Susan Tepper
Posted: February 14, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 1 Comment »
Advance Praise
The stories in Susan Tepper’s “From the Umberplatzen” will haunt you. They are short, sharp, and ruthless in their tender investigations of memory and loss. — Steve Almond, author of God Bless America
Susan Tepper knows extraordinary things about love, about its delicate negotiations and its quiet ravishments. She also is a master of the short short story form who has assembled forty eight stunning, small-scale stories into a brilliant mosaic of a novel. From the Umberplatzen is a dazzling artistic accomplishment. — Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from aStrange Mountain
This is a perceptive love story. — Simon Perchik, author of Hands Collected
Wilderness House Press
Signed copies direct from the author www.susantepper.com Also available at all booksellers
ISBN 978 0 9827115 4 5
Photos – A Writer’s Best Friend
Posted: January 10, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Australia, Colin Shafer, Colinizing Photography, Everyone Has Hope, Fitzroy, Malaysia, Melbourne, Photographer, Photography, Photos Leave a comment »
Many writers, editors, publishers have those few “photog” friends. Those people to help you out in a bind or inspire you when you need it. I’m lucky to know a few awesome ones that have learned their craft from simply practicing it and without formal training.
Colin Shafer is a friend of mine from highschool. He was one of the most easy going, caring, open people in highschool there probably has ever been. He never limited himself, his friends circle or the love he has for life. Football quarterback, cheerleader, artist, peer leader….the list goes on and on. But most of what I remember about Colin back then is his ability to make me laugh and making light of pretty much any situation.
After graduating University, Colin moved to Malaysia where he has continued to teach and mentor hundreds of youth. He’s shown very strong interests in Malaysian politics, religion, social values and constructs, and you can tell he feels strongly about making a difference in a place that has very narrow views and tight controls over human life. He blogs frequently about Malaysian life from a foreigners perspective and he continues to travel and take photos wherever he goes.
A few weeks ago, Colin sent me a video he had been working on for the Everyone Has Hope project. This project started in 2010 and aims to allow Refugee children living in Kuala Lumpur to express themselves and grow through photography. Malaysia is home to more than 100,000 refugees and they cannot legally go to school or work as Malaysia has not signed the 1951 Convention on the Rights of Refugees.
Colin’s been working on another massive photography project for awhile. Through his travels, he is encapsulating culture by taking just portraits of people from whatever areas he stops in. These portraits are unbelievable. He recently traveled to Melbourne where he took, what I think, is some of his best work yet. These are some of the faces that represent the people of Fitzroy.
To view more of Colin’s photography, and show my schoolmate some support, please visit his facebook page entitled Colinizing Photography and his website. Also, to learn more about the Everyone Has Hope campaign, please visit their website.
2011: A Year in Review
Posted: January 8, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 2011, 2012, Birding, Closer Walks, Fragments of Calendars, John Swain, Kat Dixon, Kenneth Pobo, Like Lungfish Getting Through the Dry Season, Michelle Reale, Thunderclap Press, Thunderclap! 5, Thunderclap! 6, Thunderclap! 7, Year in Review Leave a comment »
Well, the lights have come down and the gifts have all been unwrapped. It’s usually that time of year where many of us get the “holiday blues”, longing for more late nights with eggnog and our friends, and more time with our families shootin’ the shit and telling old stories. January can seem like an extension of what has past and it takes awhile to get into but we all get there.
2011 was a great year for Thunderclap Press. We worked with some great authors and published a lot of work. The Thunderclap website was viewed over 21,000 times! Holy cow! I really thought that was an awesome piece of data. Whether it was 21,000 people or one person who visited the site 21,000 times, knowing that people have taken a minute out of their day to read what goes on here is sick. (Good, sick. I realize people have stopped using that expression since like 2003)
In March, we published Thunderclap! 5 and Kenneth Pobo’s Closer Walks.
In April, we went all out for National Poetry Writing Month and published a poem for every single day in the month. It was quite a challenge but it was incredibly fun and we ended up publishing a special book dedicated to those poems because people loved it so much. We also published John Swain’s very fabulous Fragments of Calendars.
In July we published Thunderclap! 6, Kat Dixon’s Birding, and Michelle Reale’s Like Lungfish Getting Through the Dry Season.
In October, we published Thunderclap! 7 which was our biggest success to date.
Looking forward this year we have Thunderclap! 8 coming up in March, and chapbooks from Lynn Hoffman, Parker Tettleton, Craig Sernotti and Kristine Ong Muslim.
Thank you for making 2011 such a great year and we hope that we’ve got your continued support as we enter our 4th year as a small press.
Amanda
Christmas Cheer :-)
Posted: December 19, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: As a Machine and Parts, AYITI, Caleb Ross, Christmas, Code for Failure, Holidays, Roxane Gray, Ryan W. Bradley, THUNDERCLAP!, Thunderclap! Magazine Issue Seven Leave a comment »
Hey All!
We’ve been on a bit of a hiatus since the last issue. We all get a little crazy around the holidays and since Thanksgiving, I’ve been running rampant making sure I’ve crossed all my t’s and dotted the never ending i’s. There has been a lot of fun in there too! Lots of Christmas get-togethers and lots of thinking about future projects.
I’d like to take a moment to thank you all for your support over the last three years. (I can’t believe Thunderclap! is that old) I’ve had so much fun with this magazine, and a few late nights, but met some of the most amazing, creative people. It’s also allowed me to get back on track with some of my own writing and opened me up to a lot of the other online projects that are surfacing and re-surfacing again and again. We also have over 700 followers on twitter which is just awesome. Hopefully we can make that over one thousand come 2012.
- Caleb Ross recently put out a new book entitled “As a Machine and Parts”. You can buy it from Aqueous for $20.00 by going here http://www.aqueousbooks.com/author_pages/13_ross.htm
- Ryan Bradley has got a new book coming out soon called Code for Failure. You can pre-order it very soon. The cover for the book has been released and it’s pretty awesome because if you know Ryan, you just get it. http://ryanwbradley.blogspot.com/p/code-for-failure.html He also has a new story out at Metazen that is absolutely ridiculously good. http://www.metazen.ca/?p=8885
- Roxane Gay has had a lot of praise for her book AYITI which was put out by ADP. This is definitely worth the purchase.http://www.artisticallydeclined.net/offerings/16295-ayiti-pre-order
As a reminder, all of our issues are available for purchase through Lulu by going here : http://thunderclappress.com/published-work/ Just click on the link. Issue 7 has been our best selling issue to date and is now 25% off and just $7.50. Stocking stuffers any one?
I hope all of you have a safe, healthy and happy Christmas/New Year. I look forward to reading more of your work in 2012.
Pushcart Prize Nominations Set!
Posted: November 28, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Gregory Sherl, Len Kuntz, Meg Tuite, Nominations, Parker Tettleton, Pushcart Prize, Sara Lippman, Sheldon Lee Compton, Thunderclap Five, Thunderclap Press, Thunderclap Seven, thunderclap six 3 Comments »
The following are the six chosen writers & their respective pieces for our Pushcart Price nominations of 2011:
Sara Lippman-Thank God For The Radio (Thunderclap 7- music issue)
Len Kuntz- Mouthwash (Thunderclap 5)
Meg Tuite- Fissure (Thunderclap 7- music issue)
Parker Tettleton – You Don’t Cry in My Bed (Thunderclap 5)
Gregory Sherl- Please Live in the Dive Bar that Houses My Amp (Thunderclap 7- music issue)
Sheldon Lee Compton- From the Ground up in Four Movements (Thunderclap 5)
Pushcart Prize Nominations
Posted: November 28, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Nominations, Pushcart Prize, Thunderclap Press, Writers 1 Comment »Robert and I will be putting in our Pushcart Prize Nominations and announcing them soon! Stay tuned for a further update.
“But When You Get Music and Words Together, That Can Be a Very Powerful Thing.”
Posted: October 31, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Howie Good, issue seven, Meg Tuite, music, Parker Tettleton, Robert Vaughan, Ryan W. Bradley, Susan Tepper, Thunderclap Magazine, [d]avid [t]omaloff 13 Comments »My man Bryan Ferry was spot on. Nothing has ever mattered more to me in my life except words and music. Oh, and I suppose my husband squeezes in there somehow. And maybe mum and dad. But music and words have made up most of my life.
In April 2001, I finally got my driver’s license. I was 17 and on top of the world. I was driving home from a party and felt like I had lost the love of my life for almost a year. Yes, I was a little ridiculous. I was going down the highway with all the windows down when Procol Harum’s song Whiter Shade of Pale came onto the radio. This was my mum’s favourite song. After my gran died, every time my mum listened to this song she would instantly burst into tears in front of me. She had done it so many times in my childhood that it wasn’t awkward or surreal at all; it was something I knew she had to do.
So I burst into tears too that night. I got it. That’s just music.
This one is for all the music lovers. Our Seventh Edition is now available by going here for $10. It features writers such as Parker Tettleton, Howie Good, David Tomaloff, Meg Tuite, Susan Tepper and many others. Lots of thanks to Robert Vaughan for helping with submissions and Ryan W. Bradley for his great designs.
Love it and it will sing to you.
Oh There Come’s a Time…
Posted: October 21, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
…when we are at our deadline for Issue 7 submissions!
We won’t be accepting submissions past 4:00pm EST today so please get your last few poems or flash fiction pieces in for our music issue.
A big thank you to all those have submitted thus far.
-Thunderclap Press Team
White Boy by Murray Dunlap
Posted: September 23, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Fiction, Murray Dunlap, White Boy 6 Comments »
The gunshot sends me running. I pump my arms and make up the spread by the end of the first turn. The inside lane is my favorite. I’m faster when I reel them in. This is the local meet at our rival’s track: Midtown Prep. We’re all white here. My school, Springhill, is coed. Midtown is all demerits and paddles and takes only boys. Other than that, we’re the same. Rich, private, and white. My great grandfather built Midtown’s auditorium, Kale Hall, in memory of my grandfather. He was killed by Japanese kamikazes. I’ve seen pictures of him before the war, running on this very track. His sister says that when she watches me run, she can’t tell the difference. She says running genes must skip a generation. I pass under the shadow of Kale Hall at the top of the second turn. We hate Midtown. They hate us. My quads burn by the time I hit the straightaway and lengthen my stride. Four hundred and forty yards.
Is “I” in Poetry the Loneliest Letter?
Posted: September 19, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Charles Olson, egocentric, first person, first person narrative, i, Marcus Speh, personal pronoun, Poetry, pronoun, proprioceptive, Ryan W. Bradley, self aware, T.S. Eliot 3 Comments »
It’s tall & slender. It stands alone. It’s the ever loved, ever hated, ever tested pronoun.
I love I; it’s personal. I’ve heard some writers and readers make the personal pronoun out to be some sort of gimmick. The use of it being a gimmick implies that using I is a cheap trick. I’ve never once read someone’s poetry who used I and thought it to be cheap or easy.
All editors, and many readers, are searching for originality in the work that they read. Thus, I’ve heard of a few editors and fellow writers out there who denounce pronoun heavy pieces. One of the main concerns I’ve collected over the years from these folks is concerning the perception of the ego that is put into an I-centered poem. I see it as a way to present one’s self in a self aware state, a method of letting readers know that the writer is fully involved in whatever the piece is about.
I’m extremely confident in the first-person poem as a writer; it’s something I truly believe in. If you read some of T.S. Eliot’s finest work, the first-person narration is divine as he describes the chaos happening around him. This is probably why I love modernist work so much.
Charles Olsen was a writer who used first person narration as well. His vision of the I in poetry was, more or less, to listen to our inner selves. Proprioceptive writing is something that Olsen practiced and felt weakened the whole “I in poetry is egocentric” argument; he felt it washed the ego away.
Maybe it’s because I sort of adore the idea of confessionalism underneath it all and maybe it’s because pronoun heavy poetry often smells of isolationism. However, the intimacy felt and observed by the I in poetry is surely exciting to many readers and a quick connection can often be made to the writer which is always a thumbs up.
Do you I or do you dare not to I?
Other Important Items:
- So Ryan Bradley has this story up at HOUSEFIRE which is, honestly, the most raw thing I’ve read..possibly ever.
- Marcus has a very interesting blog post in regards to an earlier blog I did about “Would you still Write if no one read your work?” You can find it here: http://networkedblogs.com/lOalH. In the blog he asks who your ideal reader is. What an interesting question. My ideal reader is probably a nerdy 20-something that watches Sex and the City re-runs and over-thinks every decision she or he has made since they were 12.
- This is the point where I tell all of you that listen to radio and like new music to listen to CBC Radio 3. I can’t get enough of it.
- Submit your prose and poetry for our October Issue! Thunderclap.mag@gmail.com.
