Suspend Your Disbelief

Archive for 2009

Shop Talk |

recommended event: Jewish Intellectuals and the Writing Life

by Anne Stameshkin

Tonight I’m looking forward to attending a (free!) panel discussion, Jewish Intellectuals and the Writing Life , at CUNY with Erika Dreifus (of Practicing Writing and The Practicing Writer). Here’s the description from CUNY Grad Center’s website, should any New York-based writers like to join us: EVENT: Jewish Intellectuals and the Writing Life DATE: 4/29/2009 TIME: 6:30 PM ADDRESS: 365 Fifth Avenue / Manhattan PHONE: 212-817-2005 ROOM NUMBER: The Skylight Room (9100) PRIMARY EVENT SPONSOR: Center for the Humanities SUMMARY: Join prominent intellectuals as they discuss the relationship between literary reputation, intellectualism, and Jewish life. Participants include Morris Dickstein, Ruth […]


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May is Short Story Month on EWN – so let's talk stories

by Anne Stameshkin

Emerging Writers Network’s Dan Wickett is devoting May to reading and discussing short stories; his goal is three a day for a month — so just under 100 stories. Be sure to check it out. And let’s try a sister-experiment here: FWR contributors and readers, I invite/challenge (whichever word you find more motivating) each of you to read or re-read some short stories in May and write to me about one of them that really rocks your writerly world. I’m not talking full-scale reviews (though if what you write becomes something longer, that’s OK)…just a paragraph or even a couple […]


Reviews |

Little Bee, by Chris Cleave

by Lee Thomas

What an encore. Chris Cleave’s second novel, Little Bee, offers a series of intricately timed revelations. A teenage refugee from Nigeria carries one side of the narrative, a young British professional, the other. Through this split-screen, Cleave tackles the multiple perspectives inherent in any story: someone always stands outside looking in. Perspective equals character, which makes his use of multiple names so interesting…


Essays |

Drawing a Line in the Sand: Literature and Today’s Market

by Steven Wingate

I do not fear for literature, which has endured purges of all kinds, the death of the novel, the irrelevance of poetry, centuries without general literacy, and every other threat that has been hurled its way. Enough people hold it dear, and it is intrinsic enough to the human identity, for it to survive whatever problems plague it now. But I do fear for those young writers whose primary teaching in their craft is market-centered rather than literature-centered.


Shop Talk |

recommended reading: Jami Attenberg interviews cartoonists

by Anne Stameshkin

At Largehearted Boy, check out Jami Attenberg‘s first in a series of interviews with female cartoonists; this one is with Sarah Glidden. You can preview chapters from Glidden’s book-in-progress on the artist’s website, and if you haven’t yet read Jami Attenberg’s Instant Love (one of my favorite collections of linked stories) or her debut novel, The Kept Man, I recommend a trip to the nearest bookstore. Jami also had a great piece, “An Apartment Affair,” in the New York Times last month.


Reviews |

Friendly Fire, by A.B. Yehoshua

by Gwen Glazer

A.B. Yehoshua never writes the shortcut phrase “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” in Friendly Fire, his most recent novel, newly translated into English from Hebrew. It’s as though the veteran Israeli author is mining a seam so deep that its boundaries do not need to be explored or examined, or picking up a thread of conversation that Israelis have already been engaged in for 60 years. That isn’t to say, however, that Yehoshua has no comment on the matter.


Shop Talk |

Olive Kitteridge wins Pulitzer

by Anne Stameshkin

Congratulations to Elizabeth Strout, whose Olive Kitteridge, a collection of linked stories (billed as a “novel in stories”) about a curmudgeonly retired schoolteacher in Maine, has won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Finalists included Louise Erdrich’s The Plague of Doves and Christine Schutt’s All Souls. You can read an excerpt from Olive Kitteridge here and the NY Times review here.


Shop Talk |

I was Born Doing Reference Work in Sin

by Anne Stameshkin

Last week, poet and activist Dustin Brookshire recommended Denise Duhamel’s work to FWR readers, and I failed to mention that Dustin has a poetry blog of his own, one bearing what may be the best name ever: I was Born Doing Reference Work in Sin. This month he’s featuring a very cool series with guest poets (including Mark Bibbins, Ellen Bass, and Denise Duhamel) called “How I Discovered Poetry”, and his site also hosts a longer-running series, “Why Do I Write?”


Shop Talk |

What are writers reading?

by Anne Stameshkin

Celeste pointed me to this great blog, Writers Read, where writers — among them emerging/debut authors Darrin Doyle, Kyle Minor, Greg Sanders, Kristina Riggle, Brendan Short, and Nathaniel Rich; and established authors Antonya Nelson, Porter Shreve, Darin Strauss, Rachel Kadish, and Jane Smiley — share what they’re reading. It’s interesting to see who reads mostly within genre and who branches out…


Shop Talk |

reader recommendation: poets Paul Siegell and Sharon Dolin

by Anne Stameshkin

To start your week with some verse, here are some poetry-for-prosers recommendations from poet Matthew Hittinger (author of Pear Slip, winner of the Spire Press 2006 Chapbook Award): Poemergency Room by Paul Siegell If you live in NY or a city with a similar mass transit system you may find it hard to garner the concentration to read poetry on the subway or bus (and who can blame you with all the poems being written in the conversations and through the actions of your fellow mass transit riders?). Here is a book whose rhythms are so attuned to the city, […]




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