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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