There are just so many lovely people in the world. That was my conclusion after talking with David Thompson, the co-editor and host of Podcastle. He just showed up one day and offered to read a story for our little podcast. Well, of course, we said yes. I couldn’t be more thrilled  with the pairing […]

The post Small Beer Podcast 12: Benjamin Rosenbaum’s “Sense and Sensibility” first appeared on Small Beer Press.

I think the world should be filled with double features: double-dip ice cream cones, double copies of the books you’re likely to drop in the tub, bonus skirts given at the time of purchase. Sometimes more is better. Now that we’ve successfully pulled off our first double feature (the John Kesselmania that was Episode Nine […]

The post Small Beer Podcast 11: Jennifer Stevenson’s Trash Sex Magic first appeared on Small Beer Press.

Here at the Small Beer Studios, it’s Kesselmania! Between the reading of “The Last American” in Episode Nine and this week’s interview of the man himself, right now it seems that we have Kessel and nothing but Kessel on our minds. And why not? He’s an interesting guy, an astute anthologist and a terrific writer. […]

The post Small Beer Podcast 10: Julie Day Interviews John Kessel first appeared on Small Beer Press.

I don’t know how many different people mentioned John Kessel to me before I ever read his work. Well, actually, that’s a lie. I know exactly how many people mentioned John Kessel: four. One of them was Gavin Grant and another was James Patrick Kelly. Mariel Morales and Taylor Preston, school friends of mine from […]

The post Small Beer Podcast 9: John Kessel’s “The Last American” first appeared on Small Beer Press.

I should be used to the Small Beer studios by now: the pictures on the walls of kimono-clad women selling insect repellent, the Studio Ghibli bag illustrated with a seaplane pirate from Porco Rosso, the awards tacked haphazardly just above the couch. The voices are even better. There are the books, of course, whispering from […]

The post Small Beer Podcast 8: Jenny Terpsichore Abeles’s “Three Hats” first appeared on Small Beer Press.

Here at the Small Beer studios we find there’s nothing like  a great book and some damn fine beers to really get the conversation flowing. We’d already read Maureen F. McHugh’s zombie story “The Naturalist” (read | listen) and with the help of  Tru Beer in Easthampton, Massachusetts, we happened upon three beers that go […]

The post Small Beer Podcast 7: Zombie Plans, Beer & Maureen F. McHugh’s “The Naturalist” first appeared on Small Beer Press.

No, Robert Redford is not in this, neither are baseball games or family farms. This piece is not called The Natural. This story, “The Naturalist,” from Maureen’s collection, After the Apocalypse, is filled with zombies, post-apocalyptic Cleveland and meditations on good, evil, and our human impulse (or lack thereof) toward empathy. We here at Small […]

The post Small Beer Podcast 6: In Which Julie reads Maureen F. McHugh’s “The Naturalist” first appeared on Small Beer Press.

It turns out the gestation period for this podcast is somewhere between that of a lion and a wolf. At the beginning of November, Michael J. DeLuca, Gavin and I recorded the first ever Small Beer beer tasting. Then we recorded two, yes two, stories from our latest anthology Three Messages and a Warning, a […]

The post Small Beer Podcast 5: Three Messages and a Warning first appeared on Small Beer Press.

Fiction. We love it. And this week’s Small Beer podcast is over thirty minutes of nothing but imagined words. Benjamin Parzybok’s Couch is damned funny. Well, his novel Couch is anyway. To celebrate the release of the audiobook version of Couch, we’re running an excerpt in this week’s podcast. Don’t worry. Though we hope you’ll […]

The post Small Beer Podcast 4: Benjamin Parzybok’s Couch first appeared on Small Beer Press.

I’m thrilled to be back from wilds of Western Connecticut where I was billeted after the recent Nor’easter. Small Beer headquarters feels like a book-filled Shangri-La. I can’t believe I’ve returned. In Episode Three of our Small Beer podcast, Michael J. DeLuca and I talk about yarrow-infused beer, medieval brewing, his fiction and why Small […]

The post Small Beer Podcast 3: Michael J. DeLuca, Head Brewer and CTO first appeared on Small Beer Press.