EDWARD GAUVIN

Cover artwork by Stephen J Clark of The Singing Garden

This fourth volume of strange tales from Tartarus Press presents fifteen new stories in the fields of fantasy, horror, decadence and the supernatural.

Christopher Harman’s ‘By Leaf and Thorn’ mines the not-to-be underestimated magick of the English countryside, while John Howard’s uneasy timeslip piece ‘You Promised You Would Walk’ is set in modern Berlin. Rebecca Lloyd’s ‘Gone to the Deep’ explores the Celtic sea-myths of the Scottish isles, while Rhys Hughes’ ‘The Secret Passage’ follows the architectural obsession of a would-be good son.

Matt Leyshon has his ne’er-do-well anti-hero escape to a Greek island in ‘The Amber Komboloi’, while Angela Slatter’s ‘The Badger Bride’ follows the adventures of her shape-shifting, grown-up fairy-tale characters. H.V. Chao’s ‘The Recovery’ details a writer’s decadent working holiday in the South of France, while in ‘Drowning in Air’, Andrew Hook’s protagonist visits an anxiety filled, post-war Japan.

More stories of the highest quality—by John Gaskin, Jason A. Wyckoff, Richard Hill, Alan McIntosh, V.H. Leslie, Mark Francis and Andrew Apter—contribute to a fascinating, rewarding, and sometimes bracing trip through the highways and byways of contemporary strange fiction.

Containing:

• ‘By Leaf and Thorn’ by Christopher Harman
• ‘The Secret Passage’ by Rhys Hughes
• ‘Gone to the Deep’ by Rebecca Lloyd
• ‘You Promised You Would Walk’ by John Howard
• ‘Forth’ by A.J. McIntosh
• ‘Preservation’ by V.H. Leslie
• ‘The Man Who Wore His Father’s Clothes’ by Andrew Apter
• ‘The Badger Bride’ by Angela Slatter
• ‘The Amber Komboloi’ by Matt Leyshon
• ‘For a Last Spark of the Divine’ by Mark Francis
• ‘The Recovery’ by H.V. Chao
• ‘Drowning in Air’ by Andrew Hook
• ‘The Homunculus in the Curio’ by Jason A. Wyckoff
• ‘Time’ by Richard Hill
• ‘The Memento Mori’ by John Gaskin

Strange Tales IV is a sewn hardback book of 252 pages with silk ribbon marker, decorated boards, head and tailbands, and d/w. Limited to 350 copies.

Huge congratulations to all my fellow PEN/Heim Translation Fund winners this year! My thanks to the PEN American Foundation, and to this year’s Advisory Board—Susan Bernofsky, Barbara Epler, Richard Sieburth, Lauren Wein, Eliot Weinberger, Natasha Wimmer, and Matvei Yankelevich, chaired by Michael F. Moore. I am very flattered to have my translations deemed “vivid and authoritative” in the press release, which includes a snippet from Jean Ferry’s story “The Garbagemen’s Strike.” The story is now available in its entirety for your reading pleasure online in the latest issue of Anomalous (#9). Wakefield Press will publish the prizewinning project, Jean Ferry’s only prose collection, The Conductor and Other Tales. It is due out in November. Click “Forthcoming” in the left sidebar for a fuller description.

That’s funding from PEN America and PEN England in the same year! Where else can you crow about that immodestly, if not on your own damn blog?

• Quick! There’s only five days left to save artist Andrew G. Fisher’s photobook Perspective and kickstart it into existence! You could be holding a deluxe 64-page square softcover book containing 85 meditative images on the ephemerality of life. The book adapts Fisher’s first photofilm, showcasing his flair for compositional drama and control of black and white. Among the interesting work at his site is Forgotten Corners, a series considering urban decay.
• With 8 days to go, Anomalous Press is less than $40 shy of the funds it needs to publish six fantastic books that their editorial team has donated time and talent to cull, proofread, edit and design. Since its founding in March 2011, Anomalous has been an on-line literary journal for poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and translation, but it’s taking the leap into the world of book publishing. All funds are strictly budgeted to pay printing; shipping; buying ISBN numbers for print, ebook, and audio versions; and paying Kickstarter and Amazon their dues. Click on over to the Kickstarter to read in detail about the six outstanding titles by Janis Freegard, Mike Schorsch, Liat Berdugo, Askold Melnyczuk, Sarah Tourjee, and  Éric Suchère translated by Sandra Doller that YOU could help make a reality.

UPDATE from Sarah Kosch, Anomalous Publicity Editor:

Because of the unforeseen rapidness of closing in on $5000, we’re going to add some new Stretch Goals in which everyone will win!

• If we raise an extra $100 (to reach $5100), we’ll make a postcard from The Everyday Maths that everyone will get.
• If we reach $5300, we’ll make a set of three postcards from the books that everyone will get.
• $5500 and we’ll make Anomalous buttons using images and text from the books that everyone will get.
• $6000 and we’ll make the postcards, buttons, and be able to give token payments to our contributing authors, cover artists, and composer. Not what they’re worth, but a gesture of thanks for their fantastic cont ributions that the world can now enjoy.

Thank you for all you’ve done so far! We still have eight days to go, and I’m just tickled to see how this thrilling run ends.

from Matt Benyo’s blog

• H.V. Chao’s short story “A Portrait in the Attic” is up at The Coachella Review, kicking off a year of six of his short fiction publications slated so far—seven, if you count G.-O. Châteaureynaud’s translation “La main de mon père” in Brèves (the English original, “My Father’s Hand,” is forthcoming). “Portrait” is the first to appear in English.
• I’m back in my bimonthly Monday groove at Weird Fiction Review, blogging on all things French and fantastic, starting with this post on Jean Ferry, author of “The Society Tiger,” my translation of which featured in the early days of WFR. I have a bad habit of announcing two-parters and not following through—I currently owe second parts to my Béalu and Brion posts—but caveat lector to those awaiting: it might be a bit. Sorry! Never fear, though—they will be finished!
• The Tin House blog has run my piece on Charles McCarry’s novel The Secret Lovers. I’ve been working my way through the McCarry Å“uvre since last summer for sheer pleasure, and even though some novels are inevitably better than others, never once has his work failed to offer something compelling, memorable, and deftly presented.
• After a three-year hiatus, I’ve also taken up blogging as part of the team again at Absinth€ Minded, the blog of Absinthe, Dwayne Hayes valiant journal of new writing from Europe, one of the few translation-only litmags on the scene. My first post concerns a fan petition for the translation of comics giant Moebius’ work into English, and goes on to some thoughts about English as a world language and the power of fans to change publishing in this time of transition.

• Critic Christine Bini did me the favor of translating my essay on Châteaureynaud’s story “Delaunay the Broker,” on her blog at Le Nouvel Observateur—according to Wikipedia, “the most prominent French general information magazine in terms of audience and circulation.” The piece was first published in English on the Kepler’s Bookstore blog, Well-Read Donkey.
• For the second time (spring 2011 was the first), novelist and professor John Gregory Brown will be teaching A Life on Paper in his course The Fantastic in Fiction at Sweet Briar College. Over the course of the semester, students will read the entire book and blog on every story, in the context of work by Steven Millhauser, Kij Johnson, and Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. Seeing these young readers’ reactions was one of Châteaureynaud’s favorite parts of 2011, a sentiment I can only echo.

Cover Image: Golden Orb Weaver and Her Translators by Scott R. Horsley, 2009

The latest issue of Subtropics is now available for purchase and perusal online and in print (at discerning periodical purveyors nationwide), featuring my translation of Belgian Bernard Quiriny’s “A Guide to Famous Stabbings” from his debut collection Fear of the First Line (Phebus, 2005). The entire story is also available online at the journal’s website, where you’ll also find in English and the original French an interview the author graciously agreed to give, wherein he muses on sundry topics of interest including author Enrique Vila-Matas, the writing process, other stories and characters from the collection, what it means to be a Belgian Francophone writer, and the Belgian fantastical tradition known as the Belgian School of the Bizarre.

Comments welcome from any and all readers, who may wonder on the basis of this story that I characterize Quiriny as a fabulist. Without referring to other stories that would vindicate the appellation beyond doubt, I would say only this: Borges ventures that “at least one of the following four elements must be present in a narrative for it to be fantastic: 1) contamination of reality by dream, 2) a work of art within a work of art, 3) travel in time rather than in space, and 4) the presence of a doppelganger.”

to its advent–for example, here and here–a book long merely dream or rumor is becoming printed fact:

“Then English and French and mere Spanish will disappear from the globe. The world will be Tlön.” ~ J.L.B.

Before any more time goes by—yikes, it’s been a week already!—some afterthoughts on WFC. The blogosphere, ADD as it is, has long ago up and moved on, and everyone else has filed their reports and coverage. So please indulge me three quick posts pertaining thereto. First, huge congrats to all this year’s nominees and winners at World Fantasy Con!

• Lifetime Achievement: Ellen Asher & Jane Yolen
• Best Novel (tie): The Shadow Year, Jeffrey Ford (Morrow) & Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan (Allen & Unwin; Knopf)
• Best Novella: “If Angels Fight”, Richard Bowes (F&SF 2/08)
• Best Short Story: “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss”, Kij Johnson (Asimov’s 7/08)
• Best Anthology: Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, Ekaterina Sedia, ed. (Senses Five Press)
• Best Collection: The Drowned Life, Jeffrey Ford (HarperPerennial)
• Best Artist: Shaun Tan
• Special Award – Professional: Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant (for Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House)
• Special Award – Non-Professional: Michael Walsh (for Howard Waldrop collections from Old Earth Books)

Another round of applause from this section for my former teacher Jeffrey Ford, and the publishers of my upcoming translation of Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud’s stories, Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant. And w00t for the Paper Cities upset!

The latest incarnation of the annual Two Lines anthology from the Center for the Art of Translation is now out, available from Amazon and the Center itself. The cover is a marvel to behold. Inside, the book features the work of such poets and writers as Günter Grass, Adonis, Jose Manuel Prieto, George Szirtes, and Yoko Tawada, and such translators as Breon Mitchell, Esther Allen, Susan Bernofsky, Alison Anderson, and Karen Emmerich. The guest editors are the illustrious Margaret Jull Costa and Marilyn Hacker. It also includes a nifty two-pager by the incredible French comics artist François Ayroles, translated by yours truly. Because Chad Post is Chad Post, he already has a review up at Three Percent.

I would be remiss not adding that this lovely cover, which has caused acquaintances to fondle the book covetously, was the brainchild and handiwork of editor Annie Janusch, who does double world lit duty as the Works-In-Translation editor of The Quarterly Conversation. She’s been my point person at CAT for the last two years, and made the experience of contributing to Two Lines pleasurable and professional. Wouldn’t have happened without her. Three cheers!

This handsome volume fêtes its official launch on the following occasion (wish I could be there):

Monday, November 9: Book Release Party at LIMN Gallery » Read the rest of this entry «

Friend and fellow 2009 Clarion classmate Shauna Roberts is signing her novel Like Mayflies in a Stream (Hadley Rille Books), a meticulously researched retelling of the epic of Gilgamesh, at Mystery and Imagination 2pm on October 11. Ken, Paul, Grady, Tiff, Heather, Liz, Paul Park, and I will be cheering her on from far-off Albany, as Albacon winds down. In this case, unlike the terrific Dar Williams song, Western New York (or just upstate) wants to be Southern California. Ken, man of many (entertaining) faces, reviews the novel on his blog. Go see Shauna at 238 N. Brand Blvd. Glendale (818.545.0206)! » Read the rest of this entry «