June 27, 2009 — Back in April, to celebrate his 70th birthday and the 50th anniversary of selling his first novel, Peter S. Beagle launched the 52/50 Project: a year's worth of original song lyrics and poetry, with a new release going out to subscribers every Monday. Peter is now 10 weeks in and zooming. He has written funny stuff (like "Physics Tacher Gunch" or "The Pirates of the D," a sea chantey about the upscale scalawags who terrorize the world's shortest river); a children's song ("Wolves Are Cool"); a sonnet eulogizing a departed friend ("For Lisa Atkinson"); a beautiful new Sirit Byar song ("The Lady Made of Flowers"); and five other equally unpredictable gems.

"I don't really know what's coming up from week to week, and that's part of the fun of it," he says. "I love writing songs and poetry, so I've always slipped them into my stories whenever I spotted a chance. But those opportunities are rare, and I wanted to challenge myself to do something more, something special. So I set out with a few notes — there are definitely going to be more Sirit Byar songs in the mix — but basically I'm going wherever events and inspiration take me."

For only $25 (not even 50 cents per weekly release) subscribers get 52 amazing original works via email...and a chance to influence Peter's creativity: he is basing 10 of the year's 52 pieces on subscriber suggestions.

To read more about the 52/50 Project (and see samples of all the releases to date), click here.

To buy a subscription for yourself or someone else, click here.

 

February 15th, 2009 — Tachyon Publications has just released We Never Talk About My Brother, Peter S. Beagle's first book-length story collection since 2006. We have it in stock now, and it is absolutely amazing: Peter's best batch of short fiction yet, which is really saying something.

219 pages. Nine new fantasy stories, two of which appear in print here for the first time. A remarkable seven-poem cycle inspired by the famous Unicorn Tapestries. An introduction by Charles de Lint. What's not to like? (Especially when six of the seven previously-published stories all made Locus Magazine's annual Recommended Reading List, and four of them have already been selected for various "Best Fantasy of the Year" anthologies.)

We'll let Neil Gaiman have the last word. Here's what he said after reading the stories in this collection: "For over forty years, Peter S. Beagle has been the gold standard of fantasy, one of the most elegant and genuine writers of fantastic fiction out there. His short stories are jewels. In Japan they declare their finest, most irreplaceable artists national treasures, and if there was any justice in the world Peter would be declared a treasure and be left alone to get on with making magic."

Click here (or on the cover just above) to learn more about We Never Talk About My Brother.

Or you could just go buy it right now. It really is that good!

 

February 15th, 2009 — Conlan Press has acquired the last available stock of the DVD of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, directed by Ralph Bakshi from a screenplay adaptation by Peter S. Beagle.

Warners Brothers had fewer than 600 copies left when we bought up all their inventory, and according to their company spokesman they do not currently plan to manufacture any more. So here's your best chance to get a copy — signed by Peter, if you'd like — before they are gone.

Our price is $15 for unsigned copies; $25 for copies with Peter's signature in two places (the DVD and the DVD cover); and $30 for a signing personalized any way you wish.

If you are a Lord of the Rings fan and haven't seen this film yet, you should. It's the movie that inspired Peter Jackson to read Tolkien in the first place, and it clearly had a big influence on his trilogy of films.

To learn more, click here (or on the cover image just above). Or to buy right now, click here.

Please note: by buying through Conlan Press you'll help make up for a great wrong that was done by the film's producer, Saul Zaentz, who paid Peter S. Beagle a flat $5,000 for his work and has never seen fit to provide any more (even though his company has so far made half a billion dollars thanks in part to Peter's crucial contribution). For the whole horrifying story, see our YouCanHelp pages. When you buy this DVD here, you can be certain that more than half the purchase price goes directly to support Peter S. Beagle and his projects.

 

February 15th, 2009 — We're now selling a downloadable audiobook edition of Peter S. Beagle's classic first novel, A Fine and Private Place. Read by Peter himself, it runs 8 hours and 40 minutes.

This remarkable book was written by Peter when he was just 19 years old, but its wisdom and depth of heart are truly timeless. Nearly 50 years have passed since it was first published, and if anything it has only gained in emotional power and meaning.

Charles de Lint says "I was recently delighted to discover that A Fine and Private Place holds up as well today as it did when I first encountered it. Better perhaps, since I'm older now myself and understand the motivations of some of the characters in ways I couldn't have when I first read it. That's another mark of a good writer: when their books still speak to you and can show you something new, no matter how many times you reread them."

Please note: if you are a Conlan Press customer who bought any edition of our Last Unicorn audiobook prior to February 1st, 2009, DO NOT buy this downloadable audiobook of A Fine and Private Place: we'll be sending it to you for free this spring as a thank-you/promotional gift.

To learn more about the audiobook of A Fine and Private Place, click here (or on the cover image just above). Or to buy right now, click here.

 

February 15th, 2009 — The special deluxe hardcover edition of The Last Unicorn is completely sold out, but there's good news for that title on another front. Roc has just recently released a 40th Anniversary trade paperback edition, and it's a big improvement on their previous version.

For one, the cover stock, paper, and binding are of much higher quality than before. For another, the new edition has a gorgeous wraparound cover by Rebekah Naomi Cox, whom Peter S. Beagle personally chose for the job. (It's one of the images that Rebekah first showed Peter back when she was 17, with the unicorn slightly modified to suit the art director's requirements. You can buy prints or computer wallpaper of it and related Rebekah pictures here.) And finally — for all the perfectionists in the audience — this edition contains the same cleaned-up definitive novel text as the recent hardcover, with old typos removed and one-and-a-half sentences that have been missing for more than 20 years finally returned to their proper place in Chapter 5.

To learn more about this new edition of The Last Unicorn, click here (or on the cover image just above). To buy right now, click here.

 

 

February 15th, 2009 — Speaking of Rebekah Naomi Cox, we're very excited to finally be offering a complete line of high-quality 8.5" x 11" art prints of her Last Unicorn pictures (two of which now adorn the published book itself, in the United States and Italy).

To get a look at all 10 available prints, click here or on the picture to the left. The 10 images are The Unicorn Lived in a Lilac Wood, The Last Unicorn, Prince Lir Writing Poetry, The Harpy Celaeno, Molly Grue, The Lady Amalthea, The Red Bull, Moon Unicorn, Molly Grue and the Unicorn, and Shmendrick and Molly.

Individual prints are $20. Any five can be bought for $75 (a $25 savings) and all 10 for only $140 (a $60 savings). To buy right now, click here.

 

 

February 15th, 2009 — According to the shopping cart database, we've now shipped just over 12,000 products to our customers around the world. The best-selling item? Far and away it has been the 25th Anniversary DVD of The Last Unicorn (over 4,000 copies and rising).

This puts a smile on our face for a couple of reasons.

First, that edition only exists because Connor Cochran — Peter S. Beagle's business manager and the guy in charge around here — spent two years patiently knocking on Lionsgate's door, trying to convince them that the audio and video quality of the DVD they were selling was a disservice to the movie and all its fans.

Second, we're thrilled because every one of the copies we sold put money in Peter Beagle's pocket. As many of the people reading this already know, Peter has been horribly cheated by Granada Media, the English company that owns the film. For years they have (incorrectly) claimed that The Last Unicorn has never made a profit, and therefore they don't have to pay Peter his contractually-due share of the film's income. It has been a real pleasure to do something, no matter how tiny, to reverse that trend.

But here's the thing...as big as 4,000 copies may sound, twice that many are sold in North America every week. And Peter gets no income at all from any of them.

Those numbers add up. In the two years it has taken us to sell 4,000 copies through this website and at Peter's personal appearances, Lionsgate has sold more than 800,000 copies through their American distribution net.

Obviously we'd like to do a better job. And we need your help to do it.

Please spread the word in every way you can think of, so we can bring a few more of those Last Unicorn fans through the door here, where their purchases will actually help Peter.

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February 15th, 2009 — We're running low on a few items that are either limited editions or no longer in print, so here's a heads-up. If you want any of these, best buy soon before they are gone.

1) Tamsin. We only have 57 copies left of this Roc trade paperback edition of Peter's wonderful YA novel. When we run out, we'll start carrying the mass market paperback version from Puffin/Firebird instead (which is perfectly nice, but not nearly as substantial).

2) Red Bull and Mommy Fortuna concept painting art prints by Hidemi Kubo, head animator on The Last Unicorn. In the summer of 2007 we published a 500-copy limited edition of five Kubo concept paintings from early work on the animated Last Unicorn. We're now completely sold out of all the full sets, as well as the individual Last Unicorn, Lady Amalthea, and Full Cast prints. All that remain are some copies of Kubo's exquisite renderings of his ideas for Mommy Fortuna and the Red Bull (and yes, as these pictures make plain, it was Kubo's versions of these characters that made it into the finished film). Please note: this is a limited, numbered edition. When these last prints are gone there definitely won't be any more.

3) Strange Roads. Dreamhaven Books printed only 1,000 copies of this lovely three-story chapbook. As far as we know they have no plans to reprint, and our inventory is down to only 41 copies. The chapbook features the first publication of three terrific pieces of fiction by Peter S. Beagle ("Spook," "King Pelles the Sure," and "Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel") plus the very cool artwork by Lisa Snellings-Clark that inspired them. Please note: these stories are also now available in Peter's newest book, We Never Talk About My Brother, but without Lisa's artwork.