Wed 3 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Interstitial Arts, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

10/30: Mark the day on your calendars for an Interfictions event at McNally Robinson in NYC with Delia Sherman, Matt Cheney, K. Tempest Bradford, and Veronica Schanoes.

There’s a great review by Laird Hunt of Interfictions in the new issue of Rain Taxi, which makes for fascinating reading, more so than quoting. Besides, Rain Taxi is well worth seeking out. Most indie book stores carry it (it’s free) or you can subscribe. Seek!

And: There’s also a review of Endless Things in Rain Taxi. Since Aegypt the 1st (aka The Solitudes) is coming out this week in paperback—kicking off the whole series being reprinted in pb—expect a number of high profile reviews of the whole series.

John Joseph Adams digs for the truth behind The Best of LCRW.

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Wed 3 Oct 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Interstitial Arts, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

10/30: Mark the day on your calendars for an Interfictions event at McNally Robinson in NYC with Delia Sherman, Matt Cheney, K. Tempest Bradford, and Veronica Schanoes.

There’s a great review by Laird Hunt of Interfictions in the new issue of Rain Taxi, which makes for fascinating reading, more so than quoting. Besides, Rain Taxi is well worth seeking out. Most indie book stores carry it (it’s free) or you can subscribe. Seek!

And: There’s also a review of Endless Things in Rain Taxi. Since Aegypt the 1st (aka The Solitudes) is coming out this week in paperback—kicking off the whole series being reprinted in pb—expect a number of high profile reviews of the whole series.

John Joseph Adams digs for the truth behind The Best of LCRW.

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Read a Karen Joy Fowler story

Fri 28 Sep 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

Just posted “The Last Worders” by Karen Joy Fowler from LCRW 20. Enjoy!

Also: newsletter actually went out.

And: a page for The Best of LCRW.

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Das Newsletter

Fri 28 Sep 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

A newsletter went out.

1) Preface
2) Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis
3) Introduction (B Dan Chaon!)
4) Stuff that’s on the inside
5) The Ask
6) The Tell
7) The Noun

+ ……………………………………….. +

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Mon 20 Aug 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Audio out, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

We’re on the road (ah, the wind in one’s hair, the wine in one’s glass, the red and blue lights in one’s mirror) and yesterday, while sipping iced tea with Karen Joy Fowler, we talked to the lovely Rick Kleffel about LCRW, Karen’s movie (The Jane Austen Book Club) and new novel (Ice City), writing, and much more. Some of which can be heard here.

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Mon 20 Aug 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Audio out, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

We’re on the road (ah, the wind in one’s hair, the wine in one’s glass, the red and blue lights in one’s mirror) and yesterday, while sipping iced tea with Karen Joy Fowler, we talked to the lovely Rick Kleffel about LCRW, Karen’s movie (The Jane Austen Book Club) and new novel (Ice City), writing, and much more. Some of which can be heard here.

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Tue 7 Aug 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

Updated: a review in Library Journal just popped up online. Yay! Now watch the ellipsis in action!

 “This curio-cabinet of literary works is … a bit like an otherworldly Farmer’s Almanac…. Its charming and eclectic sensibility should appeal to readers of fantasy or literary fiction.”

Ahem.

—

The Best of LCRW has arrived! To our new office! We are overcome! New York Times list: here we come!

Please do remember to buy your contracted-for 40 copies on Aug. 29th or just after. You don’t remember signing that contract? Please ignore the note below.

The quote you can’t read on the front cover is either (where are my glasses?) either from Oprah or Matt Derby. Those two are so hard to keep straight.

By reading this note you agree you will purchase (either from a New York Times reporting store or an indie bookshop or at least Amazon) 40 (forty) copies of The Best of LCRW on or about August 30, 2007.

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Tue 7 Aug 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

Updated: a review in Library Journal just popped up online. Yay! Now watch the ellipsis in action!

 “This curio-cabinet of literary works is … a bit like an otherworldly Farmer’s Almanac…. Its charming and eclectic sensibility should appeal to readers of fantasy or literary fiction.”

Ahem.

—

The Best of LCRW has arrived! To our new office! We are overcome! New York Times list: here we come!

Please do remember to buy your contracted-for 40 copies on Aug. 29th or just after. You don’t remember signing that contract? Please ignore the note below.

The quote you can’t read on the front cover is either (where are my glasses?) either from Oprah or Matt Derby. Those two are so hard to keep straight.

By reading this note you agree you will purchase (either from a New York Times reporting store or an indie bookshop or at least Amazon) 40 (forty) copies of The Best of LCRW on or about August 30, 2007.

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LCRW map

Wed 11 Jul 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., bookshops, LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

Here’s a map of the bookshops that carry LCRW. Not many! Any help appreciated and followed up in an incredibly slow manner. Hello again Google! We’ve been waiting to map this for 15 years—long before we started the zine. Maybe that’s why we started the zine? Who can remember?

Anyway. How can we take over the world with The Best of LCRW if we have fallen to this few bookshops? Remember the days you could buy LCRW at the checkout at Target? Or when Isaac Miyake designed the free zine bag gotten with a Nordstrom Level LCRW subscription?

God those were either good days or good drugs. And of course we are a drug free environment (barring naturally occurring endorphins and alcohol) here at Small Beer, so they must have have been great days.

So many non-LCRW states!

Come on shops d’books: wouldn’t you like a twice-a-year stack of stapled, no spine, b&w zines? This is the best collection of short fiction gathered in the slowest time in a zine named after an American emigrant. It’s the ultimate impulse buy… James Patterson writes for it… It’s all wonderful but ultimately tragic stories about puppies… It has a few Secrets in every issue…

What’s that? No booksellers read these pages. Darn.

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The Best of LCRW ToC

Wed 20 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

At last. Seen in the wild this week for the first time as an ARC (will post pictures of its exciting little self if we see it again) this enchanting little tomb, er, tome will be released to the world in late August. Just after the doldrums to be inexact.

In the meantime, here’s what there’s to be had: some of the best parts of the first 10 years of surprising stories, poetry worth reading, odd bits, and maybe more. Below is the Table of Contents with links to some of the contributor’s pages. Look at all those peeps with livejournals (not a single deadjournal among them) and so on. It’s like the blogospasm has them in its grasp. Not that we would know anything about that. Cough.

So: The Best of LCRW (with the unofficial subtitle: So Far), bought by the fantastic Mr. Jim Minz at Del Rey and carried on in the best possible way (i.e. not Up the Khyber) by Mr. Fleetwood Robbins and Mr. Christopher Schleup. There are also perhaps other people at Del Rey, like D. Moench, who are working on this. All of them deserve a beer. On us, next time we see you, ok? I thought so!

Cover by Jacob McMurray
Preface by Chunterers Max and Mini
Dan Chaon, Introduction (yes, that is a myspace link: friend him!)
Kelly Link, Travels with the Snow Queen, LCRW 1 (Japanese illo)
Scotch, An Essay Into A Drink, LCRW 2
David Findlay, Unrecognizable, LCRW 3
Ian McDowell, mehitobel was queen of the night, LCRW 4
Nalo Hopkinson, Tan Tan and Dry Bone, LCRW 4
Margaret Muirhead — An Open Letter, LCRW 4
Margaret Muirhead, I am glad, LCRW 4
Margaret Muirhead, Lady Shonagon’s Hateful Things, LCRW 5
Karen Joy Fowler, Heartland, LCRW 6
What a Difference A Night Makes, LCRW 7
Ray Vukcevich, Pretending, LCRW 8
Shh! I can’t hear the music! (LCRW 8)
William Smith — The Film Column
Amy Beth Forbes, A is for Apple, LCRW 9
Shh! I said I was listening to some music! (LCRW 9)
Mark Rudolph, My Father’s Ghost, LCRW 9
A list of chickens (From The Fairest Fowl, Portraits of Champion Chickens) (LCRW 9)
Jeffrey Ford, What’s Sure to Come LCRW 10
Roadtripping, zinemaking, cooking, cleaning, reading, and eating music (LCRW 10)
Geoffrey Goodwin — Stoddy Awchaw, LCRW 10 (Listen)
A selection of teas the LCRW kitchen has acquired or been given over the years (LCRW 10)
Theodora Goss, Rapid Advance of Sorrow LCRW 11
Nan Fry, The Wolf’s Story, LCRW 11
Sarah Monette — Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland, LCRW 11 (prize winner!)
David Moles — Tacoma-Fuji, LCRW 11
David Erik Nelson — Bay, LCRW 12
Richard Butner — How to Make a Martini, LCRW 12
All About the T: Swept (not sweeped) away by the love of irregular verbs (LCRW 12)
Jan Lars Jensen — Happier Days, LCRW 12
Philip Raines and Harvey Welles — The Fishie, LCRW 12 (that’s a fun link)
The Switch. Hope in the form of planted tomatoes (LCRW 12)
Gwenda Bond — Dear Aunt Gwenda
William Smith — The Film Column
David J. Schwartz — The Ichthymancer Writes His Friend with an Account of the Yeti’s Birthday Party, LCRW 13
A By-No-Means-Complete Joan Aiken Checklist (LCRW 13)
Veronica Schanoes — Serpents, LCRW 13
Homeland Security, LCRW 13
David Blair — Vincent Price; For George Romero, LCRW 13 (First book coming in September!)
Douglas Lain — Music Lessons, LCRW 14
James Sallis — Two Stories, LCRW 14
Karen Russell — Help Wanted, LCRW 15
Sarah Micklem — “Eft” or “Epic”, LCRW 15
John Kessel — The Red Phone, LCRW 16
Lawrence Schimel & Sara Rojo, The Well-Dressed Wolf, COMIC
Deborah Roggie — The Mushroom Duchess
Seana Graham — The Pirate’s True Love, LCRW 17
You Could Do This Too, LCRW 17
Sunshine Ison — Two Poems LCRW 18
[Name Withheld] Article Withdrawn
Becca De La Rosa — This Is The Train The Queen Rides On LCRW 18
A selected list of Automobile City/Hwy Mileages (LCRW 18)
Gwenda Bond — Dear Aunt Gwenda
John Brown — Bright Waters
K.E. Duffin, Two Poems LCRW 19
D.M. Gordon, Sliding LCRW 19
Cara Spindler & David Erik Nelson, You Were Neither . . . LCRW 19

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Punk Planet: RIP

Mon 18 Jun 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW, Zines| Posted by: Gavin

In the office for a couple of days (with a KGB visit interstitialed in there on Wednesday) before heading to DC for ALA on Friday (say hi if you’re there). Acronymed to death, anyone?

Punk Planet just pulled the plug on it’s zine, bah fkn humbug. It was a great fun mag with good pieces on all aspects of indie culture. Another death-by-distributor tale. Best of luck with the books!

These are pretty desperate times for indie culture. It’s (somewhat) easy enough to start something—we did it while knowing nothing. Keeping it going while being, er, nibbled to death by ducks? Not always easy.

The usual “clarion” call: if you like a zine, subscribe. Shop the McSweeney’s and Soft Skull sales.

But don’t wait until a press or bookshop you like is desperate. If you buy this $14.95 book from Amazon for 32% off:

The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (Paperback)
by Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant

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List Price $14.95
Price $10.17
You Save $4.78 (32%)

That’s great! You only pay $10.71 (Hey, buy 2.) But that 32% you’re saving doesn’t come from Amazon: that cut is from the publisher. The publisher still has to give Amazon a huge discount (so that they can pass it on — and not selling on Amazon, well, let’s suppose that argument is over already) and pay all the other usual people. Hello printer!

How about if you buy that same book at your local book store (which probably has a frequent buyer card of some kind to offer you 10% off)? Then that 22-32% goes back to the bookshop (paying smart people in your town to sell books: how cool is that?) and a slice of it goes back to the publisher, who need every % they can get.

Every dollar is a political act.

—

More LCRW stuff:

We will post the Best of LCRW table of contents soon. Promise!

Submissions are running about 1,500 per year. So we are falling further behind and wow are they piling up. Not sure what we can do. Reading periods? Charge to submit? (That is a joke, by the way.) 1500 stories a year (and only going to rise) is a chunk of time. Suggestions appreciated.

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lcrw 20

Tue 22 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

We are going on the road to play a couple of shows (Hello Poland! The Czech Republic! However, we are not going there. We are going to Chicago (Hello BookSlut readers!) and Madison (Helloo WisConites!)) so will be slow to answer email, a little slow on shipping, and really not taking many manuscripts with us for perusal.

Here is an inaccurate picture of the cover of the next LCRW, No.20, and an accurate representation of the T.o.C.!

Order! Subscribe! Writhe! Jump! This High! Phew. Tired now.

fiction

Marly Youmans — Prolegomenon to the Adventures of Chílde Phoenix
Anil Menon — Invisible Hand
Edward McEneely — Consider the Snorklepine
Steven Bratman — Under the Skin
Michael Hartford — The Oologist’s Cabinet
M. Brock Moorer — The Third Kind of Darkness
Laura Evans — Workshop
Amelia Beamer — Krishnaware
Meghan McCarron — I’ll Give In
Jon Hansen — In the Lobby of the Mission Palms
Karen Joy Fowler — The Last Worders

poetry
Neile Graham — The Tattoos I Don’t Have
Neile Graham — Westness Walk
Rose Black — The Secretary
David Blair — Five Poems

nonfiction
Gwenda Bond — Dear Aunt Gwenda
William Smith — Eleven Things

cover art
Nathaniel Meyer

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Mon 14 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Elizabeth Hand, LCRW, Uncategorized| Posted by: Gavin

Birnbaum on Generation Loss (where he notes our antecedents and gets a plug in for AVH Books). GL was also mentioned in Sarah Weinman’s Dark Passages column on the LA Times:

Cass is a marvel, someone with whom we take the difficult journey toward delayed adulthood, wishing her encouragement despite grave odds.

Very much enjoying the friction in the reviews that comes from the book being a page turner about a superficially unlikable character. Must gather the quotes on Cass at some point.

We have good news about an ’08* title which we will spill (the news, not the title) at some point soon. (In other words: we have a new book coming, yay! 1 of 3 we’re planning so far. Hello future.)

Mr. William Smith, writer of an occasional film column for our august journal, has a bookity bloggity thing here where much pro-zombie writing will no doubt be posted.

LCRW, that journal, that zine, is in progress: we have a cover and it can be ordered (although there is no page for the zine yet). The final contents will not be known until WisCon or so. We are far behind in our LCRW reading, sorry writers. 3 months reply? Nope. Not any more. Not for a while.

* Updated to say: stupid WordPress. Putting an apostrophe before 08 (as: ’08) gives the wrong apostrophe. A quick look at a fave reference (Thanks Webmonkey!) gives the correct character (’) for it. Pah. We defeats the internet.

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Mon 14 May 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Elizabeth Hand, LCRW, Uncategorized| Posted by: Gavin

Birnbaum on Generation Loss (where he notes our antecedents and gets a plug in for AVH Books). GL was also mentioned in Sarah Weinman’s Dark Passages column on the LA Times:

Cass is a marvel, someone with whom we take the difficult journey toward delayed adulthood, wishing her encouragement despite grave odds.

Very much enjoying the friction in the reviews that comes from the book being a page turner about a superficially unlikable character. Must gather the quotes on Cass at some point.

We have good news about an ’08* title which we will spill (the news, not the title) at some point soon. (In other words: we have a new book coming, yay! 1 of 3 we’re planning so far. Hello future.)

Mr. William Smith, writer of an occasional film column for our august journal, has a bookity bloggity thing here where much pro-zombie writing will no doubt be posted.

LCRW, that journal, that zine, is in progress: we have a cover and it can be ordered (although there is no page for the zine yet). The final contents will not be known until WisCon or so. We are far behind in our LCRW reading, sorry writers. 3 months reply? Nope. Not any more. Not for a while.

* Updated to say: stupid WordPress. Putting an apostrophe before 08 (as: ’08) gives the wrong apostrophe. A quick look at a fave reference (Thanks Webmonkey!) gives the correct character (’) for it. Pah. We defeats the internet.

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Lost people

Wed 28 Mar 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

More people we have lost:

Heather Pioro: sorry, we didn’t notice the reply envelope in your submission was missing a stamp. The post office returned it to us but by then your submission was gone. Sorry!

Missing people:

Jennifer Woodroffe, once of Greenville, NC.
Tim Luke, once of Elizabethtown, KY.
George Tucker, once of Oakland Park, FL.
Guillermo James, once of Columbus, OH.

Where did you go? We have zines for you!

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Nick Burton?

Mon 12 Mar 2007 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

Nick, we are looking for you! You moved from York in Ontario and we need your new address.

More of these pleas may appear here as we realize how many people we have lost along the way.

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Lone Star Stories

Thu 28 Dec 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW, Year's Best Fantasy & Horror| Posted by: Gavin

In our great quest to become the number one consumers of chocolate bon-bons while lying on the couch reading comics and drinking champagne we have taken to selling off the pages of LCRW at exorbitant rates to anyone whose cheque book is big enough to take the hit.

Because we are such indolent proles, sometimes this doesn’t go as well as we’d like.* For instance, for LCRW 19 among the other lovelies spreading good word about Fictionary Devices and so on, there was the following ad for an online zine we have enjoyed more with each issue, Lone Star Stories. Those with Great eyesight may be able to see on the inside back cover where the ad should have gone. Were that PDF sent to the printer. It wasn’t. Eek! Sorry, Eric! Should be in the next one, but in the meantime, here it is:

* What we’d like is the bon-bon truck to come to the door once a day and someone cheery to refill the bon-bon tray and perhaps refill the record player with a new set of 78s. How we struggle with how to make this come to pass?!

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Some LCRW stories in a book

Wed 27 Dec 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

Thanks to Gwenda (and Meghan) for the reminder to post something about this.

Next November or so, in a stunning experiment in bindery, Del Rey editor Jim Minz will personally hand-sew* a collection (or, properly, an anthology) of stories (and so on and so forth) from Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. This anthology will not, however, be graced with any of the following titles:

• God of Mars, Cadbury, Nestle, and Even Some Grown Up Chocolate Brand Maker Thingies
• The New Yorker: Best Stories, 1996 – 2006
• Wall, What Waaaaa? and Other Marathon Questions
• Sliding into Home and a Sportsbag Full of Other Obliquely Misused Sports Metaphors
• Ringtones of Glory: Poetry and Prose for Your Mobile! Kidz! Cool! Daddio? Myspace? A Little Help Reaching the HipsterKids Here? Bebo?
• Minxes!
• Celebrity Zine with the Stars!
• Whistling in the Corner: 10 Years of Happy Penguin Stories
• Weirdness Quotient: Bagel — 10 Years of Poisoned Mushroom Tales
• A Little Bit Off the Left, Please: Twenty Years (Minus 10) of Damn, That’s Wacky Good Stuff
• You Tube Used to be An Insult and Other Pithy Tales from PreHistory
• Not Bad
• Scene: Lady Zine Been Seen with Lean Queen and Mean Dean (Better Writing Inside)
• Vidblogging the Wikipod: 10 Years of Rebelde, LCRW, and Metacafe
• Actually Comes with Chocolate and Other Wonders from the Pages of LCRW, Perhaps the Only Zine Named After Jennie Jerome, Mother of Winston Churchill (and Editor of a Short-Lived Journal (The Anglo-Saxon Review) Which Was Beautiful and We Would Love a Full Set, Please)

Actual publicity notice picked up from Meghan from Publishers Marketplace:

Gavin Grant and Kelly Link’s UNDER THE RADAR: The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, an anthology of the best fiction, nonfiction. and poetry that has appeared in the ‘zine, with an introduction by Dan Chaon and contributions from Karen Joy Fowler, Karen Russell, Jeffrey Ford, James Sallis, and Nalo Hopkinson, to Jim Minz at Del Rey, by Renee Zuckerbrot at Renee Zuckerbrot Literary Agency (NA).

Ta da!

*The contract lets Minz outsource a limited percentage of sewing to assistant editors (as long as he plies them with martinis) and should the book sell out** he will have the option to use a stapler on future printings.

** Isn’t any book a sell out? Discuss. Endlessly. Meanwhile, put some old people up against the wall. Use them to climb said wall. Take possession of the “palace”. Put the kettle on. Make a zine. Wonder what that disturbance in the garden. Wander outside with your now-somewhat-crumbly mates. Get put up against the wall. Offer them the “palace”in return for your life. Sigh as they explain (endlessly) that they’ll never sell out.
Could have been worse. You could have been born a Bush.

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LCRW 19rs post fact ideation

Tue 26 Dec 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

At some point we asked our LCRW 19 contributors to send ideas for gifts they’d like to give or receive. Or, something (which thing does not have to be a Thing) that would be a good present to receive in January from someone who has gone and missed the whole darn holiday season. Not that we know anyone like that. Nope.

Updated with Laura’s somehow missed in the messy inbox.

Received:
3 grocery receipts totalling over $200
35 student essays: 19 on W.D. Snodgrass, 2 on Adrienne Rich, 2 on Ted Kooser (1 plaigiarized), 13 etc.
1165 calories in holiday chocolate, cheese, jam, and eggs at Investment Club Christmas Party
14 ideas to fix the public schools ranging from isolation to abandonment to inventing parents
1/12th share of 3 shares TM
2 whimpers from tired miniature dachsund long-haired terrier mix
a symphony on inconsolable grief through window from dog some blocks away, 1.5-2.5 hours in duration
1 (and only 1) glass Merlot
2 email; 1 confessing R.B.’s crush on E.D.; 1 requesting items received/desired

Pending or Desired:
breakfast in bed
1 student essay
the desire to walk around the block, sign up for Y yoga class, attend water aerobics, attempt health
elimination of poverty, mass education, behavioral training and awakening
dividend
12 whimpers from lively miniature dachsund long-haired terrier mix
silence
2 (or 2 1/2) glasses of Rioja
1 slice tortilla Espana
acceptance
—Laura Lee Washburn
I’d like someone to build me a home like Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Hill House or his reconstructed townhouse in Glasgow. Sadly, it wouldn’t fit inside an Xmas stocking. Photoshop CS probably would, but no one I know has that kind of money. Alternatively, someone could buy me a view, a window programmed to show anyplace on earth. It could even become a mirror reflecting back a room I don’t actually live in, in a house I could never afford—like the master bedroom at Hill House. Unfortunately, such a view would also cost money, and would certainly be difficult to fit inside a stocking.
—Kara Kellar Bell

My wife and I never seem to get it together to write a “Christmas” letter in time for Christmas. So, taking a cue from my brother who at one time sent out “Ash Wednesday” letters to mock the whole holiday letter thing, we decided to call our Christmas letter a “New Year’s” letter and tried to get it out in January. Success! But only for that first year. Not meeting the January deadline the following year, we ranamed our missive an “Annual” letter, thinking that gave us several months to get it out to friends and relatives. That worked for a couple of years, but last year, although we eventually got around to writing something, we did not manage to get it out within the first half of the year and so embarrassment kept us from sending the letter out at all.
But now, with a letter in hand, we are thinking about recycling…our lives are pretty much the same from year to year, so who will know the difference?
—George Schaller

I’ve decided that I want a set of bagpipes for Christmas this year. I heard them playing in Edinburgh this summer, bagpipes, attached to guys in kilts, a basket for money in front of them, awaiting a Euro here, a Euro there. The music was beautiful.
That’s not the real reason I covet bagpipes. I started playing guitar when I was 10 years old. I would have been a very successful musician except for one thing: I lack talent. My son started playing guitar when he was 10 years old and after the first hour I could tell that he would be better than I ever hoped to be. Similar things happened with the piano.
My son went on to get a B.A. in music.
I want to be able to play an instrument that my son can’t play better than I can. I will practice and lock the bagpipes in the closet when my son visits. I don’t want a repeat of that ugly Thanksgiving meal in 1998, when I played a number that I’d been practicing for three months on the harmonica. I showed my son how the scale was organized on the harmonica. By the end of the night, he was playing Beethoven’s sixth symphony on it, and an early Grateful Dead number, all from memory.
So, to draw this story to a conclusion, I will admit that I’m going to buy bagpipes on the internet, and give it to my wife to give to me for Christmas.
—Dennis Nau

This Non-Denominational Gift Giving Season, I would very much like to receive harmonicas in any natural minor or harmonic minor key. As for those who miss the season entirely, I suggest the give the gift of bees. Giving bees clearly communicates the core message: “It was no accident that I failed to give you a Christmas, Chanukah or Kwanzaa present.”
—David Erik Nelson

I’m thinking of giving my mother a ride in hot air balloon over the Arizona desert this year. The balloon will be red and green and yellow and the basket will brown wicker, and everything will be so high and quiet up there above the bugs. The Saguaro cacti will stand around with their hands up. She’ll be able to see her house in Phoenix in one direction and way over there the house where I grew up, with rolling hills, mesas, and a couple of deep canyons between the two. The Gila River, the Superstition Mountains, the town of Globe where there is both a Serbian and a Croatian cemetery.
—Ray Vukcevich

I’ll confess that I’ve been bothered by the cupie doll nature of this seasonal gift-giving, and all its bows and wrappings that send beautiful, toxic flames up the chimney. I’m giving Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder, about the remarkable Dr. Paul Farmer and his personal war against AIDS and multi resistant TB in the poorest places in the world, centered in Haiti. The man, the stories, Kidder’s writing, all wonderful. Restores faith in what we can be; it was all I could do, when I finished the book, to not stop everything and go help this man and Ophelia Dahl, Roald Dahl’s daughter. So folded into the copy of the book, I’m also giving donations to their Partner’s In Health in the name of the people I’m giving the book to.
I’m also interested in receiving such gifts. There is so much suffering, think what $30, multiplied by the millions of desperate gift givers, could do in the right hands.
A government of the people, for the people and by the people would be nice.
—Diane Gordon

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LCRW 19

Sun 19 Nov 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

It really is time for something about the newest, the latest, the tomorrow it’s coming before you know and the Hot New Thing is Here issue of LCRW. Aka #19. Aka The Tenth Anniversary Issue. Or: the one with wrestlers on the cover. (That Nifty Cover is by Eric Schaller.)

Hand-crafted in small batches by the printsmiths of Paradise Copies, LCRW 19 is a wafty number with stretchy impulses and chocolate overtones. Paired with a leg of lamb it asks where the other three legs and the body are; mixed with sherry, it is a (…) trifle heavy.

Fiction Yes. Pushcart nominees? Yes. But you’ll find out about them the same time you always have (ie not until the pieces get picked for the anthology. Not yet, no. One of these days? Sure). This issue contains fiction about birds, brides, bath(tubs), and, yes, wrestlers by fave writers such as Ray Vukcevich and Carol Emshwiller as well as new-to-these-pages peeps such as Daniel Rabuzzi and Katherine Beutner.

Nonfiction? Yes. A little. Dear Aunt Gwenda comes through. Phew.

Poetry? Yes.

Celebrations?Memories of those early years? The lost issues? No.
Subscription and store copies will mail out this week due to the management and the shippers’ new agreement on tea breaks, leaf raking, and chocolate supplies. The choice of a Dove dark chocolate bar for subscribers and shippers was roundly pooh-poohed by management, the shippers, and representatives from the Small Magazine Subscribers Local 44. Reports that management was later seen muching through a 48-count case of Dove’s new dark chocolate bars were denied by management and sniggered at by the shippers.

Chances of a party to celebrate this 10th anniversary ish are average to rainy.

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Thu 29 Jun 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW, To Read Pile| Posted by: Gavin

Sarah Monette, who has had a few stories in LCRW, has a second novel out right now, The Virtu. This one stands by itself in the way her debut didn’t (the books are in a series, although they don’t tell you that). The Virtu races along and Monette gives her characters some great dialogue. It’s a book mostly about boys but there is a great governess (who isn’t, of course) who is so much fun that she is missed when she disappears off screen. A great book to get stuck into late on a summer’s eve.

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Thu 29 Jun 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW, To Read Pile| Posted by: Gavin

Sarah Monette, who has had a few stories in LCRW, has a second novel out right now, The Virtu. This one stands by itself in the way her debut didn’t (the books are in a series, although they don’t tell you that). The Virtu races along and Monette gives her characters some great dialogue. It’s a book mostly about boys but there is a great governess (who isn’t, of course) who is so much fun that she is missed when she disappears off screen. A great book to get stuck into late on a summer’s eve.

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LCRW 18

Sat 24 Jun 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

A couple of people wondered where the car fuel economy figures quoted in LCRW 18 came from. Some came from research done by Erik, one of der interns. Otherwise, the best resource was the Vehicle Certification Agency site. None of the cars seem to get over 70 mpg, but check the 61-70 range and you’ll see a ton of cars by Toyota, Nissan, Smart (which start selling here in ’07 — send us a demo and we’ll blog it!), Citroen, Renault, etc. etc. Lovely, comfy cars of the future.

Also from LCRW 18:

June 2006, Northampton, MA. LCRW and Small Beer announces The Eponymous Award, given to all writers on publication in LCRW of their writing. So, Bob Smith has been awarded the Bob Smith Award for Fiction Writing. Jane Smith has been awarded the Nonfiction Award. D.K. Smith has been awarded the Poetry Award. You get the idea.

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LCRW 18

Sun 11 Jun 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

LCRW 18 slowly trickles out into the world:

June 2006 · $5 · 60 pages · Black & white with handtinted woodblock cuts by famous and unknown artists. Printed on a 12th century Chinese letterpress on sheets of kelp-paper handmade by centaurs and sprites. Unattractively bound in the skins of dead animals. Alternately: attractively bound in more handmade paper, these sheets fairly traded from The Mysterions: Those Who Live at the Center of the Earth.

Not in stores yet and not out to all reviewers or subscribers but getting there. Slowed this week by more travel but some people will be working on it. Yay for them! In the meantime, here’s what it is:

Table of Contents

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L See RW May

Thu 18 May 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

– A review of LCRW 17 just as it seems to be sold out! Shocking. Must have been that massive sale. Luckily #18 is just sticking its pretty nose around the corner and will take up the slack.

– New issue of LCRW (18, wherein LCRW can drink, drive, vote, and fight. Wait, can’t drink…) is taking shape. You can see the early, incomplete Table of Contents here. Feel free to preorder or subscribe. We have a wonderful story from David Schwartz who has a lovely gentle story this week on Strange Horizons. More SH goodies: an interview with our fave co-opist, Barth Anderson. Quote from his first line, “There’s no high culture without bug culture.”

– Also a new LCRW newsletter went out. Maybe with different stuff and maybe some the same.

– Congrats to Deborah Roggie whose story “The Mushroom Duchess” from LCRW 17 is among the stories selected by the Fountain Award jury for the short list. Congrats to all!

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Assumptions on the Readership of this Luxury Product

Thu 16 Feb 2006 - Filed under: Not a Journal., LCRW| Posted by: Gavin

Matt Cheney has posted a poem from LCRW 16: “Scorpions” by Chris Fox.

Matt has a great piece on the accessibility of texts on Strange Horizons. A long time ago (LCRW 4, 1999…eek!) we listed a few “Assumptions on the Readership of this ‘Luxury Product'”:

You read.(1)

You read English.

You have a home.(2)

You are not chronically hungry.(2)

You will not Disappear. (2)(3)

You regard some part of your income as ‘disposable.’ (1)(2)(3)(4)

1. And, oddly enough, you occasionally go beyond mass media products and read tiny magazines with great fiction, poetry and odd little ideas.
2. Unless you found this in the trash.
3. You need not fear for your life by reading or possessing this or any other text or idea, samizdat or other.
4. You sometimes consider where the money you work for goes. You sometimes try economic support of ideas and ideologies. You don’t always fall for the hype. You shop as a pastime. You don’t always buy ‘brand’ names. This may be time-consuming and wear you out. In 5 years you will be going to the mall thinking of all the time this is saving you.

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