summer 2018 catalog

Contents

Junk ...... 2

Who Is Vera Kelly?...... 4

The Seas...... 6

Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing...... 8

Tin House Magazine...... 12

Contact and Distribution Information...... 14 POETRY Building on IRL and Nature Poem, Tommy Pico’s Junk is a book-length Junk break-up poem that explores the poems by TOMMY PICO experience of loss and erasure, both personal and cultural.

he third book in Tommy Pico’s Teebs T trilogy, Junk is a breakup poem in couplets: ice floe and hot lava, a tribute to Janet Jackson and nacho cheese. In the static that follows the loss of a job or an apartment or a boyfriend, what can you grab on to for orientation? The narrator wonders what happens to the sense of self when the illusion of security has been stripped away. And for an indigenous person, how do these lost markers of identity echo larger cultural losses and erasures in a changing political landscape? In part taking its cue from A.R. Ammons’s Garbage, Teebs names this liminal space “Junk,” in the sense that a junk shop is full of old things waiting for their next use; different items that collectively become indistinct. But can there be a comfort outside the anxiety of utility? An appreciation of “being” for the sake of being? And will there be Chili Cheese Fritos? MAY $15.95 · Trade Paper · 6” x 9” ISBN: 978-1-941040-97-3 · eBook: 978-1-941040-98-0 TOMMY “TEEBS” PICO Rights: World is the author of Nature Poem, IRL (Birds LLC, 2016), and the zine series PROMOTION & PUBLICITY Hey, Teebs. He was a Queer/Art/Mentors inau- • National interview campaign gural fellow, 2013 Lambda • Extensive ARC distribution to chains and Literary fellow in poetry, indies and his poems have appeared in BOMB, Guernica, Tin House, and the Offing. Originally from the Viejas • Giveaways on author’s popular social Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now media pages lives in Brooklyn and co-curates the reading series • Advertising in Tin House Magazine and Poets With Attitude (PWA) with Morgan Parker. other literary journals • High-profile NY launch and select author appearances nationwide

2 PRAISE FOR NATURE POEM

“A thrilling punk rock epic that is a tour of all we “Pico centers his second book-length poem on the know and can’t admit to. Pico is a poet of canny trap of conforming to identity stereotypes as he instincts, his lyric is somehow so casual and so so ponders his reluctance to write about nature as a serious at the same time. He is determined to blow Native American . . . In making the subliminal overt, your mind apart, and . . . you should let him.” Pico reclaims power by calling out microaggres- sions and drawing attention to himself in the face —ALEXANDER CHEE of oppression.” “Mix of hey that’s poetry (uncanny resistance) with —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, Starred Review hey that’s a text and smashing goals & fulfilling them along the way & saying my parents fulfilled them. Do- “Humor lays the groundwork for a hard truth and, ing it differently being alive & an artist. I love this for poet Tommy Pico, that hard truth is about living work. Unpredictable & sweet & strong to continue.” as an indigenous person in occupied America. . . . Pi- co’s poetry builds a contemporary Native American —EILEEN MYLES persona, one that occupies multiple spaces simulta- “The self-conscious labor of these poems explores neously: City, the internet, pop music, and a culture of asides, stutters, stammers, and media Grindr. It’s an identity that’s determined to be heard glitches. It’s no wonder Tommy Pico manages to by the culture at large.” name and claim identity while also reminding us of —THE ORGANIST/KCRW his (and our!) limitlessness. Nature Poem is a book about our true nature.” “Instead of following the conventions of the pastoral tradition, in which nature is revered, Pico adopts a —JERICHO BROWN tragicomic view. On the one hand, the land of his “A poet who will not hesitate calling out winter as native people can be described with great rever- a death threat from nature, Tommy Pico hears the ence, desert nights that ‘chill and sparkle and swoon wild frequencies in the mountains and rivers of cit- with metal/ lighting up the dark universe.’ On the ies. The marriage of extraordinary sharp writing other, that same landscape carries and extends lega- with the most astute commentary on almost every cies of racism and genocide that Pico is determined possible thing a human will feel, think, do, dance like, not to forget.” or smell like.Then, suddenly, he asks, “What if I re- —THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE ally do feel connected to the land?” I read this book in one sitting. Then I read it in one sitting again the “Pico has pulled me out of a poetry slump. His po- next day. The staying power of this poem I will bla- ems make me want to live with more poetry, to tantly say is without doubt!” read, write and revel in poetry as a form that does not have to be a container.” —CACONRAD —BROOKLYN MAGAZINE “[Nature Poem] finds Pico incorporating or indirectly referencing his surroundings in freewheeling, inti- “Few people capture New York, queerness, and the mate verse, while turning a humorous lens on life artful use of hashtags in a poem quite like Tommy as a queer man.” Pico.”

—OUT MAGAZINE —NYLON

3 “Who Is Vera Kelly? is the twisty, literary, woman-driven spy novel you’ve always wanted to read. Vera Kelly hopscotches from Brooklyn to Buenos Aires, fueled by gin and cigarettes, on the run from her past and equipped with a case of listening devices. But this is no ordinary adventure novel: Rosalie Knecht is a sensitive and gifted writer with a lyrical voice that imbues this dazzling novel with unexpected emotional depth.”

—AMY STEWART, New York Times bestselling author of Girl Waits With Gun

Dear Bookseller,

This book came out of a family story. My maternal grandfather, Charles Jennings, worked for the CIA after WWII, analyzing Soviet radio broadcasts. He was fired during the McCarthy era because of connections to leftists that he may or may not have had in his youth. In 1961, he fell from the roof of the family home in Chevy Chase, Maryland while cleaning the gutters. He died a few days later.

If there’s anything more mysterious than a grandparent who never reached old age, it’s one who was in the CIA and had a disputed political history. My mother barely remembers him. He was from Montana; he liked to take my grandmother to the theater; he may have had a drinking problem. My grandmother lived into her 90s and loved to talk, but never said much about him.

This novel came from my grandfather’s exile from theCIA and his eventual accidental death, but they’re not in it. If you read this book, and I hope you do, you’ll find that nobody’s father works for the CIA and nobody falls off a roof (well, some inmates of a juvenile detention facility jump from a roof, but they all survive). That often happens to me, that I start writing from an image or event that I eventually hide, efface, or remove. Maybe fiction is all the things we say to keep from repeating the same old true story, which is a little too sad, even though it happened a long time ago.

Vera is a young woman who grew up in the wake of a loss, and who is adept at running, evading, and hiding. She’s also a CIA spy. I hope you enjoy her story.

XO FICTION An exhilarating page turner and perceptive coming-of-age story, Who Is Vera Kelly? introduces an original, Who Is wry, and whip-smart female spy for the twenty-first century. Vera Kelly? a novel by ROSALIE KNECHT

ew York City, 1962. Vera Kelly is N struggling to make rent and blend into the underground gay scene in Greenwich Village. She’s working night shifts at a radio station when her quick wits, sharp tongue, and technical skills get her noticed by a recruiter for the CIA. Next thing she knows she’s in Argentina, tasked with wiretapping a congressman and infiltrating a group of student activists in Buenos Aires. As Vera becomes more and more enmeshed with the young radicals, the fragile local government begins to split at the seams. When a betrayal leaves her stranded in the wake of a coup, Vera learns the Cold War makes for strange and unexpected bedfellows, and she’s forced to take extreme measures to save herself.

JUNE

1 1 $15.95 · Trade Paper · 5 /2” x 8 /2” ROSALIE KNECHT is a ISBN: 978-1-947793-01-9 · eBook: 978-1-947793-02-6 social worker in New York Rights: North American City and was born and raised in Pennsylvania. She is the translator PROMOTION & PUBLICITY of Cesar Aira’s The Seamstress and the Wind • Deluxe ARC packages for booksellers and has been a Center • Featured author at Winter Institute for Fiction Emerging Writer Fellow and a Fulbright • In-person meetings with New York media English Teaching Assistant in Argentina. Her debut novel, Relief Map, was published by Tin House • Book club marketing campaign Books in 2016. • Extensive galley giveaways via Goodreads and Tin House Galley Club

5 FICTION “An aqueous affair, flooded with . water themes . . . Hunt’s writing is . The Seas free of affectation and carries a novel by SAMANTHA HUNT surprising conviction.”

introduction by MAGGIE NELSON —THE NEW YORKER

oored in a coastal fishing town so far Mnorth that the highways only run south, the unnamed narrator of The Seas is a misfit. She’s often the subject of cruel local gossip. Her father, a sailor, walked into the ocean eleven years earlier and never returned, leaving his wife and daughter to keep a forlorn vigil. Surrounded by water and beckoned by the sea, she clings to what her father once told her: that she is a mermaid. True to myth, she finds herself in hard love with a land-bound man, an Iraq War veteran thirteen years her senior. The mesmerizing, fevered coming-of-age tale that follows will land her in jail. Her otherworldly escape will become the stuff of legend. With the inventive brilliance and psychological insight that have earned her international acclaim, Samantha Hunt pulls readers into an undertow of impossible love and intoxication, blurring the lines between reality JULY and fairy tale, hope and delusion, sanity and

3 madness. $19.95 · Trade Cloth · 5" x 7 /4" ISBN: 978-1-941040-9-59 · eBook: 978-1-941040-9-66 SAMANTHA HUNT’s Rights: North American debut novel, The Seas, won a National Book Foundation award for PROMOTION & PUBLICITY writers under thirty-five. She is also the author • Extensive online ad campaign of Mr. Splitfoot, Dark, • Print ads in Tin House Magazine and other Dark: Stories, and The literary journals Invention of Everything Else. Hunt’s writing has • Massive Goodreads giveaway been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, McSweeney’s, A Public Space, Tin House, • High-profile author interviews and off-the- Cabinet, among others. book essays MAGGIE NELSON is a poet, critic, and nonfiction author of books such as The Argonauts, Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, Bluets, and Jane: A Murder. She teaches in the School of Critical Studies at CalArts and lives in Los Angeles, California.

6 praise for The Seas “One of the most distinctive and unforgettable voices I have read in years. This book will linger . . . in your head for a good long time.” —Dave Eggers

“Hunt’s spare narrative is as mysterious and lyrical as a mermaid’s song. The strands of her story are touched with magic, strange in the best possible way and very pleasurable to read.” —Andrea Barrett

“The Seas is creepy and poetic, subversive and strangely funny, [and] a phenomenal piece of literature.” —Michelle Tea

from the introduction by Maggie Nelson

I read The Seas when it first came out and was scalded by its beauty. It took me back to how I felt as a kid, when you’re newly falling in love with literature, newly shocked by its capacity to cast a spell—you know the feeling, when you turn the last page of a novel that you’ve burrowed into and has burrowed into you, and suddenly find that the book has become more than a book, it’s become a talisman, something precious. A little scary, a little holy. The Seas felt like that to me. Radiant with magic, some of it dangerous. Some of it hurt. Probably I feared it a bit—not only how perfect it was, as a piece of writing, but also how much it made me feel. About the gigantic, all-consuming blue wave that begins and ends and haunts The Seas, our 19-year old narrator writes: “It is truly a gorgeous color. This blue is chaotic and changing. I recognize it immediately.” I recognized, recognize, it too. It’s the wave that holds the narrator’s grief for her lost father, her wobbly faith in language and etymology, her enthrallment with the oceanic, her fixation on the color blue, her complex relationship to her mother, her bobbing amidst a sea of alcoholics, her own fierce sexual desire, her loneliness, her conviction of her mermaid nature, her love for a mortal in deep pain whose suffering mirrors, alleviates, and exacerbates her own. It’s the wave that reveals the painful, exhilarating scope of her small and swelling life. O that wave. And so I put The Seas up on a high shelf, not because I didn’t love it, but because its power felt so acute I needed to dim it a little, save it for another day. Its re-release thankfully provided that occasion. And so I took it down, read it again in one sitting, then read it again the next day, and then one more the next, each time finding it as mesmerizing, moving, and crystalline as I did years ago.

7 Among other honors, Ursula K. Le Guin is the recipient of . . .

21 Locus Awards · 6 Nebula Awards · 6 Hugo Awards · 3 Jupiter Awards · 3 James Tiptree Jr. Awards · 2 World Fantasy Awards · 2 Asimov Readers Awards · 2 Endeavor Awards · The Boston Globe-Horn Book Award · The Newbery Honor · The Lewis Carrol Shelf Award · The Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize · The Pushcart Prize · The National Book Award · A Pulitzer Prize Nomination · The Library of Congress “Living Legend” · Award for significant contributions to America’s cultural heritage · The PEN/Malamud Award for “excellence in a body of short fiction” · The Margaret Edwards Award for significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature · The Association for Library Service to Children’s May Hill Arbuthnot Honorary Lectureship · The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Emperor Has No Clothes Award · the North American Society for Utopian Studies’s Lyman Tower Sargent Distinguished Scholar Award · The Science Fiction Research Association’s Pilgrim Award for Lifetime Contributions to SF and Fantasy Scholarship · The for Life Achievement · The World Science Fiction Society’s Gandalf Grand Master Award · The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Grand Master Award · The National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters NONFICTION Le Guin discusses her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—both her process and her philosophy—with all the wisdom, Ursula K. Le Guin: profundity, and rigor we expect from one Conversations on Writing of our great American writers. by URSULA K. LE GUIN & DAVID NAIMON hen the New York Times called Ursula W K. Le Guin, “America’s greatest living science fiction writer,” they just might have undersold her legacy. It’s hard to look at her vast body of work—novels and stories across multiple genres, poems, translations, essays, speeches, and criticism—and see anything but one of our greatest writers, period. In a series of interviews with David Naimon (Between the Covers), Le Guin discusses craft, aesthetics, and philosophy in her fiction, poetry, and nonfiction respectively. The discussions provide ample advice and guidance for writers of every level, but also give Le Guin a chance to to sound off on some of her favorite subjects: the genre wars, the patriarchy, the natural world, and what, in her opinion, makes for great writing. With excerpts from her own work and those books that she’s looked to for inspiration and guidance, this volume will be a treat for Le Guin’s longtime readers and a perfect introduction for those first approaching her writing. JULY

1 $14.95 · Trade Cloth · 5 /4” x 7” URSULA K. LE GUIN ISBN: 978-1-941040-99-7 · eBook: 978-1-947793-00-2 Ursula K. Le Guin has Rights: North American published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four PROMOTION & PUBLICITY collections of essays, twelve books for children, • National print and broadcast interviews six volumes of poetry, and four of translation. She lives in Portland, Oregon. • Library marketing campaign • Extensive push for academic course . DAVID NAIMON‘s work appears or is forthcoming in adoption Tin House, Fourth Genre, Story Quarterly, ZYZZYVA, • Regional author appearances Fiction International, and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Oregon where he hosts the literary radio program and podcast Between The Covers on KBOO 90.7FM.

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∏ınHouseMAGAZINE An award-winning quarterly, Tin House started in 1999, the singular love child of an eclectic literary journal and a beautiful glossy magazine.

COMING SOON

Poison FALL 2018

An issue devoted to poison pens, people, and places, with poems, stories, essays, and interviews about toxic relationships, foods, drugs, cities, and the banes of our existences.

$12.95 · Ships August 2018 ISBN: 978-1-942855-21-7 · eBook: 978-1-942855-22-4 SUSAN CHOI · BEN OKRI · MOLLY RINGWALD · PER PETTERSON · DANIEL HANDLER · JO ANN BEARD JAYNE ANNE PHILLIPS · MARY RUEFLE · CLAIRE VAYE WATKINS · “Tin House is an invaluable repository of fine American writing and American fiction” — · HA JIN · ETGAR KERET CHARLES BAXTER · JOSHUA FERRIS · BILLY COLLINS LYDIA DAVIS · ANNE CARSON · JAMES PATTERSON “When you crave fiction that’s crafted with daring and passion and precision, Tin House is the only place to turn.” — · SAMANTHA HUNT · KURT VONNEGUT MATTHEA HARVEY · MARIE HOWE · · MARY HIGGINS CLARK · · JODI ANGEL · “With each issue you finish, you’re more awake, erudite, socially aware, and alert to exciting new writers. What more do you want between two covers, anyway?” —JIM SHEPARD · ALISSA NUTTING · DAVID LEHMAN · RON CARLSON · DARCEY STEINKE · AMY BLOOM · KEVIN YOUNG · BINYAVANGA WAINAINA “Tin House magazine is a port in the storm for people who love language. —KAREN RUSSELL · LYNNE TILLMAN JAMES SALTER · STEVEN MILLHAUSER · MAGGIE SHIPSTEAD · MATT BELL · INGER CHRISTENSEN GINGER STRAND · STACEY D’ERASMO · ROXANE GAY CÉSAR AIRA · “Tin House is a human habitat, an abode for the bodacious, an apartment for the artful, a bullpen for writers, a castle, a cave.”—DORIANNE LAUX · · DENIS JOHNSON · DOROTHEA LASKY · ELISSA SCHAPPELL · ANN HOOD · WALTER MOSLEY · BEI DAO · ELENI SIKELIANOS · WAYNE KOESTENBAUM Tin House Books United Kingdom, Ireland, Europe, People’s Republic of China: 2617 NW Thurman Street the Middle East, Africa: Everest International Publishing Services Portland, OR 97210 W. W. Norton & Company Ltd. Wei Zhao, Director 503-473-8663 15 Carlisle Street 2-1-503 UHN Intl [email protected] London W1D 3BS 2 Xi Ba He Dong Li www.tinhousebooks.com United Kingdom Beijing 100028 Tel (44) 20 7323 1579 Tel (86) 10 5130 1051 Publisher: Win McCormack Fax (44) 20 7436 4553 Fax (86) 10 5130 1052 Editorial Advisor: Rob Spillman email: [email protected] Mobile (86) 13 6830 18054 Sales & Marketing: Nanci McCloskey email: [email protected] Australia and New Zealand: Tin House Magazine John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd. Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei: 2601 NW Thurman Street 42 McDougall Street Pansing Distribution Pte Ltd. Portland, OR 97210 Milton, Queensland 4064 1 New Industrial Road 503-219-0662 Tel (61) 7 3859 9755 Times Centre [email protected] Fax (61) 7 3859 9715 Singapore 536196 www.tinhouse.com email: [email protected] Tel (65) 6319 9939 Fax (65) 6459 4930 543 Union Street, Unit 2B Japan: email: [email protected] Brooklyn, NY 11215 Rockbook – Gilles Fauveau 718-788-1116 Exprime 5F 10-10 Ichibancho Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, [email protected] Chiyoda-ku Myanmar: www.tinhouse.com 102-0082 Tokyo Hardy Bigfoss International Co., Ltd. Japan 293 Maenam Kwai Road, Tambol Tha Publisher: Win McCormack Tel (81) 90 9700 2481 Makham Editor: Rob Spillman Tel (81) 90 3962 4650 Amphur Muang Managing Editor: Cheston Knapp email: [email protected] Kanchanaburi 71000 Circulation: Laurie Levasseur, email: [email protected] Thailand Circulations Specialists, Inc. Tel (66) 3451 1676 Taiwan and Korea: Fax (66) 3451 1746 Distributed in the United States by B. K. Norton Ltd. email: [email protected] W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. 5F, 60 Roosevelt Road 500 Fifth Ave Sec. 4, Taipei 100 Mexico, South and Central America, the New York, NY 10110 Taiwan Caribbean: Tel (212) 354 5500 Tel (886) 2 6632 0088 US PubRep, Inc. Order Dept. Tel (800) 233 4830 Fax (886) 2 2368 8929 5000 Jasmine Drive Order Dept. Fax (800) 458 6515 email: [email protected] Rockville, MD 20853 Customer Service (800) 233 4830 USA Special Sales (800) 286 4044 Hong Kong and Macau: Tel (301) 838 9276 www.wwnorton.com Transglobal Publishers Service Ltd. Fax (301) 838 9278 27/F Unit E Shield Industrial Centre email: [email protected] Canada: 84/92 Chai Wan Kok Street Penguin Random House Canada Tsuen Wan, N.T. 320 Front Street West, Suite 1400 Hong Kong Toronto, Ontario M5V 3B6 Tel (852) 2413 5322 Tin House Books Summer 2018 Catalog Tel (888) 523-9292 Fax (852) 2413 7049 Printed by Brown Printing Fax (888) 562-9924 email: [email protected] Portland, Oregon email: customerservicescanada@ www.brownprn.com penguinrandomhouse.com ∏ıın Hou se Bo oks Portland, Oregon & Brooklyn, New York www.tinhouse.com

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