After exploring the arts and spoken word worlds of her native Chicago and the US East Coast, award-winning journalist, poet, and dreamer Clara Rose Thornton visited Germany for what was supposed to be three idyllic months of writing and rest. What followed was nearly a decade of intensive sociopolitical turmoil, with her at the forefront of various movements in Ireland and across Europe. As the Black Lives Matter movement was birthed, the Syrian refugee crisis surged, Ireland legalized abortion and gay marriage, and fresh waves of xenophobic sentiment swept from England to Scandinavia to Eastern Europe, a Black American woman found her voice as a leader for change.
Combining poetry, prose, and sociopolitical essays, Motion Sickness takes readers along the odyssey of a marginalized and daring multi-expat, experiencing on-the-ground tumult and bird’s eye views of living Western history.
Praise for the Work of Clara Rose Thornton
“Thornton’s debut book, Motion Sickness, is forthcoming from Green Writers Press in September 2024. Combining poetry, prose, and sociopolitical essays, Motion Sickness sweeps readers along a multinational odyssey of the fight for Black life, awash in living history.” —from the publisher
“Born and raised Chicago native, Clara Rose Thornton describes herself as the ultimate seeker: ‘I seek to push beyond ideas of what others see as limitations for me—limitations of gender, of race, of nationality.’” —Kathryn Wooldridge, Metro Éireann
“Clara Rose Thornton feels most content anywhere she has a duvet, her laptop and a stack of books, which explains how she’s successfully managed to live across six different countries and yet still considers herself a ‘homebody.’ As a spoken word artist and journalist, Clara has brought her unique worldview to readers, listeners and viewers the world over.” —Paula Lynne,Stellar
“Clara Rose Thornton is a force to be reckoned with, and I personally wouldn’t fancy doing the reckoning.” —Alvy Carragher, Headstuff
“Passion, intelligence, eloquence – Clara Rose Thornton has all of those.”
—Dave Lordan, “Interzone,” Garden County Radio
“[Clara Rose Thornton] is the 2014-15 Dublin Poetry Slam champion, and with an experienced background in culture journalism, her work is frequently incisive and insightful social commentary in poetic form. An impressive stage presence, meanwhile, only enhances the Whitmanesque universality of Thornton’s pieces.”—Yeah! Magazine
“The showcase finished with an inimitable set by Clara Rose Thornton. Structured around geographical location, her poems came off as spontaneous, vibrant vignettes. Her delivery was unique, characterized by repeated phrases that lent the poems the feeling of hypnotic incantations. Whether describing a seedy New York or a ghostly, magical Paris, her poems had an enchanting immediacy about them that ensured we left the show in a wide-eyed, preoccupied sort of mood.”
—Alicia Byrne Keane, tn2 Magazine, Lingo Festival A-Musings showcase
About the Author
Author photo by Lori Sapio.
Clara Rose Thornton is an award-winning essayist, multiple slam poetry champion, culture journalist, educator, and activist from Chicago. In the six countries in which she has lived, she has given speeches of sociopolitical import in a multitude of governmental and historical venues, performed thunderous spoken word poetry both musical and a cappella, and has worked with
organizations and individuals to manifest several progressive firsts, including the inaugural Black History Month Ireland in 2014. While living in Ireland for six years, she won the Dublin Slam Poetry Championship three years in a row. She was a frequent RTÉ radio and television broadcaster, and wrote for the The Irish Independent and Irish Times. Now repatriated to her home city, where she focuses on education, media, and the Black Lives Matter movement, Clara Rose maintains close ties with Ireland and Greater Europe through artistic and sociopolitical work. Her company, InkBlot Complex, is in the seed stage of producing a documentary series on multinational antiracism and anticolonial movements, commissioned by Museum of Everyone in Tullamore, County Offaly.
SPECS
Motion Sickness: Poetry, Prose, and Sociopolitical Essays
Poetry, Prose, Essays
Paperback Original
Trim Size: 6 x 8
Page Count: 224
Price: $19.95 (CA $26.95)
ISBN: 979-8-9883820-9-6
Publication Date: November 5, 2024
Distributor: IPG/Chicago, Ingram.
Rights sold: All rights available.
Rights & PR: Dede Cummings, dede@greenwriterspress.com
Distributor: IPG; also available through Follett/Baker & Taylor, Ingram, and other wholesalers.
Individuals can pre-order directly from Bookshop.org, or contact your local, independent bookstore.
Booksellers, libraries, colleges/universities, gift shops, etc., can order through IPG:
Independent Publishers Group
814 N. Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60610
Order Placement: (800) 888-4741
To request an advance reader copy—digital or print—email dede@greenwriterspress.com