LCRW on Lulu & what’s up with our ebooks

Thu 8 Jan 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

LCRW 23 by Gavin Grant (Book) in Literature & FictionLCRW 23 is now available in lovely trade paperback form (or as an ebook) from Lulu. It’s not available yet from Fictionwise and we’re not sure why. Will investigate and see if we can fix that.

Having these books on Fictionwise means that you can buy all our ebooks for the iPhone, iPod Touch, or any other ebook reader/smart phone/headchip you may have installed.

Ror those that are following these things, our ebooks sales in 2008 were just about 1% of our total sales—that includes all sales from Fictionwise, titles on the Kindle, and from our site. (Why, yes, we did sell some of those handy flash drives with all our books on them!)

Our ebook bestsellers were:

  1. Magic for Beginners
  2. The Baum Plan for Financial Independence
  3. The King’s Last Song
  4. Stranger Things Happen
  5. LCRW 22
  6. Mothers & Other Monsters

And by the time we’re there, we’re down to pretty low sales—and lots of our titles are grouped there, which is sort of great—backlist and so on selling—but the royalties, dur, what a lack of fun this year, but now we have a Better System in place, so if we survive the recession, it should be better, faster, sleeker, lighter of foot, etc.

Also, back to LCRW 23: the first review is up at SF Revu, “Combines literary quality and good storytelling very effectively. I highly recommend it.” And if you have a story in there, you now have a blurb you can use.


Cats, Cosmocopia, reviews

Thu 8 Jan 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Sightings of big cats are growing – among them this one in Oxfordshire Picture: Clive PostlethwaiteEveryone know they’re out there and now there’s photographic proof: “‘Big cats’ caught on camera prowling forest.”

A couple of days ago we opened a box from Seattle to discover the latest wonder from Payseur & Schmidt: at last, someone has sent us a jigsaw puzzle. Oh yeah, and a book, too. You can read more about the genesis of the project on Jacob McMurray’s blog or go find out more about Paul DiFilippo’s novel, Cosmocopia or see the puzzle in it’s finished state.

The King’s Last Song gets the once-over from Rain Taxi:

Ryman weaves together ancient legend with a gritty view of modern Cambodian life, and the pattern that emerges is surprising. The novel conveys not merely a story, but the light and darkness, despair and hope, tradition and Westernization that is Cambodia itself.

and on S. Skrishna’s Books:

Richly layered, comparing past and present day Cambodia and is full of details and tidbits about Cambodian life that any reader will enjoy. It’s definitely piqued my interest in the country and I will be trying to find more books about it in the future.

White gibes with something Geoff told us: that the book was selling well at airports in Cambodia. How did he find out? He was told by readers. So maybe it will spur further reading about Cambodia and maybe get some more people over there.

Couch gets reviewed on SF Site:

The story gets stranger and stranger as the adventurers find themselves riding the rails on an electric cart, drifting on the couch in the Pacific Ocean, stowaways on a freighter bound for the Ecuador, and carrying the couch through the jungles of South America on a cart with a fog propeller. In between there is action, philosophy, violence, sex, drinking, fishing, terrorists, shadowy cabals, fishing and gluten intolerance.

The New Podler Review on The Ant King:

A surrealist masterpiece of fantasy that’s hilarious and macabre, reflecting our strange reality in its mind-bending world, The Ant King is filled with soul-shuddering wisdom. This brilliant collection is about integrity, love, belonging, the loss of place of the male in the social order, Jewish Diaspora, God, good and evil, and being alone in a universe that is ambivalent, unavailable, incomprehensible and filled with suffering. Rosenbaum begins in fantastic places, then adds on more layers of fantasy besides and before long you seem to lose your footing, carried along on a fun house ride through the absurd landscape of the human experience


The LoveSling

Thu 18 Dec 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

The first story in the new ish of LCRW is “The LoveSling” by newish writer Nick Wolven. Nick’s sold a couple of stories here and there, including Asimov’s and Paradox. One of the things we liked about this story was that it was weird and somewhat cheery—seems like most stories are about the ends of things, and things have, you know, gone badly. This story’s about the end of something and the start of something else, and it’s fun. And, we have a couple of spot illustrations from a Jack of All Trades and Master of More Than You Could Ever Imagine, Chris Nakashima-Brown:

The package was larger than they had expected.

It took up nearly the entire foyer: a battered cardboard box sealed with packing tape. They had to push it down the hall to the bedroom, sliding it over the wood floor. In the bedroom, Andrew cut the packing tape with a key. He reached into the box and drew out a card.

“The LoveSling,” he read. “A dramatic new tool for mega love increasement. For bringing couples together and aggrandizing overall joy. Hooks into most things with facile assembly.” He lowered the card. “It must be from a foreign country.”

“They had a picture in the catalog,” Amy said. “It looked kind of like a spider.”

“And why do we need this thing, again?” Andrew said.

“To give the bed a rest, stud.” Amy knelt by the box. “I thought it would be fun. A new house. A new spouse. A new suite of romantic positions. We’ve worked through three books and two foreign DVDs; we’ve even taken tips from your perverted crew of friends. We’ve exhausted the potentialities of all level surfaces.” She pushed her hair back. “I thought we should effect a comprehensive paradigm shift.”

“I love it when you talk dirty,” Andrew said, and kissed her ear.

Read the rest in LCRW #23.


Ted Chiang: The Problem of the Traveling Salesman

Mon 15 Dec 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

http://lcrw.net/images/people/chiangted2.jpgThis week we’ll be highlighting some of the content in the latest issue of  LCRW which we mailed out last week.

One of the standouts is a nonfiction piece from one of the best writers we know, Ted Chiang. Ted’s fiction is absolutely brilliant. His first collection, Stories of Your Life and Others, has probably blown more minds than LSD. That may be an exaggeration, but not much. Most of the stories won awards and the title story is unspeakably heartbreaking.

“The Problem of the Traveling Salesman” isn’t heartbreaking (although it does make for a fun essay) unless you’re trying to solve the problem:

Suppose you’re a traveling salesman and you have a list of cities you need to visit. Gasoline is extremely expensive, so the problem you’re faced with is, what order should you visit the cities in to keep your fuel costs to an absolute minimum?

This is what’s known in computer science as the Traveling Salesman Problem, and while it’s easy to state, it’s actually a very difficult problem to solve. So difficult, in fact, that a really good solution would have an dramatic impact on our understanding of the nature of the universe. In this article, I’m going to try to give a brief, non-technical explanation of why this is the case.

To begin with, let’s consider the problem of sorting. When you’re playing a card game, probably the first thing you do when you’re dealt a hand is arrange the cards into order. A common way to do this is to take the card at the end and insert it next to another card so that the two of them are in order; then repeat with the card that’s at the end now, and so on until your entire hand is in order. This is a perfectly good algorithm when you have five or seven cards to deal with; you’d probably use it even if you had ten or twenty cards.

But now suppose you’re given a box containing fifty thousand index cards with words on them, and you have to sort them into alphabetical order. Now the previously described algorithm no longer seems practical. You’ll probably want to try something else; for example, you might sort the cards into piles “A–M” and “N–Z,” and then sort each of those two into smaller piles, and so on. Such a technique isn’t useful when dealing with just five or ten cards, but when dealing with fifty thousand, its advantage becomes apparent.

This is one of the most important criteria by which computer programmers judge an algorithm: how well does it deal with large numbers of items? We all expect that a task will take longer when you have more items to deal with; the question is, how much longer?

Read the rest in LCRW #23.


Gavin Chunters On

Mon 8 Dec 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Charles Tan asks the questions:

YBF&H 21In the US it’s mostly only tea, coffee, and coffee that are Fair Trade whereas in the UK there are many more products. I think its very important to support Fair Trade and other programs like that. I’d rather (and this is a currently skint penny-pinching Scot talking) buy something made by employees paid a fair wage to encourage that market than to buy a bunch of cheap shit made in factories where wages and labor laws are a joke.

and on and on


Kevin Huizenga’s new LCRW cover

Mon 24 Nov 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Given the happy events of November 4th, we asked one of our favorite artists, Kevin Huizenga, if he could come up with a suitably celebratory cover for the next issue of LCRW—which goes to the printer right soon now, subscribe and this could be Your First Issue! Here’s what’s on the insides, and what’s on the outside:

Fiction

lcrw23-web.jpg by you.Nick Wolven, “The LoveSling”
Kat Meads, “The Emily(s) Debate the Impact of Reclusive on Life, Art, Family, Community and Pets”
Susan Wardle, “The Chance”
Alex Wilson, “A Wizard of MapQuest”
Jodi Lynn Villers, “In the Name of the Mother”
Daniel Lanza, “Holden Caulfield Doesn’t Love Me”
Kirstin Allio, “Marie and Roland”
William Alexander, “Ana’s Tag”
Mark Rich, “The Leap”
Angela Slatter, “The Girl With No Hands”

Nonfiction

Ted Chiang, “The Problem of the Traveling Salesman”

Poetry

Kim Parko, “Sailor,” “Shiny Hair,” “Schoolgirl”
Christa Bergerson, “Heliotrope Hedgerow”

Comics

Abby Denson, “Jingle Love”


Tue 11 Nov 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Listen to Ben Parzybok on kboo.fm today at 1.30 EST (10.30 PST).

  • SciFi Dimensions is having their annual auction—so you can go pick up some good books and support the site, including Couch and The King’s Last Song.
  • Tamora Pierce on Pretty Monsters; PM is a Staff Pick at Powell’s; Creative Commons blog; what about that YA label; a book collector writes about PM and The Serial Garden;  an illustration for Stranger Things Happen.
  • A week late: slow zombies, please: “Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.”
  • Go on: declare yourself Indiebound.
  • Leslie & the Badgers “Old Timers” is sweet.
  • Garrison Keillor (sorry Alan!) gives the Pres-Elect some good advice.
  • A review of LCRW 21 on Xerography Debt. The good news from Davida is that the print edition will keep going by partnering with Microcosm for printing and distribution (so keep sending zines in for review!):
  • “I very much enjoyed reading LCRW #21; it’s primarily fiction but also includes poetry, nonfiction, and comics. The layout and design is impeccable: crisp, clean, beautifully formatted. Carol Emshwiller is a regular contributor and the material itself covers a wide range, from odd boarding schools to a strange co-worker writing code (I don’t want to say much more for fear of giving it away), and there isn’t a single wrong note in here.”
  • Michelle Tea, Jess Arndt, Andrea Lawlor, Miel Rose, Sara Jaffe read in Northampton on Friday, 11/14, 8 PM, at Pride & Joy.

Circuit City: why does none of the coverage of CC’s bankruptcy cover the part where they fired all their long-term staff and hired people who didn’t know anything about what they were selling and sales, duh, fell?

Duh again: The government doesn’t want to prop up the car companies: yay! These same companies have been selling more fuel-efficient cars in Asia and Europe than here. And now they’re surprised to find that this may have been a mistake.


Tue 11 Nov 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Listen to Ben Parzybok on kboo.fm today at 1.30 EST (10.30 PST).

  • SciFi Dimensions is having their annual auction—so you can go pick up some good books and support the site, including Couch and The King’s Last Song.
  • Tamora Pierce on Pretty Monsters; PM is a Staff Pick at Powell’s; Creative Commons blog; what about that YA label; a book collector writes about PM and The Serial Garden;  an illustration for Stranger Things Happen.
  • A week late: slow zombies, please: “Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.”
  • Go on: declare yourself Indiebound.
  • Leslie & the Badgers “Old Timers” is sweet.
  • Garrison Keillor (sorry Alan!) gives the Pres-Elect some good advice.
  • A review of LCRW 21 on Xerography Debt. The good news from Davida is that the print edition will keep going by partnering with Microcosm for printing and distribution (so keep sending zines in for review!):
  • “I very much enjoyed reading LCRW #21; it’s primarily fiction but also includes poetry, nonfiction, and comics. The layout and design is impeccable: crisp, clean, beautifully formatted. Carol Emshwiller is a regular contributor and the material itself covers a wide range, from odd boarding schools to a strange co-worker writing code (I don’t want to say much more for fear of giving it away), and there isn’t a single wrong note in here.”
  • Michelle Tea, Jess Arndt, Andrea Lawlor, Miel Rose, Sara Jaffe read in Northampton on Friday, 11/14, 8 PM, at Pride & Joy.

Circuit City: why does none of the coverage of CC’s bankruptcy cover the part where they fired all their long-term staff and hired people who didn’t know anything about what they were selling and sales, duh, fell?

Duh again: The government doesn’t want to prop up the car companies: yay! These same companies have been selling more fuel-efficient cars in Asia and Europe than here. And now they’re surprised to find that this may have been a mistake.


LCRW + chocolate

Tue 23 Sep 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

LCRW means Loads of Chocolate something something....LCRW update: we’re in the middle of thinking about being in the middle of reading and putting together a new issue of LCRW for publication in November. We have stories, drawings, horses.

One thing we are wondering about is whether those smart and happy subscribers who receive a bar of chocolate each time with their zine would mind if we sent out a lovely but cheaper bar this time (except for those whose subscriptions are about to expire) and a lovely but expensive bar next time? Any thoughts? We’d love to hear.

Besides the chocolate bar subscribers, another choice proving happily popular is Option 6, “Newness,” which for $89 comprises: a random chapbook; 4 issues of the zine and a good chocolate bar with each issue & all our fall 2008 books The Ant King and Other Stories (pb), The King’s Last Song, The Serial Garden, and Couch). Otherwise, about $107.


selling out

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

Day of squibby twitter-esque posts.

While packing stuff for Readercon we seem to have discovered we’re all out of LCRW 18 and 20. Oops! So it’s been dropped from the website and so on. If we discover a box of either hidden in our amazing cardboard box sculpture garden (indoor, of course), we’ll put it back up.

Some parts of LCRW 18 are in The Best of LCRW and you can read Karen Joy Fowler’s “The Last Worders” from LCRW 20 either here or in the next Year’s Best. For the rest of that ish, if you don’t have it you’ll have to wait for the next Best of. Ha! So, don’t risk missing out: subscribe!


Thu 10 Jul 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | 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., , | 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.


Trying to give stuff away!

Tue 1 Jul 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

LCRW subscribers, if this is your ticket, email us! Or, maybe we should have taped the ticket to the zine? Or we will try again next week? Or, we will just pick someone at random off the subscription list!

2970025
2970091
2970130
2970200
2970302


LCRW Subscriber #2970067

Fri 27 Jun 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | 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.

Photo 34.jpg


LCRW subscribers:

Wed 25 Jun 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

This little ticket went out to LCRW subscribers and in recent orders. Keep!


LCRW 22 is there

Tue 20 May 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

And you can get it now. But not from us, yet.

lcrw 22 lulu-ishThe zine is at the printer—Paradise Copies here in Northampton who are in the middle of moving into a great new building and yet are managing to keep juggling all the jobs thrown at them.

However, if you want to read LCRW now, you can download it from Lulu—and soon on Fictionwise—or order the nice perfectbound version. Preview it here. (By the way, everything on Fictionwise is on sale).

We’ll be picking up the zine tomorrow then flying out at some godawful early time on Thursday to Wiscon where we’ll be celebrating Maureen F. McHugh and L. Timmel Duchamp, dancing, drinking, wandering the farmer’s market, and going to see some readings and even an occasional panel.

Subscribers will get their copies in June—after our Book Expo extravaganza. More on that sooner to it—jus, if you’re going, stop by our booth to get a key to many exclusive freebies from many cool presses!


LCRW 22: Something you cannot have, yet.

Thu 8 May 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

What we are doing: a new catalog, galleys of 2 books for BookExpo, a game for BookExpo, a zine, a chapbook for BookExpo, Sales Conference this weekend, sending forth review copies of The Ant King, enjoying the reviews of John Kessel’s book and sending that out further, the Phil. Book Festival next weekend. Maybe other stuff? Who knows.

Coming soonish on a website, a bike, a firecracker near you: the zine known as LCRW. And what will be in it? Pomegranates! Of course. Also, mostly fiction. This will go to the printers devils in a week or two. Here’s what’s it is:

William Alexander, “Away”
Charlie Anders, “Love Might Be Too Strong a Word”
Becca De La Rosa, “Vinegar and Brown Paper”
Kristine Dikeman, “Dearest Cecily:
Carol Emshwiller, “Self Story”
Eileen Gunn, “To the Moon Alice” (poem)
Alex Dally MacFarlane, “Snowdrops”
Maureen F. McHugh, “Going to France”
Jeremie McKnight, “The Camera & the Octopus”
Mark Rigney, “Portfolio”
David J. Schwartz, “Mike’s Place”
Jodi Lynn Villers, “The Honeymoon Suite”
Caleb Wilson, “American Dreamers”
Cara Spindler, “Escape”
Miriam Allred, “To a Child Who Is Still a FAQ”
Gwenda Bond, “Dear Aunt Gwenda”
Abby Denson, Comic


Loki

Thu 24 Apr 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

This has nothing to do with Trickster gods (excepting The Coyote Road, which has lots to so with it). Instead it is just a tricky headline to make you wonder what we’re on about now. It’s Locus finalist celebration day—thanks to John K. for the heads-up!

Chocolate bars for all!

YBF&H 20It is excellent—and we are very grateful to each and every one of you who made your butler go vote—to see John Crowley’s unendingly brilliant Endless Things on there, along with The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror 2007: Twentieth Annual Collection, and, and this is a lovely surprise, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. Holy Xerox Printed Zine Batman! What’s that doing there? (Um, basking?) Guess we’ll keep it going after all.

The finalist list is a reminder that 2007 was a strong year, especially for men writing in this genre. That’s not snarky, look back at the list. Congratulations to Elizabeth Bear (“Tideline,” Asimov’s Apr/May 2007) and Connie Willis (“All Seated on the Ground,” Asimov’s Dec 2007; The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories, Subterranean), the only women in short fiction. SF novels are all men, then Fantasy, YA, and Debuts are all pretty mixed—and all are very strong categories (below the cut). Too much work to look at more except perhaps there should be a PR campaign by any women artists in the genre?

It will be fun to see who wins but the real winners, said without cheesiness—especially after serving on award juries—are readers who use this as a reading list to see what’s good out there at the moment.

Read more

5 years of this

Tue 26 Feb 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

(which would be this) will no doubt bring us millions of hits, readers, and dollars. Our plan for wasting all our time on frivolous pursuits is going verrrry well.

Can’t find us? Look up, to the right near Old Radio Fun—who have a nice, easy to read 100% comprehensible message, and lots of fun old shows.


Small Beer plans

Mon 7 Jan 2008 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

lcrw21pb2.jpgNot what you think. This is just in case you read our newsletter and were tempted by the one-of-a-kind freebie planner we offered—it’s been nabbed by a happy reader, Richard N.

Here’s some pics of the perfect(bound) LCRW and a review in The Fix.


Ouch

Mon 26 Nov 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

We get tough love from the Chicago Reader.

Are we hipsters? Hadn’t really considered us that way . . .

Q. Do you have a cool car?

A. Hipsters use the subway and taxis.

Q. Are your tastes impeccably aligned with next month’s Pitchfork columnists?

A. Pitchfork is so Aughts.
Q. Did you see that show by ____ at ____ last night?

A. I used to like them but since they went _____ they kind of suck.

Q. Where do you get your hair done?

A. Hey, I just woke up?

Q. You know it’s 3.08 PM and you’re in a shirt and tie at work, right?

A. Pass.


Formats

Tue 20 Nov 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

In our newsletter there is news(!) about the multiple formats the new LCRW is available in as well as a secret sale. Secret!

Here’s part of the skinny on LCRW:

Order: Paypal | order form | Powells | Fictionwise | Lulu

We’ll post more about the secret sale here, too.

Probably.

Later.


We are Conan

Wed 14 Nov 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Leonard Rossiter and Sue NichollsMike Levy reviews The Best of LCRW on Strange Horizons and says Kelly and Gavin…

have created something of a miniature literary empire for themselves.

Who knew we could build an empire without working out on our (bronz’d) thews?

Lucius VorenusSince the only empire we know of that fell and rose again was Reggie Perrin‘s and since we have recently been watching the wonderful and despair-inducing 2nd series of Rome on the televisual box now we are worrying how bloody our empire’s fall will be. Eek! We surrender, we surrender!


New LCRW

Tue 30 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

The image “http://lcrw.net/images/lcrwcovers/lcrw21-200.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.The new LCRW is at the printer—so we should have it (fingers stiff from still being crossed) in Saratoga. In the table of contents there are names familiar and surprising (as per).

In fiction we have stories from authors new (to us) such as Adam Ares, Alice Sola Kim (whose story “The Mom Walk” is also fantastic) the Stephanie Brady Tharpe (first publication!), the redoubtable Garbo (aka Matt Cheney), Corie Ralston, Benjamin Parzybok, and Kirstin Allio (whose novel Garner appropriately garnered much praise).

Returning to us are Jeanette Westwood (LCRW 18), Brian Conn (LCRW 10), and Carol Emshwiller (LCRW 8, 19)—who will be a guest of honor this coming weekend at the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs and who we think is completely fabby.

We only have one poet (again, new to us) this time, Lauren Bartel. Happily Dear Aunt Gwenda is back and we have a short piece from the World Sci Fi Convention in Japan. We twisted Abby Denson’s arm until she sent us a comic with cats and dolls and we have Suzanne Baumann’s tiny drawings all through.

The cover is by the fantastic Tatsuro Kiuchi.

There is a lack of zine reviews, so maybe they will appear on the site later.

We updated the subscription page for this issue and added the Google Map of LCRW stores (so few! won’t your store carry this zine?) to the main LCRW page.

And as an aside, you can order it (and now The Best of LCRW as well as many other things) here.

LCRW 21 should be mailing out to authors, artists, poets, subscribers, shops, shoppes, and preorderers, in the first week of November. Chocolate is actually here ahead of time and if it isn’t eaten first will be in your happy hands within 2 weeks. Or so. You know mailing on time is our weakness.

Fiction
Alice Sola Kim, The Night and Day War
Adam Ares, The Curmudgeon
Matthew Cheney, The Lake
Stephanie Brady Tharpe, On a Dark and Featureless Plain
Jeannette Westwood, Two Variations
Kirstin Allio, Clay
Brian Conn, The Postern Gate
Benjamin Parzybok, The Coder
Corie Ralston, Maps to God
Carol Emshwiller, Sanctuary

Poetry
Lauren Bartel, Two Poems

Nonfiction
Gwenda Bond, Dear Aunt Gwenda
Mamoru Masuda, A Primer on New Wave and Speculative Fiction in Japan

Comics
Suzanne Baumann, The Blokes of Ball Point
Abby Denson, The Mysterious Mr. M.

Cover
Tatsuro Kiuchi


New subscription level?

Mon 22 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

There’s a new ish of LCRW almost ready to go (the people chewing on old rags to make paper are a little behind but it should still go out on time). In the meantime we’re considering adding a new subscription level: the LCRW-engraved iPod! We just need 250 people to sign up….


Dear Aunt Gwenda

Fri 12 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

We are putting together, slowly and so on, the new issue of LCRW and we would like some more questions for Dear Aunt Gwenda. The questions can be anonymous or not (we will mail you a copy of the zine your question is in). Please email them in or post them in the comments.


Fri 5 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Thank you Yoana — our first LCRW subscriber from Bulgaria!

Maybe she is a reader of the Del Rey Internet Newsletter which just posted the Preface from The Best of LCRW. Or maybe she is a reader of the Romantic Times and saw this review. They know we are old (old!) romantics at heart.

Found a great review we had missed (how!?) by Adrienne Martini in the Baltimore City Paper—Baltimore, city of the awesome Atomic Books. Plus, look at that great illo by Deanna Staffo—it’s definitely worth putting a book out to get illustrations like that. Now, more! Can’t wait to see how the NYT book review illustrates it.

Cough.

The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet Cover THE BEST OF LADY CHURCHILL’S ROSEBUD WRISTLET
by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, eds.RT Rating: ½

Fri 5 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Thank you Yoana — our first LCRW subscriber from Bulgaria!

Maybe she is a reader of the Del Rey Internet Newsletter which just posted the Preface from The Best of LCRW. Or maybe she is a reader of the Romantic Times and saw this review. They know we are old (old!) romantics at heart.

Found a great review we had missed (how!?) by Adrienne Martini in the Baltimore City Paper—Baltimore, city of the awesome Atomic Books. Plus, look at that great illo by Deanna Staffo—it’s definitely worth putting a book out to get illustrations like that. Now, more! Can’t wait to see how the NYT book review illustrates it.

Cough.

The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet Cover THE BEST OF LADY CHURCHILL’S ROSEBUD WRISTLET
by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant, eds.RT Rating: ½

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