Sooner or Later in New StoryBundle

Fri 31 May 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Sarah Pinsker’s award-winning debut collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea is one of thirteen books in Catherine Lundoff and Melissa Scott’s newly launched Pay-What-You-Want 2024 Pride Bundle.

The bundle is available for 31 days — today + Pride month! The 4-book basic bundle is $5, and is really 5 books as it includes both volumes of Ginn Hale’s Champion of the Scarlet Wolf. The real deal is at $20 (or more, seems to top out at $100, challenge activated?) where you get all 13 titles.

Every buyer chooses how their payment is split between the authors and the platform (StoryBundle) and can choose to donate 10% to the charity Catherine and Melissa selected, Rainbow Railroad whose mission is to help at-risk LGBTQI+ people get to safety.

Hope you enjoy the bundle and any help spreading the word over the next month would be much appreciated.


Lost Places is a Locus Award Finalist

Tue 14 May 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Lost Places cover - click to view full sizeDelighted to see Sarah Pinsker’s Lost Places is a finalist for the Locus Award for best short story collection — along with one of her stories and one novelette.* Small Beer is a finalist which I take it to mean that all of our 2023 titles were much enjoyed by readers.

Congratulations to all the finalists! — including Kelly, for her collection White Cat, Black Dog, and her story “Prince Hat Underground” which are also finalists.

The Locus Awards weekend is June 19-22 live in — and online from — Oakland, CA.

* Still funny to write that instead of two short stories. When does one get used to the names for the various short  categories?


Locus 2023 Recommended Reading List

Thu 1 Feb 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

In 2023 we (only) published four books and I’m happy to see three of them are on the Locus Recommended Reading list. The one title missing is Ayize Jama-Everett’s series capper Heroes of an Unknown World—at least The Last Count of Monte Cristo, his great Afrofuturist graphic novel, is listed.

As ever, congratulations to everyone whose work made the list! Do I think more of the list makers should read LCRW? Well of course! How could they miss our monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, semiannual, dammit, annual issue from last year? (I mean, maybe they all read it and didn’t enjoy any of the stories, but, come now, how likely is that?)

The three titles, which if you are reading this you may be familiar with, that did make the list are:

Kij Johnson, The Privilege of the Happy Ending: Small, Medium, and Large Stories

Sarah Pinsker, Lost Places: Stories & the original story novelette first publisher there, “Science Facts!”

Anya Johanna DeNiro, OKPsyche


Book Riot Best of 2023

Mon 29 Jan 2024 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Lost Places cover - click to view full sizeCatch up note on a best of list I missed: Sarah Pinsker’s collection Lost Places was selected as one of Book Riot’s 20 of the Best Fantasy Books of 2023. It’s a good, solid, wide-ranging list, and I completely agree with the write-up for Sarah’s book:

“All SFF fans should be reading Sarah Pinsker, and this is a great place to get started.”

Read it now and get your preorder in for her new novella, Haunt Sweet Home, coming from Tor.com in September.


Top 5 Bestsellers 2023

Tue 19 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Top 5 shipped from distroHere are our top 5 bestsellers so far this year by numbers shipped from our distributor:

  1. Sarah Pinsker, Lost Places
  2. Nathan Ballingrud, North American Lake Monsters
  3. Kij Johnson, The Privilege of the Happy Ending
  4. Anya Johanna DeNiro, OKPsyche
  5. Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands

In 2023 we published the Liminals series capper from Ayize Jama-Everett, Heroes from Another World. Ayize had an amazing year: he published 3 books (including a great Afrofuturistic graphic novel The Last Count of Monte Cristo) and put out a documentary, A Table of Our Own: “an extraordinary and thought-provoking documentary that delves into the rich tapestry of the African-American experience, exploring the intersection of psychedelic substance use, spirituality and the pursuit of social justice.”

We followed Ayize’s novel with Sarah Pinsker’s second collection which was included in Slate’s Best Books of the Year.

Then came Anya Johanna DeNiro’s OKPsyche — I think the review I enjoyed most was Jake Casella Brookins in Locus which started off, “I was completely unprepared for how powerful Anya Johanna DeNiro’s OKPsyche is” and leapt off into the kind of review that I alwayshope to read of a book I love.

Our final book of the year was Kij Johnson’s The Privilege of the Happy Ending. 10 years in the making, it’s a weird and wide-ranging collection and was recently reviewed in the Washington Post by Michael Dirda.

We’re shipping books & zines from our warehouse and Book Moon daily. Orders welcome!

LeVar Burton Reads The Court Magician

Wed 13 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

LeVar Burton Reads podcast artworkLeVar Burton is variously and widely recognized as a champion of all things literary for books and one of the ways he shares his joy and love of narrative is through his podcast. He recently chose Sarah Pinsker’s story “The Court Magician” — listen here (or wherever you access Podcastia).


Slate: The 10 Best Books of 2023

Wed 6 Dec 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

The covers of the 10 best books.Sarah Pinsker’s Lost Places gets lovely review in Dan Kois’s list of Slate’s 10 Best Books of 2023.

How to explain what’s so graceful about this collection of fantasy stories by the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning Pinsker? . . .  Every story is surprising, delightful, and very human, and left me excited to read more from this writer, who is both finely attuned to the language and rituals of modern life and in touch with some real deep-magic weirdness.

See the list and read the full recommendation.


A Locus Bestseller

Wed 1 Nov 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Bestseller lists are weird things. None of them turn out to be as simple as I’d expect — except, I suppose the ones I make for Book Moon because that they are what they say they are: a list of bestselling books in the store.

Anyway, this hardly a thought never mind an exploration of the concept comes from celebrating Sarah Pinsker’s recent collection Lost Places just slipping onto the August bestseller list as reported in the new issue of Locus.

Have other Small Beer titles been Locus bestsellers? Could this be our first bestseller? Can we get it to appear on other lists? I have no idea! In the meantime, we’ll celebrate having possibly the only short story collection on the list this month!


Readercon 2023

Mon 10 Jul 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Readercon is back in Quincy again this year and while we’re not going the lovely Steve Berman of Lethe Press will have a few Small Beer titles available at his table so that when you hear Jeffrey Ford, Greer Gilman, Elizabeth Hand, Sarah Pinsker, or Susan Stinson read you can dash over and pick up one of their books.

Steve will also have 1 or 2 other SBP titles — and maybe a couple of copies of Kelly’s White Cat Black Dog?  — but he only has one table, so there won’t be the whole cit and kaboodle, he spoonered. These books will be there — email me ahead of time if there are any others you’d like to pick up there:

Liz Hand books


New York Review of Science Fiction Readings: Sarah Pinsker

Tue 13 Jun 2023 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Catch up with Sarah Pinsker’s new book, Lost Places, with this recent NYRSF reading hosted by Barbara Krasnoff. Sarah reads excerpts from her original novelette “Science Facts!” — I still think Science Facts! Stories would have been a great title for the book and then Barbara interviews Sarah:


Starred Review for Lost Places!

Wed 21 Dec 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

We’re sending out review copies of Sarah Pinsker’s collection, Lost Places, coming in March, and now we get to share the good news that it has received a starred review from Publishers Weekly!

PW review of Lost Places


Backlist To The Future: Short Story-Style

Fri 22 Jul 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Should you be a short story kick this weekend, Book Riot’s SFF Yeah’s podcast has you covered:

Jenn discusses two favorite speculative short story collections.

Tender by Sofia Samatar

Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker

We are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker

Follow the podcast via RSS here, Apple Podcasts here, Spotify here.
The show can also be found on Stitcher.

Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea cover - click to view full size Tender cover - click to view full size

 


Locus Reading & Panel

Wed 22 Jun 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

As part of the Locus awards readings and celebration, Kelly will do a zoom reading on Thursday June 23 with Michael Swanwick and be on a panel on Connie Willis and Gary K. Wolfe on Saturday, June 25:

Thursday, June 23 – 4 p.m. PDT/7 p.m. ET – Reading: Kelly Link and Michael Swanwick

Saturday, June 25 – 2 p.m. PDT/5 p.m. ET – DONUT SALON: In Conversation: Kelly Link, Connie Willis, and Gary K. Wolfe (bring your own donuts!)

Jeff Ford and Sarah Pinsker are two of the many readers and panellists. Should be fun. I’ve lifted the post from the Locus site so check here for updates.

Event links at Locus Awards Online 2022 will become live at their scheduled time. Here’s the full list of events from Locus:

LOCUS AWARDS SCHEDULE

Wednesday, June 22  –
4:00 p.m. PDT–  Reading: José Pablo Iriarte and Nnedi Okorafor
5:00 p.m. PDT–  Reading: Nalo Hopkinson and Catherynne M. Valente
6:00 p.m. PDT – Reading: Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Fran Wilde
Thursday, June 23  –
4:00 p.m. PDT – Reading: Kelly Link and Michael Swanwick
5:00 p.m. PDT – Reading: Suzanne Palmer and Wole Talabi
6:00 p.m. PDT – Reading: Jeffrey Ford and Angela Slatter
Friday, June 24 –
4:00 p.m PDT – Reading: Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki and Cat Rambo
5:00 p.m PDT – Reading: John Wiswell and Connie Willis
6:00 p.m PDT – Online Hangout with Connie Willis and Locus folks
Saturday, June 25 –
10:00 a.m. PDT – PANEL: “Hauntings & Histories” with Akemi Dawn Bowman, TJ Klune, Darcie Little Badger, Sam J. Miller
11:00 p.m. PDT – PANEL: “Power Dynamics in New Worlds” with Daniel Abraham, C.L. Clark, Fonda Lee, Sarah Pinsker
12:00 p.m. PDT – PANEL: “Writing Rules and How to Break Them” with Charlie Jane Anders, Charles Payseur, Sheree Renée Thomas, A.C. Wise
2:00 p.m. PDT – DONUT SALON: In Conversation: Kelly Link, Connie Willis, and Gary K. Wolfe
(bring your own donuts!)
3:00 p.m. PDT – LOCUS AWARDS CEREMONY with MC Connie Willis

 

*Memberships include a set digital subscription to the magazine, from our February 2022 issue (our Year-in-Review issue with Recommended Reading List and Poll and Survey) to August 2022 (with the Locus Awards photo coverage and writeup) and everything in between. Member subscription is non-transferable and does not affect or extend existing subscriptions.

Connie Willis
MC Connie Willis

Locus Supports Inclusivity! Thinking of attending? Please do. We encourage people of color, women, people with disabilities, older people, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people to attend. We welcome people of any gender identity or expression, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, age, size, nationality, religion, culture, education level, and self-identification. Locus associate editor Arley Sorg will serve as our PoC/LGBTQQIA Ombudsman.  Feel free to reach out to him in advance at locus@locusmag.com subject: Arley Ombudsman. Our Code of Conduct is available here: Locus Science Fiction Foundation Code of Conduct.


Get Lost — and enjoy it

Thu 28 Apr 2022 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

We started this week with the news that Zen Cho’s collection Spirits Abroad had received the Ray Bradbury Prize at the LA Times Book Awards and we’re ending it with news that is perhaps equally exciting: on March 21, 2023, we are going to publish Sarah Pinsker’s second collection, Lost Places.

Since Sarah’s first collection, Philip K. Dick Award winner Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea, came out, she has published 2 novels, A Song for the New Day and We Are Satellites, and has written enough short stories for this new collection, including a fabulous story that hasn’t been published elsewhere. What a treat!

It’s already up online at Greedy Reads, bn.com, etc., and some places even have the stand-in title but that’ll get replaced with the actual title soon.

Read more about the book and see the cover here.


Winner of the Philip K. Dick Award

Mon 13 Apr 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea cover - click to view full sizeWe were delighted to see that Sarah Pinsker’s first collection of short stories, Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea is this year’s winner of the Philip K. Dick Award.

Congratulations, Sarah! Here’s one of the stories from the book which if you have not read it should keep you happily entertained for a little while: And Then There Were (N-One), originally published in Uncanny Magazine.

Sarah is having a (relatively) good month: her story “The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye,” — also originally published in Uncanny, is a finalist for the Hugo Award. So congrats to all the nominees and fingers crossed for Sarah in August.


Locus Recommended Reading List

Mon 3 Feb 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Issue 709 Table of Contents, February 2020Congratulations to all the writers whose work has been selected for this year’s Locus Recommended Reading List! I am especially delighted that in a year where we published 10 titles (2 collections, 2 novels, 1 chapbook, 5 titles reprinted in paperback), three of the five new titles are on the list:

And among all the stories on the list (I’d have added a few from LCRW, but, hey, bias) I’m glad that Kelly’s story in the final issue of Tin House made it to the list:

Congrats to one and all!


Happy New PKD Award Finalist

Fri 17 Jan 2020 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea cover - click to view full sizeWe are delighted to note that Sarah Pinsker’s collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea, is a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award — and the book also appeared on a couple of year-end lists (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Best Books of 2019; Booklist: Top 10 Debut SF&F). You can try a couple of the stories out here:

And We Were Left Darkling
In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind
No Lonely Seafarer
And Then There Were (N-One)


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

Fri 13 Sep 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

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

 


Everything Falls into the Sea

Tue 19 Mar 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea cover - click to view full sizeHey hey, it’s new book day! You have to wait 6 short months for her first novel but today it’s Happy Publication Day to Sarah Pinsker whose debut collection Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea we have been looking forward to seeing out in the world.

Sarah’s been busy in the run up to publication and you’ll find her all over ye internets today (i.e. interview by A. C. Wise · Octavia Butler, Woody Guthrie, and other classics that inspired my debut” · Five Books That Gave Me Unreasonable Expectations for Post-High School Life · 6 Books) and there’ll be more of that in the next few days.

What’s Sarah up to tonight? She is launching her book tonight at the Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore!

Ok, so I’m not in Baltimore and you may not be either so what can you do?

You can listen to Liberty Hardy and María Cristina talk about the “jawdropping” Sooner or Later on Bookriot’s All the Books (now with T-shirt…!) and catch up with Sarah’s chat with Gary K. Wolfe and Jonathan Strahan on the Coode Street Podcast.

If you can get to Baltimore in the next few hours you can get to that launch (yay!). If not, how about you catch her on tour:

March 19, 7 p.m. The Ivy Bookshop, Baltimore, MD
March 29, 6 p.m. Malaprop’s Bookstore, Asheville, NC
— in conversation with Alexandra Duncan
March 30, 6 p.m. Scuppernong Books, Greensboro, NC
March 31, 5 p.m., The Cave c/o Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, NC
April 24, 7 p.m. Charm City Spec series, Bird in Hand, Baltimore, MD
May 19, 5 p.m. Skylight Books, Los Angeles, CA
— with Rebecca Roanhorse
May 24-27, Balticon, Baltimore, MD
June 6, Barnes & Noble, NYC (Best of Asimov’s celebration)
July 12-14, Readercon, Quincy, MA
Sept. 18, 7 p.m. KGB Fantastic Fiction Reading, New York, NY

There will probably be some additional readings in there, too. Or if you’re not going to an event, you can read or share a couple of stories:

And We Were Left Darkling
In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind
No Lonely Seafarer
And Then There Were (N-One)

What did other people think? They like it!

— “Pinsker’s stories nestle in the cracks of our world.” — Sara Ramey, The Arkansas International
— “haunting and hopeful.” — Booklist (starred review)
— “delightful and surprising.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
— “in the speculative tradition of Ursula K. Le Guin or Kelly Link.” — Kirkus Reviews
— “none should try to resist.” — Foreword Reviews (starred review)

That’s maybe enough links for publication day. Check it out!


Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Stars

Mon 18 Feb 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Such good news for next month’s release of Sarah Pinsker’s collection: a third starred review! This lovely review is courtesy of the fine folks at Booklist:

Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea cover - “Pinsker’s stories have murder houses that speak, dream children that emerge from the sea, and a car shaped like a narwal, but the heart of this debut collection lies in its people. The women protagonists, many of whom love women, are adapting to or resisting new ways of life: a punk musician insists on playing live and driving manually while her world depends on recorded immersive experiences and self-driving cars; a girl adjusts to a robotic grandmother as she and her father leave their home country; in ‘Wind Will Rove,’ a community that left Earth long ago asks why it still holds on so tightly to Earth’s history and art and whether it should let go of it entirely in order to embrace the new. A particular highlight is ‘In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind,’ a story primarily about Millie’s impeding loss of her husband, where the sf gem at its core takes a backseat to the tree house George built with his children and to the question of whether he did his best to make the world a better place. This collection from an exciting new voice in speculative fiction is both haunting and hopeful.” — Leah von Essen

 

 


Pinsker, Samatar, Marks (x3), Brennan, Schoffstall, Crowley

Wed 16 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

And Go Like This cover - click to view full sizeNot to bury the lede, but in November we are going to publish John Crowley’s new collection — his first for a long time — And Go Like This: Stories. The book will be published in hardcover and ebook and in a limited edition. We will contact Kickstarter backers from The Chemical Wedding first about the limited edition then make it generally available.

Ok, so 2019: yeah! One aside: it is amazing to see the news reporting on events they reported on before yet now with added shock and horror: the Russian asset AKA the US President had 5 meetings with his boss Vlad P. and no one knows what was said? Yup. That’s why we’ve been, are, and will continue to be upset with the GOP, Mitch McConnell (good argument for him being a fan of Vlad, too; see 2016-present), and those who keep going along to go along with the Idiot Baby-in-Chief. Hoping 2019 will see the Idiot, McConnell, et al, chucked out and maybe imprisoned. Goals!

Another aside: Hope to see you at the Women’s March this coming Saturday either in my hometown of Northampton (12 p.m., Sheldon Field) or wherever you can march.

In the meantime, in the interests of sanity, good reading, and getting tremendous art out into the world, we are going to publish more fab books!

Besides LCRW (subscribe?) and perhaps an omnibus ebook edition of Laurie J. Marks’s Elemental Logic novels and innumerable reprints and possibly one other reprint, here’s what we know we are publishing this year:

  • Jan. 22 — Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic, Elemental Logic Book 1
    — available now, whoopee!
  • Feb. 19 — Laurie J. Marks, Earth Logic, Elemental Logic Book 2
    — about to ship from the printer!
  • Mar. 19 — Sarah Pinsker, Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea: Stories
    — at the printer!
  • Apr. 9 — Sofia Samatar, Tender: Stories, trade paperback
    — about to go to the printer!
  • Jun. 4 — Laurie J. Marks, Air Logic, Elemental Logic Book 4 . . . !
  • Sep. 3 —  Sarah Rees Brennan, In Other Lands, trade paperback
    — Sarah’s new novel Season of the Witch (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Book 1) comes out from Scholastic on July 9th. That will be fun!
  • Oct. 22 — John Schoffstall, Half-Witch, trade paperback — the sleeper book of the year!
  • Nov. — John Crowley, And Go Like This: Stories

Cheers!


I love this book completely — Karen Joy Fowler

Mon 7 Jan 2019 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea coverWe’re about to send Sarah Pinsker’s debut to the printer and just in time we received this fabulous note:

“This collection of stories is simply wonderful. Each story is generous and original; as a collection, the tales are varied, but with recurring themes of memory and music through-out. Pinsker has emerged as one of our most exciting voices and I’m glad to note that I’m not the only one who thinks so. I love this book completely.”
— Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves


A Star Sooner

Thu 15 Nov 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

The first trade review is in for Sarah Pinsker’s debut short story collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea and it is a star from Publishers Weekly! Next year’s going to be all Sarah, all the time: her debut novel Song for a New Day comes out later in the year from Ace. What fun! For the moment, here’s the review:

This beautiful, complex debut collection assembles some of Nebula winner Pinsker’s best stories into a twisting journey that is by turns wild, melancholic, and unsettling. In the opening story, an injured farmer adjusts to living with a cybernetic arm that thinks it is a stretch of road in Colorado. “In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind” tells the story of a woman piecing together her husband’s enigmatic past after a stroke leaves him speechless. “No Lonely Seafarer” pits a stablehand against a pair of sirens as he attempts to save his town from its restless sailors. In all of Pinsker’s tales, humans grapple with their relationships to technology, the supernatural, and one another. Some, such as Ms. Clay in “Wind Will Rove,” are trying to navigate the space between technology as preservation and technology as destruction. Others, such as Kima in “Remembery Day,” rely on technology to live their lives. The stories are enhanced by a diverse cast of LGBTQ and nonwhite characters. Pinsker’s captivating compendium reveals stories that are as delightful and surprising to pore through as they are introspective and elegiac.


Sarah Pinsker Cover Reveal Tomorrow

Wed 2 May 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

Tomorrow morning on Tor.com there will be a cover reveal of Sarah Pinsker’s forthcoming debut collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls into the Sea, at which point we will open up preorders for print and ebooks here and on Weightless.

Who is

Here’s a bio:

Sarah Pinsker‘s award winning fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, F&SF, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, as well as numerous other magazines, anthologies, year’s bests, podcasts, and translation markets. She is also a singer/songwriter who toured nationally behind three albums on various independent labels. She has wrangled horses, taught advocacy and SATs to teens (two different jobs), and tended bar badly. She lives with her wife in Baltimore, Maryland. Find her online at sarahpinsker.com and on Twitter @sarahpinsker.

See you tomorrow!


Sooner or Later Some Good News

Thu 18 Jan 2018 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin