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

@gavingrant

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· 1d

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.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· 22d

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

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· 27d

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...

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jul 10

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

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jul 8

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.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jul 8

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

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jul 1

You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a collector.

Little stack of bread bag tags on a crumby wooden surface

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jun 9

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…

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jun 8

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

$screenshot of scam email to Book Moon Daniel Batcheler<dan.peter@realrepk.info> 9:16 AMTo info@bookmoonbooks.com Hey {{companyName}}, We noticed a recent review from {{review_name}} on your Google listing . We believe it was unfair . This is the review we identified: "{{review_text}}" RealRep removes negative online content with no contracts or upfront fees. Clients only pay once a removal is successful. Would you like us to see if this can be removed? -- Daniel Batcheler RealRep$

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jun 5

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.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jun 4

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

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· May 23

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

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· May 11

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

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· May 2

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 Moon

Kelly 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.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· May 2

Sploot said the dog.

Spare husky laid out on concrete garage floor. She has way too much energy for me.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Apr 25

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.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Apr 23

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.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Apr 20

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?

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Apr 3

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.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jan 23

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.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jan 23

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 bracelet

Beautiful 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.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jan 17

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)

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jan 17

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

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jan 16

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

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jan 8

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.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Jan 7

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

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Dec 31

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.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Dec 28

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

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Dec 22

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.

Gavin, Small Beer (closed due to long covid), &c.@gavingrant· Dec 10

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...