Chart-Toppers

We're thrilled to see that Kim Gek Lin Short's The Bugging Watch and Other Exhibits appears on the most recent Fiction Bestsellers list at Small Press Distribution. Perhaps a result of being adopted for lit and writing classes this year? Thereby spreading the bug infestation and ensuring the propagation of Kim's special brand of weird?

All according to plan! Just as InDigest Magazine found themselves compelled to list Bugging as one of their 2010 Favorites. Yes, it is all coming together now. . . . Bwah ha haaa!

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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.

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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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July's Genius is August's Archive

In case you didn't know already, Everyday Genius had a heck of a July. Edited by Kate Zambreno, and now archived for your easy access, July's writers include TSky peeps Dodie Bellamy, Danielle Dutton, Bhanu Kapil, and Chris Kraus, as well as a host of other faves: Affinity Konar, Janice Lee, J’Lyn Chapman, Rachel Levitsky, Vanessa Place, Danielle Pafunda, Ariana Reines, and Kate Durbin, among others. Check it.

Titillating Tuesday

TSky Press author Danielle Dutton reads from her forthcoming work of wonder, S P R A W L (Siglio Press, August 2010), at Bomb.

If, like us, you simply cannot get enough S P R A W L, you can read excerpts in Tarpaulin Sky, here and also here.

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Kim Gek Lin Short breaks out "All the Mason Jars in the World," the book trailer for The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2010).

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TSky Press publisher Christian Peet, whose left nipple is visible in the photo above--at no extra charge to you--is interviewed by Kevin Kane, at Word Riot, wherein Christian says stuff like this:

Once a manuscript is picked, I usually call the author. I do this for a couple reasons. I like to hear how happy they are because it helps to offset the bum feelings I have about “rejecting” hundreds of manuscripts for every one that we publish. Also, I like to see what kind of vibe I get from the author—because one just never knows—will they be easy to work with, or do they seem a bit uptight? Are they flakey? Do they sound like they’re on a lot of medication? These are good things to know. In the last couple years, I’ve taken to calling and saying that we’re “really interested” in their manuscript, but I don’t say that we want to publish it until we’ve chatted a bit. If I get a good vibe or, at least, if the author doesn’t frighten me, then I give them the good news.

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Speaking of picking new manuscripts, Projective Industries is "breathless waiting for you" to submit a manuscript to their chapbook open reading period. Which ends in eight days (June 30). And which is free to enter. Which should prompt you to donate a little cash to their cause. Projective Industries is run by fab peeps and fab poets Samuel Amadon and Stephanie Anderson. They also make great books. If you haven't already, go here.

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And speaking of good books, we have a bunch of new reviews and interviews at Tarpaulin Sky

* Brandi Homan's Bobcat Country

* Bruce Russell's Left Handed Blows

* Gizelle Gajelonia's Thirteen Ways of Looking at TheBus

* Leslie Scalapino's Floats Horse-Floats or Horse-Flows

* Jill Magi’s Torchwood

* Urs Allemann interviewed by Elizabeth Hall

* nick-e melville's Selections and Dissections

* Douglas Kearney's The Black Automaton

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And speaking of reviews, fab TSky reviewer Kristina Marie Darling also has a new book out: Night Songs, on Gold Wake Press.

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And speaking of birds, we've been meaning to tell you about Birdsong. Like you don't already know. But in case you don't: You should check them out. Why? Well, TSky checked them out because they sent us an email asking us to, and, more importantly, because they called TSky "an exemplar to those of us who are up-and-coming in the publishing world" and added, "We read your site religiously." Enough said.

But not really. Because when we checked them out, we fell in love with them. For many reasons. Here are a few:

• The current issue of their zine, birdsong #12: ravel (2nd anniversary issue), "a limited edition of 200 with screen printed cover and offset printed guts, hand stamped and stitched," which "comes in a 'party bag' with sticker, button, and postcard." Yeah. And it's only $6 plus $1 shipping and handling.

• "Five On It," birdsong's "continuing interview series wherein five established writers and artists answer the same five “Inside the Actors Studio” type questions," and wherein said writers and artists include some of our favorite folks--Shanna Compton, Noelle Kocot, Katy Lederer, Richard Nash, Matthew Rohrer, Lytton Smith, Rodrigo Toscano, Rebecca Wolff, Matthew Zapruder--along with a couple dozen other greats.

• What they're all about:

The Birdsong Collective and Micropress was founded in April 2008 with four goals in mind: to foster sustained collaboration among artists, musicians and writers in the form of an ongoing workshop; to continually encourage each other to produce creative work; to host free, public events where members can showcase works in progress; and to circulate members’ creative endeavors in a low-cost, easy to reproduce, and high-frequency format. Birdsong members share commitments to social movements of feminism, anti-racism, queer positivity, class-consciousness, and DIY cultural production. These commitments inform our creative work in many ways, ranging from the concrete to the theoretical to the experimental.

• Their blog. A must read.
  

Staffed by Tommy Pico, Daniel Portland, Lauren Wilkinson, Roy Pérez, and Chantal Johnson, birdsong is found here: http://birdsongmag.com/

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Trickhouse Vol.4

Trickhouse Vol. 4 has been revealed:

Visual Artists: Michael Paige Glover & Laura Krifka
Writers: Noah Eli Gordon, James Belflower & Anne Heide, Danielle Dutton
Guest Curator: "Food Signs of the United States" by Noah Saterstrom
Sound: Michael Renovich
Video: Lisa Leaverton & Nancy Andrews
Correspondent: Robert Eshelman
Interview: Lisa Birman with Bhanu Kapil
Experiment: Doug Nufer