One Campus, One Book

Notices

2013 One Campus, One Book selection is:

At the Mouth of the River of Bees

By Kij Johnson

The UAS One Campus, One Book committee is pleased to announced At the Mouth of the River of Bees by Kij Johnson as our selection for the 2013 program!

"The wrenching and provocative debut collection from the author of The Fox Woman and Fudoki. Johnson’s stories have won the Sturgeon and World Fantasy awards and, for the last three years running, the Nebula Award.

Johnson’s stories range from historical Japan (Sturgeon award winner “Fox Magic”) to metafictional explorations of story structure (“Story Kit”). Nebula award winners “Spar” and “Ponies” are perhaps most shocking and captivating, but each of the seventeen stories here is a highlight selected from Johnson’s more than two decades of work.

These stories feature cats, bees, wolves, dogs, and even that most capricious of animals, humans, and have been reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, and The Secret History of Fantasy."

Copies of the book will soon be available at the Egan Library (check library catalog) and the UAS Bookstore. All students attending Fall New Student Orientation will receive a copy of the book. Kij Johnson will be visiting the UAS campus in November 2013 (details coming soon). Please join us in reading and discussing this book in classrooms and at events on campus and around town this year.  Several stories from the collection can be read online at the links below.

Read a story:

Selected praise:

“Ursula Le Guin comes immediately to mind when you turn the pages of Kij Johnson’s first book of short stories, her debut collection is that impressive. The title piece has that wonderful power we hope for in all fiction we read, the surprising imaginative leap that takes us to recognize the marvelous in the everyday.”
—Alan Cheuse, NPR

“When she’s at her best, the small emotional moments are as likely to linger in your memory as the fantastic imagery. Johnson would fit quite comfortably on a shelf with Karen Russell, Erin Morgenstern and others who hover in the simultaneous state of being both “literary” and “fantasy” writers.”
—Shelf Awareness

“This collection is a landmark. I can’t think of any other writer whose stories terrify me the way Johnson’s do. But they’re so intelligent and human and weirdly perfect, I can’t stay away.”
—Lev Grossman

About:

Since her first sale in 1987, Kij Johnson has sold dozens of short stories to markets including Amazing Stories, Analog, Asimov's, Duelist Magazine, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Realms of Fantasy. She won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for the best short story of 1994 for her novelette in Asimov's, "Fox Magic." In 2001, she won the International Association for the Fantastic in the Art's Crawford Award for best new fantasy novelist of the year. Her short story "The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change" was on the final ballot for the 2007 Nebula Award and the World Fantasy Award, and it was a nominee for the Sturgeon and Hugo awards. In 2009, she won the World Fantasy for "26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss," which was also a finalist for the Hugo and Nebula. She won the 2010 Nebula for "Spar," the 2011 Nebula for "Ponies" (also a finalist for the Hugo and World Fantasy). In 2012, she won both the Nebula and Hugo for "The Man Who Bridged The Mist."

Her novels include two volumes of the Heian trilogy Love/War/Death: The Fox Woman and Fudoki. She's also co-written with Greg Cox a Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, Dragon's Honor. Her short story collection, At the mouth of the river of bees is available from SmallBeer Press in August 2012. She is currently researching a third novel set in Heian Japan; and Kylen, two novels set in Georgian Britain.

She taught writing and science fiction writing at Louisiana State University and at the University of Kansas, and she has lectured on creativity and writing at bookstores and businesses across the country. From 1994 - 2003, she assisted at James Gunn's Science Fiction Writer's Workshop, hosted by the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. Since 2004, Kij teaches the Center's intensiveScience Fiction & Fantasy Novel Writing Workshop. From 1999 - 2004, she taught a series of writing classes at the GenCon Game Fair. She taught at the 2011 Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Workshop. As of 2012, Kij is Assistant Professor of Fiction Writing by the University of Kansas English Department.

In the past ten years, she has worked as managing editor at Tor Books; collections and special editions editor for Dark Horse Comics; editor, continuity manager, and creative director for Wizards of the Coast; program manager on Microsoft Reader; and managing editor of user communications at Real Networks. As a side-effect of the current economy, she made the jump to writing full-time, then completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Raleigh, North Carolina. Kij has run chain and independent bookstores, worked as a radio announcer and engineer, edited cryptic crosswords, and waitressed in a strip bar.

She divides her time between the Midwest and the West Coast.

Events

We are excited to be able to include several related programs as part of this year's visit by OCOB author Kij Johnson.  Stay tuned for details!

Contact Jonas Lamb, (907) 796-6440 or Anne Wedler, (907)796-6438 with questions.

Previous Year's OCOB Selections:

2012: Being Caribou by Karsten Heuer

2011: The Truth About Stories by Thomas King

2010: Listening is an Act of Love by David Isay