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15 February 2010

Rabbit Light Movies

Since 2007, Joshua Marie Wilkinson has been recording Rabbit Light Movies: videos of poets reading their own work. He began by recording himself and Julie Doxsee on the eve of AWP in Atlanta, in an effort to promote their work in Octopus 8. "It didn't become an internet journal until the fourth or fifth episode," Wilkinson notes, "when the wastefulness and costs caught up with me."

When asked about the process of gathering material, Wilkinson said "The process is varied: sometimes I contact writers and ask them to read something; sometimes they send me audio, and I find footage to suit it--without trying to illustrate the work or distract from it; sometimes it's a way to meet new writers; and sometimes it's a way to work with my friends." Forrest Gander (linked below) submitted the audio for his video, which includes music and his voice. Wilkinson added the film.

When asked about whether or not he had ever sent anyone a camera, Wilkinson responded he hasn't, "but I wouldn't be opposed to it."

"Recently folks have sent--at my request--their own videos. And then Joel Craig lets me film at Danny's in Chicago sometimes. And Mathias and Julia Cohen made some for me this last time, too. Each episode something changes. So, it happens in various ways."

Episode 10 was just recently released and includes Forrest Gander, Karla Kelsey, Sara Veglahn, Laura Mullen, and others.


Here are a few examples:

Bhanu Kapil (from Episode 10):




Tony Tost (from Episode 10):




Julie Doxsee (from Episode 10):




Johannes Goransson (from Episode 7):

14 February 2010

Sunday Roundup & A Valentine

Do or rue . . .

Who would have thought February could be so hot? Well, for publication opportunities, anyway. Har har. But it's also a short month, and right now you have precisely half of it left to submit a little bit of work to the next issue of Tarpaulin Sky, and to submit your magnum opus to the 2011 Fence Modern Poets Series. Both reading periods come but once a year. Like Elvis said, "It's now or never."

TSky Peeps in the News

Should reading periods and contests and Valentine's Day and concepts like "acceptance" and "rejection" give you the willies, fear not: TSky's own living patron saint, Rebecca Brown, writes about "failure" in a recent issue of Seattle's (only) newspaper The Stranger, invoking those writers forever synonymous with failure, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, as well as sketching their obvious parallels with The Flaming Lips and Korean ceramic artist Young Sook Park. Writes Rebecca:

I often need to remind myself that I need to hear failure out, because by failing at doing an easy thing, a groupthink thing, a thing one has been taught to do for one's career, one might be encouraged to make or do or be something more original and true. Because failing as an artist is a necessary thing, a thing I wish I could more easily accept.
If you haven't already checked out Rebecca's latest, American Romances, please do.




If you were sad to see Joyelle McSweeney go, you can take comfort that not only is The Constant Critic back in action, but that's it's being helmed by Karla Kelsey--who, it so happens, is also a new Poetry Editor at Tarpaulin Sky.

More good news: reviewers Jordan Davis and Ray McDaniel remain on staff, and are now joined by Christina Mengert and Vanessa Place. Does it get any better than that?

Yes, actually. The CC has also vowed to bring us "a new review every single week of 2010," which is just nuts, and they've begun with a review of Aase Berg's With Deer, translated by Johannes Göransson (who, among things, will soon have a book out with Tarpaulin Sky Press), along with reviews of
Graham Foust's A Mouth in California, Claudia Keelan's Missing Her, Andrea Lambert's and 750910-2155's [sic] Lorazepam and the Valley of Skin: Extrapolations on Los Angeles, Lisa Olstein's Lost Alphabet, Mathew Timmons's Credit, and Elizabeth Marie Young's Aim Straight at the Fountain and Press Vaporize.




Andrew Zornoza's Where I Stay is micro-reviewed by John Findura, at elimae
As Antoine de St. Exupery wrote in Le Petit Prince, "Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them".... Andrew Zornoza does it with style and grace.
as well as by Jason Pettus, here, and Derek White, here.




TSky Editor Sandy Florian and TSky Press author Joshua Marie Wilkinson both have new books coming out--which may not shock you, given that, like the Beastie Boys' Paul Revere, they are in demand--but what you may not know is this: their books mark the first single-author titles from the publishers of the online & print magnificence that is Sidebrow, and is now also Sidebrow Books.

Also: the books are full-color. Also: Florian's On Wonderland & Waste features collages by Alexis Anne Mackenzie, and Wilkinson's Selenography features polaroids by Califone's Tim Rutili.

Yeah. That's we're talking about. But that's also why we'll shut up now and just embed some previews, for your perusing pleasure:





Both books are available now for preorder at a special discounted rate of $30 for the pair (25% off the cover price), and are also available separately for $18 (10% off).






Factory School announces the publication of Heretical Texts, Volume 5: TOWN, by Kate Schapira; Green-Wood, by Allison Cobb; Underground National, by Sueyeun Juliette Lee; House Envy of All the World, by Simone White; and The City Real & Imagined, by CAConrad & Frank Sherlock.




And speaking of big announcements (& Valentines)

Kevin Sampsell is not just fab author and publisher. Not just a champion of small presses all around. Not just the guy who--bless him--buys our books for Powell's. Though he may bill himself as a "common pornographer," he is, in fact, a big ol' Romantic, an absolute sap:
The longtime Powell's employee proposed to his girlfriend, Frayn Masters, in front of more than 100 people, many of them friends and colleagues, who had gathered at the West Burnside bookstore to hear Sampsell talk about his new memoir A Common Pornography. Sampsell dropped to one knee and held out a plastic ring ("a placeholder") to a surprised and delighted Masters, who hugged and kissed Sampsell before saying "yes" into the microphone. The audience clapped and cheered and Sampsell and Masters cried and hugged some more, then Sampsell sat down at a table and started signing books.
Congrats, Frayn & Kevin!

08 February 2010

Week One: 466 peeps, 969 submissions. Send yours while the editors can still read.



With three weeks still to go . . .

I'm sure the editors won't let exhaustion interfere with their judgment.

But if I were submitting, I probably wouldn't want to be last in the queue.

Just sayin'--

01 February 2010

OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS: TARPAULIN SKY LITERARY JOURNAL

Hola and howdy, readers and friends,

During the month of February we will be reading submissions for the next paper edition of Tarpaulin Sky. We hope you'll give it a go, and send your best, as this is the only submission period for the magazine this year.

We're trying something new, too--well, new to us--the online submission manager. So you'll be able to keep tabs on the status of your submission throughout the process.

Also new this year are many of the journal's editors: Blake Butler and Joanna Howard editing Fiction; Laynie Browne and Karla Kelsey editing Poetry; and Sandy Florian and Lily Hoang editing "Other"; presided over by Editor in Chief Colie Collen, with all submissions shepherded through the process by Associate Editors Duncan B. Barlow, Jamey Dunham, and Christine Wertheim, as well as Assistant Editors Michael Tod Edgerton and Brian Mihok.

Please visit our guidelines for all the deets.

SEE YOU AT AWP DENVER?

We hope so. TSky authors and editors will be reading from new books and selling them as well, and we'll be joining our favorite presses for various kickass events: readings with Action Books, Apostrophe Books, Astrophil Press, Black Ocean, Featherproof Books, and Slope Editions, just to name a few. Events Coordinators Michelle Puckett and Megan DiBello invite you to keep
on top of our events blog for forthcoming details.

IS YOUR BOOKSHELF NOT SO FRESH?

We can fix that. Subscriptions to Tarpaulin Sky Press's forthcoming Spring titles are still available--as are huge savings on forthcoming titles. If you're looking for some of the most exciting literature being published today, you may want to have a look at our catalog, or take a look at some of our forthcoming Spring 2010 titles: Traci O Connor's Recipes for Endangered Species, a book of short fictions that Brian Evenson calls "a marvelous debut. . . . moving fast enough that you could end up anywhere, Connor’s thought about every single word, every gesture, and she can turn each story on a dime" or Kim Gek Lin Short's The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits, book of interlocking short fictions / prose poems that Joyelle McSweeney deems "twisted," and Norma Cole calls "irresistible.... with its incantations of quantum teleology, its footnotes & sources.... it is a magnificent work." Also on the way, Joanna Ruocco's book of short fictions, Man's Companions; Shelly Taylor's book of interlocking short fictions / prose poems, Black-Eyed Heifer; and Emily Toder's poetry chapbook, Brushes With.

& Let us not forget the three chapbooks we just picked from the last reading period: Lara Glenum's The Hotling Chronicles: A Horror in Trans; Sarah Goldstein's Fables; and James Haug's Scratch. Plus forthcoming full-lengths-with-really-long-titles, Jenny Boully's not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them, and Johannes Göransson's Entrance to a colonial pageant in which we all begin to intricate.

LOOKING TO SCORE FREE BOOKS?

We can help. We have Advanced Reader Copies of all Tarpaulin Sky Press's Spring full-length titles, and we have hundreds of review copies from other publishers, from Ahsahta to Vagabond. Want to review a brand new title from Fence Books? We got 'em. Burning Deck, City Lights, Dalkey Archive, FC2, Graywolf, Salt, Sarabande, Shearsman, Ugly Duckling? No problem. Or how about Counterpath, Dusie, Ellipsis Press, Essay Press, Subito? Or Canada's positively stellar BookThug?

Our Reviews Editor Ross Brighton reads submissions of reviews and interviews all year long. Writers whose work is accepted for publication receive any two Tarpaulin Sky Press trade paperbacks of their choice. Send a brief cover letter and your previously unpublished review to reviews[AT]tarpaulinsky[DOT]com, and be sure to include "Attn: Review Editors" in the subject line. Click here for a list of review copies currently available. Publishers may send review copies to Book Reviews ~ Tarpaulin Sky Press ~ PO Box 189 ~ Grafton, VT 05146

Write some reviews, yo. Get paid. In books.

GOT SOME NEWS TO SHARE YOURDARNSELF?

If you have something to say about a new journal, new book, new press, new reading series; and if said newness will be of interest to the people who read TSky Press's books or journal, or--better yet!--includes TSky Press authors or journal contributors; and if you'd like to share this newness and can do so in a way that includes some chewy content and few superlatives, then please send your brief shoutout, sidebar, or feature article to our News Editor Amish Trivedi at news[AT]tarpaulinsky[DOT]com

OKEEDOKEE

We're probably forgetting as much as we're including, but we hope you'll forgive us.

Send some work!

Cheers,

Christian Peet, Publisher
Colie Collen, Editor in Chief
& Editors, Tarpaulin Sky Press