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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.

@gavingrant.bsky.social
3.2K followers 1.6K following 2.7K posts

Gavin J. Grant. He/him. Born: 323ppm. Peely-wally vegan Scottish immigrant. Equality? I like it. BLM. Antifascist. Trans rights=human rights. Long covid 12/21, meh. Tired. Wears masks, asks you to, too. smallbeerpress.com (closed) & LCRW. bookmoonbooks.com

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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
In an Elle interview about her new book Veronica Roth picks @zenaldehyde.bsky.social's Spirits Abroad for "The book that …I'd like to see turned into a TV show or movie" www.yahoo.com/entertainmen...
…I'd like to see turned into a TV show or movie:

The short story "The House of Aunts" by Zen Cho, which is from her collection Spirits Abroad (all of the stories therein are absolutely worth reading). It's a great teen "vampire" story—the character is a pontianak, which is a kind of zombie-vampire in Malay mythology, and she falls in love for the first time...but she has a household of meddlesome aunts to contend with. It would be a refreshing change from the typical sexiness of the teen vampire canon while scratching the same itch.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
First time I have managed to get the Novavax Card vid shot. Curious if it will be any different.
Me:  white guy, orangeish glasses, black mask, red & black hat, red t-shirt with whir floating skeleton (by Kathleen Jennings) at with a CVS bandage on my upper arm
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I love this straight talking sign at my dentist: "The whole world is short staffed. Please be kind to those that showed up."
White sign on a blue background that kind of looks like denim:
"The whole world is short staffed.
Please be kind to those that showed up.
Thank you!"
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Ok, that's, what, unexpected at the very least. At some point when I looked there were 3 of my name in Massachusetts. There are so many out there that I can't electronically sign some things as they're trying to authenticate a different Gavin.
Screenshot of "Signer Authentication" thing with questions about colleges I have not attended.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
At some point soon, it seems impossible but I can see it on my calendar, I am supposed to put together a new issue of our zine, LCRW. Which also means that I should mention the old ones. Not the Old Ones. They can take care of themselves. smallbeerpress.com/lcrw/
Cover of LCRW 52: art is Guilherme Nunes's “Cactus” which is a weird spiked green skull-headad cactusy person accompanied by a gree capybara with spiky cactus flowers on its back and around it's neck.Cover of LCRW 51:  illustration is “Homebody” © 2013 Christa Donner which is a nude, red-faced woman sitting and looking at the viewer over her right shoulder. Inside her are four levels of a golden house (maybe) with people swimming on the bottom floor, dancing or playing on the second, no people on the third but some weird tree things with lights, and maybe someone reading on the top floor.LCRW 50 cover lists the writers whose work appeared in the first 49 issues.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Not the intro but in the original edition (and included in all reprints) of Travel Light, 20th century UK writer Naomi Mitchison ended it with a mic-drop place and time of writing: "Marseilles—Peshawar, 1951"
Screenshot of the last page from Naomi Mitchison's novel Travel Light which ends with the place and time of writing: Marseilles—Peshawar, 1951


“All-Father might have told me,” said Halla, hesitating still. But
it was a beautiful horse, so beautiful, something like a unicorn but
more intelligent looking, its great wings arching and quivering,
better than a real horse, better than a ship. Riding on that horse
you would need nothing, no cloak even. She dropped it on the
edge of the marshland. Nothing. You could travel light.

Marseilles—Peshawar, 1951
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
For much of this century — from 1st conversations in 2005 to the pb of And Go Like This in 2022 — we were one of John Crowley’s publishers. He also published with Simon & Schuster, Tor, HarperCollins, Subterranean Press, PM Press, Incunabula, and Ninepin Press... smallbeerpress.com/not-a-journa...
Laurie Block, John Crowley, artist Theo Fadel (on the right) and her partner chat at the Abandoned Building Brewery in Easthampton for the evening launch of The Chemical Wedding.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
25 years ago Kelly & I published our first season's titles — all 2 of them: first collections from Kelly (Stranger Things Happen; art: Shelley Jackson) & Ray Vukcevich (Meet Me in the Moon Room; art Rafał Olbinski). Buy either this month, we'll send you both: smallbeerpress.com/not-a-journa...
Screenshot of the first two books we published:
 
Stranger Things Happen
Kelly Link

“A set of stories that are by turns dazzling, funny, scary, and sexy, but only when they’re not all of these at once. Kelly Link has strangeness, charm and spin to spare. Writers better than this don’t happen.”
— Karen Joy Fowler

Meet Me in the Moon Room
Ray Vukcevich

“One of my all-time favorite collections.”
— Laird Barron, author of Blood Standard

“Uniquely, splendidly, brilliantly original, a surprise in each and every one, and brimming with wit and laugh-out-loud humor. A stunning collection.”
— Kate Wilhelm, author of Desperate Measures
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Bookfinity (Goodreads-ish but Ingram instead of Am*zon) is running a giveaway for 5 copies of IN OTHER LANDS which come with a themed signed bookplate from none other than the fabulous @sarahreesbrennan.bsky.social herself! bookfinity.com/giveaways/48...
Screenshot of Bookfinity giveaway page:

Giveaway: In Other Lands Signed Bookplate

Starts July 13, 2026
Ends August 12, 2026

Precocious, snarky teen Elliott is invited to a secret magical school but even there life is messier than expected as he meets elves, harpies, and mermaids, falls in love, and tries to avoid having to fight in the obligatory fantasyland war. Leigh Bardugo, author of Six of Crows, says it’s a “witty, nervy, romantic adventure that fizzes with feeling and giddy imagination.” Comes with an exclusive signed bookplate from the author.

Number of Winners: 5
Cover image for In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan 9781618731661
In Other Lands
by Sarah Rees Brennan

Georgia Peach Award Nominee - Florida Teens Read Award Nominee - ABC Best Books for Young Readers - Bank Street College Best Children's Books of the Year - A Junior Library Guild Selection - Hugo & Locus award finalist

In Other Lands is an exhilarating novel... Read More
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Just heard about the March to Abolish Animal Testing starting on Sept. 12th in Albany. Join if you can: www.marchforanimals.org/why-we-march/
Screenshot of this quote:



    “I have spent my life haunted by two rhesus monkeys I saw in the Indiana University psych lab when I was five years old. They were in individual cages, little room to move around, unable to touch each other and so tormented that they had pulled out their fur, scratched open sores on their skin. I don't know what was done to them, but it had driven them mad. To this day, I remain amazed that no one but a five-year-old child seemed to see this evil for what it was.”

Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Hey, I know her! apublicspace.org/news/detail/...
Screenshot text:

Kelly Link to Receive the 2026 Deborah Pease Prize

July 8, 2026 by A Public Space

It is a thrill to announce Kelly Link as the recipient of the 2026 Deborah Pease Prize. Founding subscribers to A Public Space may remember her "Origin Story" from the magazine's inaugural issue—its parallel universes and superhero origin stories; nemeses and levitating waitresses and tabloid reporters; its Land of Oz.
4 lovely, cute photos of Kelly when she has some blonde highlights  by Adrianne Mathiowetz — 1) smiling, eyes closed, hands on cheeks. 2) hands on side of head, eyes open, not smiling. 2) eyes closed, face scrunched up, maybe someone made a bad joke? 4) eyes open, smiling, could be laughing or singing and reaching for a high note.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Hey, congratulations to hometown heroine Lexi of High Five Books — truly a gift to readers throughout this valley!
Copied and pasted from photo:

High Five to a hometown heroine
Lexi Walters Wright, owner of High Five Books in Florence, receives a Commonwealth Heroines Award
By ANTHONY CAMMALLERI
Staff Writer
NORTHAMPTON - For her tireless work to ensure that every child in the region has a good book to read, friends to read with and a sense of belonging in the community, High Five Books owner Lexi Walters Wright has been awarded a 2026
Commonwealth Heroines Award.
Each Massachusetts legislator is invited to nominate one woman trom their district who goes the extra mile for her organizations and community for the award, which is presented by the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women. Walters Wright s one of 147 women statewide se-ected as part of the program, includ-ng four from Hampshire County. The onor includes a ceremony in June the State House.
This year, Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, Northampton, said she nominated Iters Wright for her work to uplift BTQ youth, both within and out-her North Main Street bookstore
CAROL LOLLIS / Staff Photo
Lexi Walters Wright, owner of High Five Books, at the store in Florence.
Walters Wright has been awarded a 2026 Commonwealth Heroines Award.
lorence.
Every time there is something
with her everywhere she goes. You ways studio in 2019, now stands at
Is supportive of kids, supporting
just feel joyful talking to her and she 141 N. Main St. as a brightly colored never loses an opportunity to make
ren's mental health, or support-
sure other people in the community
haven, which, Walters Wright ex-
GBTQ youth, Lexi is there. It feel seen and feel heard."
plained, focuses on spreading joy, in-
't matter if it's a week night or a nd, she shows up," Sabadosa
High Five Books, which initially
clusivity and affirmation for young people.
opened at 29 N. Maple St. in Florence
*She brings this sort of magic as a shared retail space with Art Al-
SEE HIGH FIVE AT
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a collector.
Little stack of bread bag tags on a crumby wooden surface
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Open this tab. Read when it suits. You too will have "fought time to a draw . . ." www.imposter-review.org/blog-2-1/im-...
Screenshot of poem with title and date:

I’m Aphrodite, bitches by Anya Johanna Deniro
Jun 7

the sea…

the stillness overhead and below…

the sky is unfortunately an american library…

the waves…

the moth-eaten flame never dies…

the doves…

the doves flushed out of the thicket…

the thorns…

the sky…
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
At @bookmoon.bsky.social one of the regular scam/spam emails is people asking if we'd like to remove bad reviews and this morning dan.peter@realrepk.info amusingly forgot to merge the data properly before sending
screenshot of scam email to Book Moon

Daniel Batcheler<dan.peter@realrepk.info>

9:16 AMTo  info@bookmoonbooks.com   

Hey {{companyName}},


We noticed a recent review from {{review_name}} on your Google listing . We believe it was unfair .


This is the review we identified:


"{{review_text}}"


RealRep removes negative online content with no contracts or upfront fees. Clients only pay once a removal is successful.


Would you like us to see if this can be removed?


--
Daniel Batcheler
RealRep
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Fixed it for them
Screenshot from 60 Minutes last people standing with "not" struck through:

We feared that our returning might be construed as an endorsement of the existing power structure. That is simply, categorically the case.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
If you were ever at a Small Beer table at a conference or book fair there's a good chance I tried to get you to read Geoff Ryman's Was. I've read it at least half a dozen times. It is an unstoppable force, an absolute unit of art. Get it + 15 books & support Rainbow Railroad storybundle.com/pride
Screenshot of 4 titles (of 16) in the Bundle starting with the one with the funniest title: 

I Want That Twink Obliterated!
edited by Trip Galey, Robert Berg and C.L. McCartney
Was
by Geoff Ryman
The Rosewood Penny
by J.S. Fields
The Master of Samar
by Melissa Scott
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Had excellent fresh out of oven thin crust vegan pizza (they have non vegan if you go that way) outside at Carr’s Cidery in Hadley. 1st time there: lovely! Much amused by all the goats and kids. Exhausted now, so there’s that. But, hey, went out to eat!
Handwritten card held in front of blurry pic off tiny b&w goats which says:
Augustine's 
@augartines_pizza_club
augustinespizzaclub.com

Very glad I can copy&paste text off a photo
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
Took this screenshot a week ago and still thinking about the whos and whys of Not Sure
Screenshot of a Health App question (numbered 30 of 100, but there were not 100 questions) 

Section on 
Heart Conditions /
Cardiovascular Disease

Question 1 of 2
Do you currently have a pacemaker?
Possible answers:
Yes
No
Not sure
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Cover painting of the girl detective by Shelley Jackson. Newest printing (11th? I’ve been dognapped so can’t check) has new illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook.
Most Small Beer books in print on a 5-foot shelf at Book MoonKelly and Hannah Tinti both shiny and beautiful in 2019 at the One Story Ball. Kelly said yes to the invitation and then gave a talk including saying Jo to things. Great night with much dancing. Never going to drop that subscription. MT Anderson (tall white man with glasses) is standing behind a table reading while Kelly and fellow Steampunk! & Monstrous Affections contributor Kathleen Jennings listens at an even in Vermont. 4-photo limit — I was going to add the local newspaper photo of Kelly when she got the MacArthur but this photo of trying to help a tiny bird out our back room office is irresistible.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Sploot said the dog.
Spare husky laid out on concrete garage floor. She has way too much energy for me.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
That £8bn “long shadow” was us no longer publishing good weird books, sorry about that. But everyone with long covid is scheduled to recover by 2035 so there’s some good news. (added alt text)
Long covid
Pandemic continues to cast E8bn "long shadow"
Long covid will cost countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development $11bn (£8.2bn) a year over the next decade, a report warned.
It said the costs of long covid showed how the pandemic
"continues to cast a long shadow."
The $11bn estimate is based on a projected 0.6-1.0% ofthe
OECD population continuing to be affected by the disorder until 2035 and encompasses the cost of treatment. But the report's authors warned that indirect costs to the wider economy were likely to "far outweigh" the $11 bn estimate.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Not bonkers, sorry, but really good different weird sf
Cover of US edition of Hiromi Kawakami’s Under the Eye of Big Bird. Blue,  black text, upside down women in black dress floating in water. Sorry alt text is invisible as I type so I am stopping here.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Eek! Poor couches! Keep them away from that horror! Had a great time carrying ours around with various people including poor Jed there in the pic. It was hilarious offering it to people to have a rest and a laugh. We ran a scavenger hunt with @sparkwatson.bsky.social at the same BEA, nuts!
Jedediah Berry sits on an orange inflatable Couch while surrounded by many inflatable anime(?) characters while a woman dressed in white holds one next to him. Who is the most puzzled: Jed, the woman, the people in the background at BEA?
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
Possible error in today’s step count
Phone step counter says I took 4,294,969,283 steps today. Possibly a small error. At the bottom of the screenshot it says “On average this year’s step count is higher than last year’s.”
Accurate if that number was right. Which would make this year’s step count higher than the rest of my life’s count, I think.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
Protests against authoritarian regimes 1) today at the Minneapolis airport, USA 2) Tblisi, Georgia, Jan. 10, 2026
Screenshot of 2 posts:
‪1st post:
Megan Greenwell‬ reposted their earlier post ‪@greenwell.bsky.social‬ · 5h
My mom is a priest who’s been showing up at the courthouse in her city every week for months in a clerical collar to help immigrants and confront ICE. I’m not religious, but I find the moral leadership she and other faith leaders are showing exceptionally moving.
‪
which quote posted 
Jack Jenkins‬ ‪@jackjenkins.me‬ · 5h
Singing

and it's a video of many many religious leaders wrapped up for the cold with foam pads for their knees for kneeling and they are singing "Oh Sister let's go down to the river to pray"

The 2nd post is Reposted by Marika Mikiashvili 🇬🇪🇺🇦🇪🇺
‪Giorgi Gogia‬ (bio: Associate Europe and Central Asia Director at Human Rights Watch) ‪@ggogia.bsky.social‬ · 18m
🚨 #Georgia is using new assembly restrictions to arbitrarily detain peaceful protesters, including for simply standing on a sidewalk near parliament.
This chills free expression and violates international human rights standards, says @hrw.org
www.hrw.org/news/2026/01...

and has a picture of many people waving Georgian flags and holding up their phones with their lights on. There's a Ukranian flag being carried along too.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
I was looking up something about Naomi Mitchison's Travel Light & came across this 2005 piece @jedediahberry.bsky.social wrote for the Small Beer newsletter. Cannot wait to get the beautiful new UK edition—looking forward to reading Samantha Shannon's intro. smallbeerpress.com/not-a-journa...
Small Beer (Peapod Classics) cover: green bands on top and bottom with quote by Amal on front and Le Guin & Holly Black on back and Kevin Huizenga's pen drawing of Halla's legs coming down from the top band and lots of people and things from the book (winged horse, dragon, Constantinople/Micklegard) at the bottom.  1952 Faber & Faber cover of Travel Light with an illustration of 2 sides of a gold torc or braceletBeautiful cover of the new UK Virago edition of Travel Light with UKL quote ("Read it now") and "Introduced by Samantha Shannon". Cover illustration by Sanae Sugimoto with a red dragon and Halla (whose flowered cloak includes the ocean) on the Valkyrie's winged horse (which has bears and city buildings on it) with some red clouds, all going left to right with a real sense of motion.  Our well read copies of the Faber & Faber hardcover, Virago pb (so many of these have passed through my hands), and our paperback edition on the coffee table this morning in the sunlight streaming in the window behind this couch.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 17/01/2026
Meanwhile thinking about global temperatures rising 1.5°C since 1970 and wondering what the next 25-30 years will bring.
Very messy hand-drawn extensions to global climate highlights bar chart showing 2025 as 3rd-warmest year on record. Extrapolating to 
2030, 2040, 2050, and 2060 with notes that it might go back to 1940s and '50s (tagged Nice dream), remain about the same and start going down (tagged working together, phew), keep going up but start leveling off in say 20 years (tagged well, that's a bit toasty) or continue with the line started about 1970 (tagged Goodbye AMOC, hello havoc)
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 17/01/2026
A snowy day, in Northamp-town Was not low, did not have me down
Snow in the foreground with more sticking to trees and shrubs in front of a shed & chicken coop
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
Lauren Michele Jackson recommends Geoff Ryman's novel Was in "Reading for the New Year: Part Three Recommendations from @newyorker.com writers" www.newyorker.com/books/book-c...
Was
by Geoff Ryman

Oz will never be over. The world that L. Frank Baum created in 1900 with “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” has long exerted a powerful thrall. The great Gore Vidal counted himself among the “most Americans” of his generation who had lost and found themselves in it: “In some mysterious way, I was translating myself to Oz, a place which I was to inhabit for many years while, simultaneously, visiting other fictional worlds as well as maintaining my cover in that dangerous one known as ‘real.’ ” Most Americans today, it’s safe to wager, owe their idea of Oz to the 1939 film adaptation and hunger, it would seem, for darkness as much as dazzle. For those, tired of the candy-floss fare of “Wicked” and its cinematic adaptations, I recommend Geoff Ryman’s 1992 novel.

Ryman’s narrative lands upon lives crossed in some way with Baum’s book, and cares less about upending fantasy than treating it seriously, as a shade of reality most Americans cannot live without—a necessity that, if devastating, often proves less so than the alternative. There is a child whose happy world is shattered when his friends from Oz cannot make the leap into what people around him consider to be reality. There is an elderly woman, Dotty, who spends her days revisiting her Kansas childhood, bleak but for the intervention of a twinkling substitute teacher, and part-time actor, named Mr. Baum. There is a makeup artist whose adolescent charge is the professional little girl who finds true home in the heat of M-G-M lights. “I am a fantasy writer who fell in love with realism,” Ryman writes in the postscript. “It is necessary to distinguish between history and fantasy wherever possible. And then use them against each other.” 
— Lauren Michele Jackson
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 08/01/2026
These brighter ones went up last February and have proved popular. Thanks to everyone who bought them (and donated) we've sold 199 and raised $2,121 for Safe Place International www.bonfire.com/read-books-p...
Lovely "helliconia" (pink) t-shirt with Read Books Punch Nazis in white ink on the front.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
Rachel Reid + How to Be a Rich Old Lady makes for a good week's reading
Screenshot of "Bookshop.org Best Sellers of the Week" and it is six Rachel Reid hockey romances and one book titled How to Be a Rich Old Lady by Amanda Holden
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
In Teensy Tiny Small Beerland news: we published 2 issues of the best zine named after Victorian wristwear. Issue #51 (orderable below, mais oui) to print subscribers on Monday & the ebook will go out in 2026. Odd? Sure. Whimsical & daft like the current tyrant? No. smallbeerpress.com/lcrw/2025
Screenshot of the SBP site showing 2 issues of LCRW:

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 51
At least 24 Hours from Tulsa as the zine flies.

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 50
At least 24 Hours from Tulsa as the zine flies.
LCRW at bat, 50 not out.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
Could someone write a @firefox.com* extension so that anyone whose name appears in the #epsteinfiles has a ghostly "Epstein Files" behind it? * or other browser as I suppose I'll be deleting this when they add more AI
Epstein files at 25% opacity behind Noam Chomsky's name
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Cass Neary still grabbing people by the collar, pickpocketing their meds at the same time: "Neary is my favorite type of protagonist, which is to say, she’s a dubious one. She’s a liar and a thief, a traumatized alcoholic with a deeply destructive streak." www.midcoastvillager.com/life/books/a...
Screenshot of cover and this text:

Cass Neary is a loser. She wasn’t always a loser; she was once a lauded photographer with a zeitgeisty beat and an eye for beautiful decay. But at the opening of “Generation Loss,” our narrator has aged out of any "It Girl" status she once held. “In my case, it was no secret,” she tells us. “Everyone knew I’d blown it.”

Neary is my favorite type of protagonist, which is to say, she’s a dubious one. She’s a liar and a thief, a traumatized alcoholic with a deeply destructive streak.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Recently reminded that I really enjoyed Juan Martinez's Research Notes on @necessaryfiction.com where they invite authors "to describe their process for a recent book, with 'research' defined as broadly as they like" necessaryfiction.com/researchnote...
Cover of Yosip Ibrahim’s book Yo Visite Ganimedes: dark blue, yellow title, white subtitle and author name, 4 flying saucers. 

From Juan: "This is a copy of Yosip Ibrahim’s alien-abduction narrative Yo Visite Ganimedes mentioned in “Souvenirs from Ganydeme.” My parents totally owned this book, but they don’t remember why"
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
I realize I could get paid (sure, SBP & me could do with more $ :) but what a waste of time the Anthroprick (sick) (sic) shit is. I'll get paid & pass most through to authors but what parasites (derogatory) all the LLM grifters are. *This* is how we all have to spend our days because of them? Ugh.
screenshot of 
Anthropic - Bulk Filer Claim Template.numbers with title from 
SECTION B: WORKS INFORMATION
Please provide the information below for each work you are claiming. You can find much of this information in the searchable Works List (https://secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup). SECTION C: OTHER RIGHTSHOLDERS
You are required to identify and provide any contact information you have for anyone you believe may be entitled to submit a claim related to the Claimed Work including authors, co-authors, co-owners, and publishers of the Claimed Work.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Ok, will accept $1.5 billion to be flowed through to authors. $3,000 - expenses? Hmm. I like the other lawsuit where copyright theft means $150k per book much better.
Notice of $1.5 Billion Proposed Class Action Settlement Between Authors & Publishers and Anthropic PBC
A federal court authorized this Notice. This is not junk mail, an advertisement, or a solicitation from a lawyer.

Dear SMALL BEER PRESS:

A Settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit claiming that Anthropic infringed protected copyrights by downloading works in two allegedly pirated online datasets called Library Genesis (LibGen) and Pirate Library Mirror (PiLiMi). The current Settlement provides for approximately $3,000 per work, prior to the deduction of any costs, fees, and expenses as described below.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Excellent thread, Nick! Way to go. Maybe you can pass this on to whoever runs the site: it's throwing up an error for me in Firefox & Safari — might be just there's no https version available. Screenshot, etc.:
Websites prove their identity via certificates. Firefox does not trust this site because it uses a certificate that is not valid for www.starshipsofa.com. The certificate is only valid for the following names: *.wpengine.com, wpengine.com
 
Error code: SSL_ERROR_BAD_CERT_DOMAIN
 
View Certificate
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Ugh, this was turned on (not by me). Many thanks to @cairosteele.com for posting this image.
Screenshot:

Customer feedback 
Find out what your customers like and how you can improve. Only you will be able to view their feedback.
and then the "Collect feedback" switch, which I had not touched, is on.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
"And that's today's news. Over now to sports headlines and . . . what the hell?!"
Kris Boyd  
Jets player in critical condition after being shot in abdomen
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
What perfect albums came out the year you turned 16?
Cowboy Junkies, Whites Off Earth Now!!Iron Maiden, Somewhere in Time
Kate Bush, The Whole Story
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Walking the dog
Clouds across a sparse few stars
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
Death cult
Screenshot of 2 news stories:
CBS News
US conducts 20th strike on alleged drug boat, killing 4 people 
The Guardian 
Florida kills man on death row in state’s 16th execution this year
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
If you have $25 you can loan, please join me in helping Enna in Yoro, Honduras, to buy a complete solar lighting system: www.kiva.org/invitedby/ga...
Picture of Maria in a pink top next to maybe a solar inverter in her wall.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
Took the dog out and the sky looked same old beautiful thing. Phone saw more.
A very little magenta and the rest  purple aurora above a telephone pole and some clouds.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
The 1% for the Planet auction ends today: I skipped all the travel, the books weren't for me, but the many snacky goods, wellllllll event.auctria.com/8fe5c5cc-6dd...
Screenshot of a few of the food items from the auction: 3 coffee bundles, chocolate gift set, food box, tea coins (UK only).
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Roads of the Roman Empire: so many; also: so few.
The itiner-e.org map of the world showing the relatively small extent of the Roman roads.Screenshot of itiner-e.org site only including the empire roads from Britain down to Morocco and across North Africa and Europe to Egypt, Syria, and Türkiye.
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
[Spelled coupon wrong 4 times writing this (How?!?)] 25% off a bunch of our books from now until year end using code SBP25 smallbeerpress.com/not-a-journa... indiepubs.com/collections/...
Screenshot of covers: Taboo, Telling the Map, Tender, & Terra NulliusScreenshot of covers: The Silverberg Business, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea, Spirits Abroad, A Stranger in Olondria, & Stranger Things HappenScreenshot of covers: Never Have I Ever, OKPsyche, Privilege of the Happy Ending, Prophecies, Libels, & Dreams, & ReconstructionScreenshot of covers: Never Have I Ever, OKPsyche, Privilege of the Happy Ending, Prophecies, Libels, & Dreams, & Reconstruction
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Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c. @gavingrant.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
This quote from Pamela Schwartz — director of regional coordination at Western Massachusetts Network to End Homelessness — has been playing over and over in my head since I read this Gazette story by Alexander MacDougall: gazettenet.com/2025/10/24/h...
screenshot:
“The idea that somebody becomes a criminal because they have no place to live is really beyond a sense of common decency,” Schwartz said. “It does not solve homelessness. It’s ludicrous to think of that as a solution.”
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