FWR 'Tupperware' book party
by Anne Stameshkin
Just wanted to give a shout out to all those fine FWR folk in Ann Arbor; have a fabulous time tonight, and I hope you all leave with a book (or two or three) to review! Wish I could be there.
Just wanted to give a shout out to all those fine FWR folk in Ann Arbor; have a fabulous time tonight, and I hope you all leave with a book (or two or three) to review! Wish I could be there.
Tiffany Baker’s debut novel, The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, contains an apparent contradiction in its title: a little giant? Truly Plaice, the character so dubbed, is no Paul Bunyan: she doesn’t tower over rooftops or create canyons with her feet. But she’s plenty big enough to cause a stir: at five, she’s two inches taller than her seven-year-old sister, and she just keeps growing bigger and heavier. So she becomes known as Aberdeen’s “little giant,” a position that shapes her fate. And that oxymoron encapsulates this whimsical novel, which is, at its heart, about the yoking together of opposites.
New York-based writer-readers: On Sunday, May 31, come to Housing Works for the 10th Annual Literary Magazine Fair with the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP). Admission is free, and all lit magazines will be on sale for only $2! I’m hoping to come away (as I do every year) with a tote bag full of literary goodness. About Housing Works: Since opening its doors in 1998, Housing Works’ Bookstore Cafe has been an unparalleled hot spot for New York’s literary community, hosting countless readings, panels, and parties for every major publisher, as well as magazines from Lucky to […]
a preview: The Nightingales of Troy is renowned poet and critic Alice Fulton’s fiction debut. In this collection, she displays a knack for the ineffable, for creating stories that are more than the sum of their intricately assembled parts. Her best stories not only exhibit her architectural prowess, they also remind the reader of the near-magical capaciousness of the story form. Click here to read the whole review by Greg Schutz.
South African writer Bridget McNulty will make a (virtual) stop at FWR during her blog tour later this month when Strange Nervous Laughter (St. Martin’s), her debut novel, publishes. In the meantime, Bridget offers this lovely, wacky little film to get you in the mood for it. As she says: How can you resist watching a video with a name as intriguing as ‘The Lonely Cupcake‘? Especially when it’s only 1 minute long! And it’s only vaguely related to Strange Nervous Laughter. And it has cupcakes in it. With funny faces.
For Short Story Month itself, Andrew recommends the following collections: Indie Press: The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards by Robert Boswell (Graywolf) University Press: American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell (Wayne State UP, from the Made in Michigan Writers Series) Andrew’s Book Club also currently features an interview with author Tracy Winn, whose debut collection of linked stories, Mrs. Somebody Somebody, published in April (Southern Methodist UP). Read the first line from each story in Robert Boswell’s new collection here. See Bonnie Jo Campbell read from American Salvage at the following events/venues: – May 14 – Made in Michigan Writers […]
Today, agent Donald Maass‘s new craft book published, and he was kind enough to share the following excerpt with FWR readers; scroll down to read more about the book and its author. A Singular Voice Do you have style? Some authors have a plain prose style. That is said often of John Grisham, James Patterson and Nicholas Sparks. They are strong storytellers and best sellers so I dare say they are not much bothered about it. Other writers are known almost entirely for their way with words. Reviewers swoon over their “lapidary” prose (I had to look it up) and […]
With her personal take on the best of sex writing from 2009 (or, rather, 2008; the title is a bit of a misnomer), Rachel Kramer Bussel notes that “You don’t have to look far to find sex, but you do have to get a bit bolder when looking for writing and thinking about sex that doesn’t play to the lowest common denominator.”
From now on, I’m going to announce here when we’ve posted a new review, interview, or essay to the site. For those of you who usually just read the blog, please stop by and check out our most recent features: (1) FWR’s first foray into erotica comes from our Canadian correspondent and Black Heart Magazine‘s editor-in-chief Laura Roberts, who spices things up with a review of Best Sex Writing 2009 by Rachel Kramer Bussel. (2) Contributing Editor Lee Thomas offers a glowing review of Chris Cleave’s second novel, Little Bee, the story of two women — a British journalist and […]
Recently, I was at Grub Street’s Muse and the Marketplace writers’ conference here in Boston, and in one session we looked at Tobias Wolff‘s “Bullet in the Brain.” I was surprised at (1) how many people had not read the story–of a group of 30 people, I was one of maybe 5 who had, and (2) how amazing this story really is. So compressed and so focused: crystalline. Perfect for teaching yourself, or others: you can take it apart, sentence by sentence, and figure out why each word is there and exactly how the story is working. And yet, even […]
