Preparation for brutality of course
is not an exaggeration, but silence the only master
capable of beating its fodder
into bursting submission.Follow this, the master says, eat this.
29 September 2010
Chronic Content: Poems by Dot Devota
27 September 2010
Free Book Friday--Even on a Monday!
This week it's Traci O. Connor's Recipes for Endangered Species, wherein--in addition to copious b&w photos of some frightening cocktails--a dying lover plans to become a zombie, an anxious woman cant decide if she’s animal or human, and Jesus the size of a pencil lurks beneath the bed. Monsters, monsters, everywhere, and yet Publishers Weekly calls these fictions “tender, aching love stories.” Go figure!
Lyrical, darkly funny, sometimes outright disturbing, this collection explores the secret desires that render people not only imperfect and dangerous, but also authentically human. Says Brian Evenson: “These deftly written stories rear and buck against the confines of the traditional story collection, bursting out in images and recipes, galloping back and forth between traditional paragraphs and alternate forms. . . . Even though you're 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. This is a marvelous debut."
Now shuffle your broke behind on over to LitDrift and score yourself not only some reading material for those long lines at the food shelf, but also some cocktail recipes to ease the pain . . .
20 September 2010
"Rejecting" you 1000 times
is not what we intended. Rather, it is the sort of thing that makes us nauseated, the sort of "worst case scenario" that keeps editors up at night in fear that something like this could happen.
We are so, so, so very sorry. This was a huge technical glitch. Emails have now been disabled in the sub manager, so, if you would like to check the status of your submissions to the magazine, please log in to check the status of your work.
Again, we apologize.
07 September 2010
More TSky Peeps in the News
TSky Press publisher Christian Peet offers all sorts of amazing insights, no doubt, in the new issue of The Writer, in which he never expected to find TSky, and but is now rather tickled, though he can't recall anything that he said in his interview with the very kind Lori A. May, whose article is aptly titled: "Micro presses offer more opportunities: Putting art above sales, boutique presses embrace writers of experimental work. . . ." Thanks for featuring TSky Press, Lori!
TSky Press author Kim Gek Lin Short's The Bugging Watch and Other Exhibits is the subject of a rather brilliant review in the sixth issue of Sink Review. Also reviewed is Kim's chapbook Run, which is not only a wicked read (we'll be publishing the full-length version, China Cowboy, next year) but is also gorgeously produced by the handbound-book gods, Rope-a-Dope press.
TSky Press author Jenny Boully holds forth on Thailand, Texas, and all things 'tween, in "A Short Essay on Being," in the all-new TriQuarterly. An excerpt:
He said that he went there to stay at a Buddhist retreat and paid several thousand dollars to do so, and on the final day, he let them take a high-pressure hose and rinse his anus. He said all of this to me as if I knew what he was talking about. I went to temple many, many times—both in Texas and in Thailand—and never once did I have my anus rinsed, or hear of anyone else having their anuses rinsed. Just like I have yet to find a Thai person eating a dog.Jenny also has new work in The Huffington Post, as part of a larger, "Huffington Post exclusive game of artists' telephone." Highly recommended--all of it--but you'll have to scroll a bit to find Jenny's work.
TSky Press author Gordon Massman has a new chapbook, Core Sample, which is cause enough for celebration (or locking up the children), but what makes it doubly exciting/frightening is that the book is published by those other handbound-book Gods, Spork Press.
02 September 2010
FAQ #1: What in bloody hell is up with my submission to your magazine?
Excellent question. We'll respond in keeping with the "hell" reference, though it's not quite the right metaphor. If you have not received word, then either 1) the email from our online system did not reach you (log in and check status here), or 2) your submission is currently in the last few days of TSky "limbo." These will be reckoned with very shortly. Within a couple weeks or so. We promise.
01 September 2010
Things that we've been meaning to post for, like, ever:
Tarpaulin Sky Press Authors in the News
Kim Gek Lin Short is the focus of a fab interview-ish essay in InDigest, wherein she recounts the joy of sending work to TSky Press's open reading period:
Christian Peet phoned me to say they’d like to publish it. I kept hoping I was not dreaming this conversation. Had I my druthers, Tarpaulin Sky was the press I would have chosen to publish this work. Why? I like their books and think that they have an identity I get as a reader. I feel this way about a number of small presses, but I had this hunch that if only one person in this world was going to love my book, it might be someone at TSKY.Oh, and right she was.
Kim also details some of her experiences in writing The Bugging Watch, gives us a sneak peak at China Cowboy (also forthcoming from TSky Press) and discusses that much-maligned-of-late concept, "hybridity":I didn’t set out to make these two books “hybrid.” And quite honestly I did not even use that term to describe my work until somewhat recently, after both books were well underway. And although I wonder about calling my books fiction-slash-poetry, because it is just as easy to call them not fiction and not poetry, I think it is a truthful designation. Also, the term hybrid alone can and should be problematic as a category. This is also why the term hybrid is so useful. Of course, there is always the thrill of creating a new category, and the danger of enacting rules. But whenever I read something that poses poetry on a categorical high horse in a big snooze purist way, I think: this book is a real asshole. . . .
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Joanna Ruocco's Man's Companions is reviewed at the new TriQuarterly Online. Here's an excerpt:Joanna Ruocco’s newest short-story collection is a keen manipulation of ordinary experiences into strange, funny, lovely, uncomfortable truths. “Chipmunk,” for instance, features a narrator who ponders her insecurities and then reflects on the absurdity of relationships: “I know that with my eyes shut I could kiss a whole parade of men and never guess the difference, even if one of them was my brother.” . . . Ruocco is consistently inventive. She tilts the world as we know it, challenging our senses. With stories that average just a couple of pages, the brevity of Ruocco’s pieces makes it easy to zip through them—don’t. Don’t even read them in sequence. Each will stand alone, and will probably stand taller that way. [Read the full review.]
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TSky Press author Ana Božičević is interviewed at 3AM Magazine, wherein she at once edifies, inspires, and melts us (as is her way) and holds forth on "home," among other slippery subjects. Here's an excerpt:3:AM: I’m interested in your relationship with Croatia, emotionally, creatively. . . . Do you feel an indelible nostalgia for Croatia?
AB: I remember thinking I wasn’t in love with anyone at the time, so there was no real reason for me to stay. Probably the truth is I knew I wasn’t entirely “of Croatia” even then, and so I was free to go. . . . Nostalgia thinks there’s a place where there is no place, and in its honest, touching delusion it’s no different than any other lover.
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TSky Press author Traci O. Connor holds forth on "The Difficulties of Being Human (and of Writing)" at The Story Prize, wherein, in addition to smashing drywall, she offers this rather moving description of Recipes for Endangered Species:
Every story in my collection is pretty much about this: As human beings we often fail to see other human beings as human beings. We see each other often as something less or, at best, monstrous, and, eventually, we begin to see ourselves thus. The characters in my stories all deal, to some degree, with the ways in which they feel themselves monstrous, the ways in which they act out their monstrosities – in short, they deal with the difficulties of being human.
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Last Friday kicked off not one but five weeks of Free-Book-Fridays at LitDrift, where the free books = Tarpaulin Sky Press titles. How amazing is that? We think: "pretty darn." This week's featured free book is Danielle Dutton's Attempts at a Life.To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment at LitDrift. Winners are chosen randomly at 12pm on the following Friday and notified via email. No kidding. Check it out.
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