, but there are already a a couple of stories to read, a FAQ from Kelly, book recs, and more.
There’s a huge great story on Kelly in the Boston Phoenix today:
While Link is not an author who shies away from referencing pop- and commercial-culture, nor is she some glib chronicler of the right-now. Her work — realm-straddling blends of fantasy, science fiction, fairy tale, and capital-L literature — possesses a mythic quality.
Which is well-timed, as Kelly will be reading on Friday in Boston (ok, Cambridge):
Friday Oct 3, 7 PM, Harvard Book Store, Cambridge
Tuesday, Oct. 7, 7 PM, Community Bookstore, Brooklyn
Sunday, Oct. 24, 4 PM, Flights of Fantasy, Colonie, NY (with Holly Black)
Kelly will also be signing books from the office (when they arrive!). Order a signed copy and receive tattoos, stickers, and similar items of interest.…
* newsboys all over the country are yelling semi-incomprehensively to the commuter crowds, “Come n git yurr Monstahs, Pretty Pretty Monstahs!”
Kelly on the radio
Mon 29 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Listen to Kelly (and a couple of other writers) talking about horror, love, and more and read excerpts from the stories in Pretty Monsters on WPR’s To the Best of Our Knowledge. She’s the third segment after Andrew Davidon (The Gargoyle) and Richard Hand (Terror on the Air!: Horror Radio in America, 1931 – 1952). You can choose streaming audio or a Real player file.
Bookshow followup 2
Mon 22 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., bookshops, Kelly Link, To Read Pile| Posted by: Gavin
Last week we dropped by the NEIBA indie booksellers association trade show in Boston where Kelly signed real and actual (and so pretty!) hardcover copies of Pretty Monsters—mostly for happy booksellers and librarians. If you’re crazy, you can get one straight off of Bookfinder right now from the peeps who took the freebies, got them signed, and want to overcharge you.
However, we’ll be getting this in stock here for Kelly to sign and selling it the way we regularly sell books: regular price and free shipping.
Jedediah Berry was also there signing a huge stack of early galleys of The Manual of Detection which comes out in February from the Penguin Press. More on that as the date approaches.
One of the more exciting books to see on the floor was the first US edition of Iain Banks’s The Crow Road, which is an Indie Bound pick (which maybe means you can read it at your local coffee shop and get a high five from the barista). The Crow Road is a great big novel—we’d have published it if we’d realized it hadn’t come out here, oops! It was made into a TV series a couple of years ago but, what do you know, the book, it is better. The rec here comes from a bookshop that we used to frequent (along with Curious and Archives) whenever we were in East Lansing, MI, for Clarion, and who at one point carried LCRW, so lots of love for Schuler Books:
“This delightful and complicated novel begins, ‘It was the day my grandmother exploded,’ and just gets better from there. Weaving between two generations of family secrets, with an innocence and charm that’s rare in modern fiction, I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a book this much!”
–Carol Schneck, Schuler Books & Music, Okemos, Mich.
I.D. the thing
Thu 11 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
. . . and we’ll send you an advance copy of Kelly’s new collection, Pretty Monsters:
*** Pretty Monsters
Mon 8 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Pretty Monsters has pulled in a couple of starred reviews! Online from Kirkus in the Sept. 15th edition:
Although some of Link’s work appears in other YA and adult short-story anthologies, this is her first collection wholly aimed at a young-adult audience. Weirdly wonderful and a touch macabre, the nine short stories take readers into worlds wit
Then Publishers Weekly:
Readers as yet unfamiliar with Link (Magic for Beginners) will be excited to discover her singular voice in this collection of nine short stories, her first book for young adults.
Which together with the earlier Booklist review gives the book . . . three starred reviews!
Pretty Monsters news
Wed 3 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
We just sent out a couple more ARCs of Pretty Monsters (such a pretty book!) to people who won our earlier LCRW sweepstakes. We have a couple more to give out this month before the book comes out on October 2nd. We will probably give them away at the Brooklyn Book Fair and on here or in our newsletter.
Kelly will also have a tiny tiny giveaway thingy at our table at the Book Fair.
There are a few reviews in Blogistan (Oops…Wrong Cookie, Monsters & Critics) but keeping track of that seems a little Sisyphean. Penguin and Kelly have started setting up some readings. More on that as they approach. As always, the easiest way to keep up is our calendar.
Booklist just gave Pretty Monsters a starred review and there was a tiny interview in Time Out New York last week (thanks for the heads-up Curt!):
“In nearly every one of these startlingly, sometimes confoundingly original stories, Link defies expectations with such terrific turnarounds that you are left precipitously wondering not only “What’s going to happen now?” but also “Wait, what just happened?
Meanwhile, out there in the world there is a beautiful Polish edition of Magic for Beginners. We haven’t seen it yet, but the cover looks fantastic.
Thu 10 Jul 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin
Tomorrow: more literary beer (chili-style) from Michael. Later this year; a book that looks like fun: Red, White and Brew, some guy writes about visiting lots of breweries. Smart guy!
LCRW, out there fending for itself in the real world, paying those fuel surcharges and flying by zeppelin instead of by plane, gets the once over from SF Revu where various stories are named “fascinating” and “disturbing” and other strong words.
Tomorrow Museum is a fun blog.
A couple of interesting photographers, Yasuyuki Takagi and Patrick Lyn, came by to take pictures of Kelly for the Japanese edition of Esquire magazine. Huh!
Today (or, perhaps, yesterday) on Adventures in SciFi Publishing:
In our first Clarion special show, Kelly Link joins us to discuss workshops, MFA programs, writing short fiction, and more. Then Lou Anders of Pyr SF stops by to analyze the purpose of cover art.
Thu 10 Jul 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin
Tomorrow: more literary beer (chili-style) from Michael. Later this year; a book that looks like fun: Red, White and Brew, some guy writes about visiting lots of breweries. Smart guy!
LCRW, out there fending for itself in the real world, paying those fuel surcharges and flying by zeppelin instead of by plane, gets the once over from SF Revu where various stories are named “fascinating” and “disturbing” and other strong words.
Tomorrow Museum is a fun blog.
A couple of interesting photographers, Yasuyuki Takagi and Patrick Lyn, came by to take pictures of Kelly for the Japanese edition of Esquire magazine. Huh!
Today (or, perhaps, yesterday) on Adventures in SciFi Publishing:
In our first Clarion special show, Kelly Link joins us to discuss workshops, MFA programs, writing short fiction, and more. Then Lou Anders of Pyr SF stops by to analyze the purpose of cover art.
LCRW Subscriber #2970067
Fri 27 Jun 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Benjamin Rosenbaum, Kelly Link, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin
Hey, you’re a winner! We put little red tickets in to all the subscriber copies of LCRW #22 that just went out (and John Klima lost his so we added a new one to the stack for him) and randomly picked a winner who will receive galleys of Ben Rosenbaum’s The Ant King and Other Stories and Kelly Link’s Pretty Monsters. So if you received ticket 2970067, send us an email with your address and these will be off to you!
We’ll give the winner a week to contact us. If this doesn’t work, maybe next time we will tape the labels to the zine. Picking out a random ticket was fun. Maybe we will pick some more.
Sending you away
Mon 9 Jun 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Benjamin Rosenbaum, Kelly Link, Zines| Posted by: Gavin
over here where they have neat stuff. Yes, it’s Strange Horizons and their yearly fund drive. We were late to the party sending them prizes but they should be added this week. Looks like this year there are even more ways to get prizes: bonus prizes as certain totals are reached, prizes for blogs who link to it (come on LA Times, you know you want the 5 CD Escape Pod set too!), and, you know, for sending money.
If you’d like an advance reading copy of Ben Rosenbaum’s debut collection, The Ant King and Other Stories, or Kelly’s new collection, Pretty Monsters, or would like the chocolate-bar LCRW subscription, go donate and maybe these prizes will become yourn.
The Specialist’s Hat short film
Tue 13 May 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Here’s a relaxed and mellow seven-minute cartoony version (with title cards) of Kelly’s story “The Specialist’s Hat” made by a team of student artists for “ENC1142 final project at FSU”:
LA Times Book Fest
Thu 24 Apr 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Cons, Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Jedediah Berry will be manning the Small Beer booth at the LA Times Book Fest this weekend so if you’re in the area go say hello (and congratulate the man!) at Booth # 1023 in Zone: J – Moore Hall Grass, UCLA campus.
Small Beer are splitting a table with the wonderful Coffee House Press. Drop by and say hi to some of their authors, and meet other local stars such as Cecil Castellucci and more authors than a forest could shake sticks at. Admission to the Festival of Books is free. Parking is $8.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, that forest will not be shaking sticks at Kelly Link who will not be there after all. Maybe next year.
Taos, Romania
Tue 19 Feb 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Kelly is off on Wednesday to a publishing conference somewhere in Atlanta, then she’ll do a side trip to Athens for something at the uni there.
Here’s an update on teaching from her website — most of these programs are still accepting applications so send them on in if you fancy a couple of weeks in Taos or 6 weeks in San Diego or Brisbane!
- June 8-21, Taos Toolbox with Walter Jon Williams, Taos, New Mexico
- 30 – July 7: Clarion, San Diego
- 2009: Clarion South, Brisbane, Australia
- This semester Kelly is teaching a class at Columbia University, NYC, and one at Smith College, Northampton, MA
- She is on the pop fiction faculty at the Stonecoast low-residency MFA program at the U. of Southern Maine
Romania: sadly, not a teaching gig. But you can now go read “The Faery Handbag” in Romanian!
The Girl Detective: movies and song
Thu 17 Jan 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, YouTube| Posted by: Gavin
The Girl Detective’s mother is missing.
On Ninth Letter there is an amazing video interpretation of Kelly Link’s story “The Girl Detective” put together by videographers Samuel Copeland, Kelly Cree, Fabiola Elias, Mark Hauge, Andrew Nguyen and Brett Tabolt and narrated by Hannah Gottlieb-Graham. (Parts of it can be seen on youtube: 4, 7, 11, 13.)
And, Uglinessman sent in this mellow and somewhat startling techno/trance song where he samples part of Alex Wilson’s reading of “The Girl Detective”.
You can download the story for free as part of Kelly’s first collection, Stranger Things Happen.
Books Out Loud
Mon 14 Jan 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Essentials, a local store of just that, has put together an evening of entertainment which will feature readings, bands, dancing, and a bar. Oh yes, we are so up for that. Discount tickets ($7 instead of $10) can be gotten here.
Books Out Loud Dance Party.
Join essentials, wünderarts, and many more as we celebrate the written word with music, readings, and a whole lot of dancing!
Featuring John Hodgman of The Daily Show and The Areas of My Expertise, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Kelly Link, Rachel Sherman, Ed Skoog, Who Shot Hollywood, and More…
Farm-fresh Food provided by Tabella Restaurant.
When and Where:
From 7:00 pm until 11:00 pm, January 26, 2008 at the American Legion Hall in Hadley, MA. Only a limited number of tickets available so get yours NOW!Please note: All tickets can be purchased here online, at either essentials locations, and at wünderarts. All tickets are Will-Call and will not be shipped. Please contact us with questions or comments regarding this all-ages literary event.
Kelly, reading
Mon 14 Jan 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
This is stolen whole cloth from the Diagram site (so the links, etc., may work, maybe better going to their page):
$5 Innovative Fiction Contest |
deadline: 03.15.08 | Good news! The $5 Innovative Fiction Contest is open for submissions. Our 2008 judge is fabulous (fabulist) fiction writer Kelly Link, author of Magic for Beginners and Stranger Things Happen. The prize is $1000 + publication. 10+ finalists will have their stories published in the DIAGRAM Summer Fiction issue. The information on last year’s contest finalists and winners is online [here]. The 2007 summer fiction issue is [here].
We don’t make money on this contest (obviously). This contest also has no frills: we can’t send out snail mail contest announcements or email announcements of the finalists or winner (though if you submit electronically, you’ll get a response). All submissions are read anonymously by an anonymous panel of judges and screeners (different group than last year). This is an ethical contest, so please, close friends or former students of the judge, you’re not welcome to enter this time (sorry). All submissions are considered for publication by DIAGRAM. All stories submitted must be unpublished (personal website and blogs excepted). The entry fee per story is $5, paid via paypal or check or cash. This year we will accept submissions via two methods:
|
Kelly’s daemon
Sat 15 Dec 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, website bumph| Posted by: Gavin
Slightly different from the one she did last April(!), here’s Kelly’s new daemon:
Come south for winter
Tue 23 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, workshops| Posted by: Gavin
Clarion South have just announced the 2009 tutor line up:
- Week 1: Sean Williams
Week 2: Marianne de Pierres
Week 3: Margo Lanagan
Week 4: Jack Dann
Week 5: Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant
Week 6: Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant
We’re going back to Brisbane! You can come too—for 6 weeks of writing workshop! The workshop was incredibly impressively put together and we’re very much looking forward to Clarion South ’09.
Brisbane! Riverboats, wine, museums, Aurealis Awards, koala petting zoos(!), more fun than you can carry back on a 24-hour flight. Wonder if Virgin Airlines can take us there….
Q. Wasn’t it hot there?
A. Yes. But there was knee-high snow at home, so it seemed like a good idea.
A(2). Besides, it’s Australia!
Q. Are there any good bookshops in Brisbane?
A. Funny you should ask (and why wasn’t this the first question?). Pulp Fiction is a wonderful spec fic shop (now with added Press), there are a bunch of Dymocks, there’s the Avid Reader Bookshop in the West End. Oh, there’s tons.
Q. Will you faint if you meet Margo Lanagan.
A. It would be nice to manage not to for once but it’s probable.
Q. 17 students, 6 instructors. Is that cricket?
A. Cricket is the one with wickets (do all sports have rhyming components?). This will be more like rugby, but with water guns, red pencils, barbecue, and accents.
Q. Can only Australians go?
A. We’re not Australian. The more nationalities, the better! It would be great to see writers from all over Asia, Oceania, Antarctica, etc.
Q. Tell me more!
A. Ok, from their site:
Application Process
Applications will close at the end of June 2008. Applications submitted by the Earlybird Date of Wednesday, April 30th may be eligible for a $100 discount if you are accepted to the workshop.
There is a maximum of seventeen places available for Clarion South 2009. Participants will be selected by a panel of industry professionals based on the quality of their written submissions.
Contingency…?
Thu 18 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Someone pointed this out to us a while ago (sorry, was it you?) and this is us just getting around to posting it.
On November 2, 2005 a woman named Jamie Ann apparently posted Kelly’s story “Some Zombie Contingency Plans” on her blog, Haunted Love (subtitled “My Stories & Poems Page”) under the title “Contingency.”
The best part about this is that if you double-click on the page up pops a warning (see 2nd image) which says:
The page at http://windsource3.blogspot.com says:
Copy protected! — If you want a copy of this, please e-mail me!
Quite.
We tried emailing Jamie Ann a couple of times but received no reply. So if you haven’t read “Some Zombie Contingency Plans” go read it now before Blogger/Google take it down.
Many of Kelly’s stories are online—the latest is “Origin Story” on A Public Space’s website (used to be an excerpt, now it’s the full story). Stranger Things Happen is available online under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
“Some Zombie Contingency Plans,” like the other stories in Magic for Beginners, was published under regular old copyright. At some point we hope to make it available under a Creative Commons Copyright—but even then, doing what Jamie Ann has done is pretty weird. Flattering, but weird.
Return of The Girl Detective
Sun 14 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Ateh Theatre’s great fun adaption of “The Girl Detective” returns at the Crown Point Festival. More info on the fest. website and below:
The Girl Detective plays the following unique schedule as part of the festival:
October 28 at 8PM
November 8 at 8PM
November 13 at 8PM
November 17 at 8PMThe Crown Point Festival
Film Theater and Music at its Finest
October 27- November 17
Abrons Art Center, LES, New York City
Wed 3 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Kelly’s story “Magic for Beginners” is a nominee for the Le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire. (Wow!) (via)
And: Kelly has a new story, “Light'” in the new issue of Tin House. She is reading with Lucy Corin, Shelley Jackson, and Samantha Hunt at 7 PM on Friday in New York City.
It looks like an amazing issue, check out the ToC. Also, you can read the whole of “Light.” (Thatlink will change in a couple of months.)
Wed 3 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Kelly’s story “Magic for Beginners” is a nominee for the Le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire. (Wow!) (via)
And: Kelly has a new story, “Light'” in the new issue of Tin House. She is reading with Lucy Corin, Shelley Jackson, and Samantha Hunt at 7 PM on Friday in New York City.
It looks like an amazing issue, check out the ToC. Also, you can read the whole of “Light.” (Thatlink will change in a couple of months.)
Thu 27 Sep 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, Uncategorized| Posted by: Gavin
We’ve been picking up the Futurama calendars for a couple of years (they match the Greenpeace ones surprisingly well) and really enjoying the notes (such as the one on April 3, 2008: “Read Jeffrey Ford’s The Empire of Ice Cream“).
We kept the 2007 edition open at the centerfold (huge bees!) and missed looking at the actual months until yesterday when we picked up the 2008 edition and found that one of Kelly’s hopes and dreams had been fulfilled and she hadn’t known it. Her birthday is listed in the calendar. Wow, is all that can be said.
Thu 27 Sep 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, Uncategorized| Posted by: Gavin
We’ve been picking up the Futurama calendars for a couple of years (they match the Greenpeace ones surprisingly well) and really enjoying the notes (such as the one on April 3, 2008: “Read Jeffrey Ford’s The Empire of Ice Cream“).
We kept the 2007 edition open at the centerfold (huge bees!) and missed looking at the actual months until yesterday when we picked up the 2008 edition and found that one of Kelly’s hopes and dreams had been fulfilled and she hadn’t known it. Her birthday is listed in the calendar. Wow, is all that can be said.
Chinese publication
Mon 30 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, Uncategorized| Posted by: Gavin
A couple of stories for Chinese readers:
Jedediah Berry’s “Thumb War” (originally in Pindeldyboz). Don’t think they quite got permission for that. Just the rewards of fame.
The Simplified Chinese translation Kelly Link’s “The Specialist’s Hat” on Celestial’s web site (originally on Ellen Datlow’s Event Horizon).
“When you’re Dead,” Samantha says, “you don’t have to brush your teeth.”
“When you’re Dead,” Claire says, “you live in a box, and it’s always dark, but you’re not ever afraid.”“你成为“亡者”以后,” 萨曼莎说,“就没必要刷牙了。”
“你成为“亡者”以后,” 克莱尔说,“会呆在一个盒子里,那里永远都是黑的,但你再也不会害怕了。”
2 new Kelly stories
Mon 30 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Two new stories from Kelly come out this month:
The first is “The Wrong Grave” in The Restless Dead, edited by Deborah Noyes (Candlewick), an anthology of dark stories from M. T. Anderson, Holly Black, Libba Bray, et al.
The second is “The Constable of Abal” in The Coyote Road, the latest mythic fiction anthology edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling. (Other stories in the anthology include are from Jeff Ford, Holly Black, Katherine Vaz, Delia Sherman, Patricia A. McKillip, Steve Berman, and Carol Emshwiller et impressively al.)
Both of these stories will be in Kelly’s next collection—a book of young adult stories to be published by Viking in the autumn of 2008. In the meantimes, check out the anthologies.
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