Thirty West Newsletter - August 2024
TW Day draws near, making memories, and calming the angst
August is here.
The dog days of summer have arrived. The Olympics are playing out once again. We’ve received over 190 submissions for the July portion of the submission call, likely a press record for <30 days. TRAILER PARK OCEAN by Josh Price, our first of two chapbooks this year, is scheduled to be published this month. Thirty West Day is almost here. And yet, I am calm about it?
It does the mind well to not overthink. Speaking from personal experience, it calms any anxiety I may have. A cool mind makes the world go by slower, yet I exist in a vibrant present. This publishing year has been engorged with busy events, tight deadlines, and wide margins of success. Look at it this way, if things were that bad, I wouldn’t be writing to you right now. Life is a series of minor and major choices. For TW, I’m glad all of the decisions the masthead, authors, and I made to get here.
A debut flash fiction chapbook, Trailer Park Ocean by Josh Price contains 11 fast-paced stories that bend to the will of melancholy and misfortune. Families are torn apart by violence and diseases. The blue-collar ethos bleeds from the pages with an emerging author’s razor-sharp prose. Stories in this chapbook have previously been published in The Los Angeles Review, Fauxmoir, F3ll Magazine, HASH Journal, and Ponder Review.
LIMITED EDITION: Industrial rivet binding (20 copies) and they are going fast!
“I could tell you what it’s like, the bungee pull and snap flinging you through the windshield and across pavement, loss of gravity and the opposite of control, but it wouldn’t help; you’d have to experience it to know.”
from “Moving Vehicle”, a story in TRAILER PARK OCEAN
The Afterimages schedule for August will include more premiere fiction and nonfiction from established and emerging writers, including an exclusive review of our September poetry collection by one of our summer interns.
My wish for you is to find the ocean soon. If not that, then a pool. And if not that, a cold shower. Keep on keeping on, and I’ll see you in September. I leave you with a couple of photos. First, a group photo from this past Saturday as we launched THE TERNION of novels at the Philadelphia Small Works gallery. Second, the TW table for Poet’s Row blackout poetry workshop and reading at the legendary, ATHENÆUM. The true reason why we make books.
Extra Bits
Thirty West Day, August 10th at Barnes & Noble: Bethlehem, PA. It’s almost here! Come out to this free and public event, say hi, and indulge in an afternoon of all things literary. If you wish to have your Page 1 read anonymously and in public, please fill out this form ASAP. A limited number of slots remain!
Our summer chapbook sale may be almost over, but you can still save. With bundles like THE TERNION novels, Fall of Fiction novellas of 2023, and more, you don’t have to pay the postcarrier. Use code FREESHIP at checkout to watch that amount transform into zero. Valid for orders of $30 or more.
2025 Open Manuscript submissions close on 8/30. We’ve received a lot of novel manuscripts, and want more poetry collections. Chapbook authors, don’t shy away. We’re excited to venture into this new jacket aesthetic for 2025 and want more poetry and prose chapbooks! Maybe some artwork?