After a long hiatus, the blog Bookseller Chick is back, providing thoughts on bookstores, publishing, and all things literary. Writes Linsey, the “Bookseller Chick” herself:
A lot has been happening in the book world lately—the flood of great Young Adult books, the rise of the self-publishing success, the increased sales of ebooks, Borders’ bankruptcy, HarperCollins’ [...]

“Grub” and “candy” probably don’t go together in your mind, but trust me, this week’s Thursday Morning Candy is delicious. The Grub Street Daily is the new daily blog from Grub Street, an independent, nonprofit writing center in Boston. (Disclaimer: I teach there!)
The newly launched site offers quotes, prompts, and [...]

The founders of Tin House – magazine, book publisher, workshop destination – put their mission best, so I won’t try to improve upon it:
The first issue of Tin House magazine arrived in the spring of 1999, the singular lovechild of an eclectic literary journal and a beautiful glossy magazine. Publisher Win McCormack said of the [...]

I’m writing a chapter for a course on blogging, and I’ve been asked to collect quotes about writing from bloggers. So I’m turning to you, readers of the FWR blog, to help me keep my day job by making this great!
To participate, you must have a blog, preferably one on writing, but it could be [...]

I recently stumbled upon Poets & Writers’ “Clips” section, “a curated selection of videos, including book trailers, brief interviews, and other literary curiosities updated daily.” It’s an interesting, eclectic cross-section of video that touches on the literary, but isn’t always quite so literal.
There’s a clip of photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt’s recalling what it was like [...]

The July/August issue of Poets & Writers hit the newsstands earlier this week, and among the current features is the latest installment of FWR Associate Editor Jeremiah Chamberlin’s Inside Indie Bookstores series. Joining the ranks of previously featured stores like Square Books (Oxford, MS), Powell’s Books (Portland, OR), and Women & Children First (Chicago, IL) [...]

Before I recommend or send any book to one of FWR’s reviewers, I always read a sample story or two, a chapter, or maybe the first fifteen pages. If I fall in love, I order a copy of the book for myself. But sometimes there’s a novel or collection that demands to be read immediately. [...]

Inspired by the Emerging Writers Network–who dubbed May as Short Story Month again this year–and the Poetry Book Giveaway for National Poetry Month, Fiction Writers Review is excited to propose a community effort by lit bloggers to raise attention for short story collections: Short Story Month 2010: The Collection Giveaway Project. Warm thanks to Erika [...]

Over at The Elegant Variation, Marisa Silver guest blogs, drawing some parallels between love and writing:

On love:
3. You will never know your partner.
4. You should never know your partner.
5. You will never know how things will end up.

On writing:
3. People will ask you what your work means and you will try [...]

“During my years as a bookseller, I cherished the opportunities to talk with fellow readers who were enthusiastic about books: how we read them, why we read them, where we read them—you name it. And whether mysteries or metaphysics, non-fiction or nature writing, Chaucer or children’s literature, there was a world of writing to discuss, much of which I had never heard of. I loved nothing more than learning and contributing to that community. It is this same sense of community that we try to foster at Fiction Writers Review. One that is made up of tastes and interests as divergent and varied as our contributors. But if there’s one unifying element, I have to say it’s that very same enthusiasm for books. An unabashed, unapologetic, earnest love of ’shop talk.’”