The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet

So good there had to be a book. Or something. The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet is now available from the fine folks at Del Rey. It’s a collection of fiction and sometimes fancy (but usually plain) knitting patterns (a lie), recipes (ok, there are a few drink recipes), poetry (some great poetry), and an apology or two.

It is the most surprising anthology of the year (in many ways: scary stories, poetry, a book from a zine, a flying iron, so many ways).

We hope you will enjoy it and we hope to do another of these. There was so much we wanted to put in and couldn’t.

Read the preface.

What did Jim Munroe say? “Like the whisky sours they so admire, the Rosebud Wristlet gang have brought whimsey and fantastical twists to a malt steeped in literary tradition: stories as potent as they are tasty.”

This is what the publisher said:

Unexpected tales of the fantastic, and other odd musings by Nalo Hopkinson Karen Joy Fowler Karen Russell Jeffrey Ford among many others.

Contains STORIES by the AMAZING Jeffrey Ford, the FABULOUS Karen Joy Fowler, the UNLIKELY Kelly Link, the THRILLING Nalo Hopkinson, the SHOCKINGLY GOOD Karen Russell, the UNNERVING James Sallis, and dozens of UNCANNY others, as well as USEFUL lists of many kinds and STRAIGHT-SHOOTING advice from Aunt Gwenda.

Pictures of the book.
Wikipedia!

Table of Contents

  • Cover by Jacob McMurray
  • Preface by Chunterers
  • Dan Chaon, Introduction
  • Kelly Link, Travels with the Snow Queen
  • Scotch, An Essay Into A Drink
  • David Findlay, Unrecognizable
  • Ian McDowell, mehitobel was queen of the night
  • Nalo Hopkinson, Tan Tan and Dry Bone
  • Margaret Muirhead — An Open Letter
  • Margaret Muirhead, I am glad
  • Margaret Muirhead, Lady Shonagon’s Hateful Things
  • Karen Joy Fowler, Heartland
  • What a Difference A Night Makes
  • Ray Vukcevich, Pretending
  • Shh! I can’t hear the music!
  • William Smith — The Film Column
  • Amy Beth Forbes, A is for Apple
  • Shh! I said I was listening to some music!
  • Mark Rudolph, My Father’s Ghost
  • A list of chickens (From The Fairest Fowl, Portraits of Champion Chickens)
  • Jeffrey Ford, What’s Sure to Come
  • Roadtripping, zinemaking, cooking, cleaning, reading, and eating music
  • Geoffrey Goodwin — Stoddy Awchaw
  • A selection of teas the LCRW kitchen has acquired or been given over the years
  • Theodora Goss, Rapid Advance of Sorrow
  • Nan Fry, The Wolf’s Story
  • Sarah Monette — Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland
  • David Moles — Tacoma-Fuji
  • David Erik Nelson — Bay
  • Richard Butner — How to Make a Martini
  • All About the T: Swept (not sweeped) away by the love of irregular verbs
  • Jan Lars Jensen — Happier Days
  • Philip Raines and Harvey Welles — The Fishie
  • The Switch. Hope in the form of planted tomatoes
  • Gwenda Bond — Dear Aunt Gwenda
  • William Smith — The Film Column
  • David J. Schwartz — The Ichthymancer Writes His Friend with an Account of the Yeti’s Birthday Party
  • A By-No-Means-Complete Joan Aiken Checklist
  • Veronica Schanoes – Serpents,
  • Homeland Security
  • David Blair — Vincent Price; For George Romero
  • Douglas Lain — Music Lessons
  • James Sallis — Two Stories
  • Karen Russell — Help Wanted
  • Sarah Micklem — “Eft” or “Epic”
  • John Kessel — The Red Phone
  • Lawrence Schimel & Sara Rojo, The Well-Dressed Wolf, COMIC
  • Deborah Roggie — The Mushroom Duchess
  • Seana Graham — The Pirate’s True Love
  • You Could Do This Too
  • Sunshine Ison — Two Poems
  • [Name Withheld] Article Withdrawn
  • Becca De La Rosa — This Is The Train The Queen Rides On
  • A selected list of Automobile City/Hwy Mileages
  • Gwenda Bond — Dear Aunt Gwenda
  • John Brown — Bright Waters
  • K.E. Duffin, Two Poems
  • D.M. Gordon, Sliding
  • Cara Spindler & David Erik Nelson, You Were Neither . . .

Reviews

“Because of its quirks, rather than in spite of them, the collection is an immersion into a fantastic world.”
— Adrienne Martini, Baltimore City Paper

“Genre-blurring stories, poems and articles by a few major authors—including Theodora Goss, Sarah Monette and Karen Joy Fowler—and a host of relative unknowns appear in The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant. With a major SF imprint publishing this hefty anthology, LCRW’s times as a low-profile fringe zine may be at an end, though it remains to be seen whether mainstream readers will share Link and Grant’s fondness for the oddball and peculiar.”
—Publishers Weekly

“An otherworldly Farmer’s Almanac.”
—Library Journal

“Showcasing a selection of the top new and exciting writers working today, The Best ofLady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet presents a wondrous playground for lovers of experimental and avant-garde literature. If this is the 21st century zine, the form can be taken off the endangered list.”
—Rick Klaw (Austin Chronicle)

“LCRW is one of my favorite literary magazines, featuring authors like Jeffrey Ford and Nalo Hopkinson and strange and lovely stories you won’t see being published in the Paris Review or VQR. (And why not, I might ask you.) The fact that one of the editors is one of the best living short story writers doesn’t hurt.”
—Jessa Crispin

“Idiosyncratic to the extreme, this collection of the best of the zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlethighlights some of the weirdest and most interesting writing in speculative fiction. Short stories, poetry, essays and assorted nonfiction make this a must for fans of bleeding-edge speculative fiction with a distinct literary — and bizarre — bent.”
—Romantic Times (4.5 stars)

“A treasure trove. . . . a quirky mix that has become the hallmark of LCRW. Eclectic, heart-warming, cautionary, funny, informative, and most of all enthralling best describe this book. You will find no better place to explore this outstanding and unique publication: I highly recommend you pick up a copy today.”
—Sf Revu

“Dan Chaon provides an introduction, but really, no introduction can quite prepare you for the celebrated mix of insane ideas that await in the pages, ready to pounce. Link herself delivers the first, a modern-day revisionist fairy tale titled “Travels with the Snow Queen.” Karen Joy Fowler’s “Heartland,” about doomed young love amongst fast-food employees, is a heartbreaker, and among the book’s early highlights.”
–Rod Lott (Bookgasm)