Suspend Your Disbelief

Archive for 2009

Essays |

Games Are Not About Monsters

by Christine Hartzler

Monster-killing does not have to be a hypersigil; it’s more basic than that. The organizing moral principles of a game world often boil down to something desperately obvious: black-and-white, good and evil. This isn’t bad in itself because a good game, like a good book, then takes the player into a more familiar ambiguity. Good and bad become less easily separated and less relevant the longer you travel. The trick is to create, in the gamer, a commitment to a point of view, whatever its morality…


Shop Talk |

The Unknown Knowns by Jeffrey Rotter

by Anne Stameshkin

On Thursday, Celeste read at Pete’s Candy Store with Jeffrey Rotter, whose debut novel The Unknown Knowns I’d been curious about. After hearing him read just a short excerpt, I picked up a copy. If the Dr. Seussish cover and Donald Rumsfeld allusion aren’t alluring enough, check out a sample here, and if Jeffrey Rotter is reading anywhere near you, don’t miss it. In the coming months, look for an interview with him here on FWR.


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another excellent installment from P&W's Agents and Editors series

by Anne Stameshkin

This time Jofie Ferrari-Adler talks to literary agents Anna Stein, Jim Rutman, Maria Massie, and Peter Steinberg. Here are some tastes: What makes agents want to represent an author? Let us inside your heads a little and talk about what you’re looking at and thinking about when you’re evaluating a piece of fiction. STEIN: It’s really hard to talk about why a piece of writing is good, and moving—even if it’s funny—and what makes us keep thinking about something after we’ve read it. And it’s incredibly subjective. That’s why it’s hard for agents who represent fiction, especially literary fiction, to […]


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recommended essay: "I Married a Novelist"

by Anne Stameshkin

Writers, do you find yourself romantically drawn (or even legally sealed) to others of our kind–or not? What are the advantages or disadvantages of sharing so much physical and psychic space with another writer? If you love reading about writerly couples, indulge in this essay from the Rumpus by novelist Eric Puchner (annotated by his wife, novelist Katharine Noel). Here’s a taste: Just as people prefer their mathematicians to be endearingly deranged, most people prefer their writers to be lonely schlubs. They seem to look at two writers living together as somehow unnatural, a zookeeper’s mistake. Perhaps it goes against […]


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reader recommendation: poet Anne Carson

by Anne Stameshkin

Jessica Belle Smith recommends Anne Carson‘s Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (1998): A classics scholar and poet, Carson has made a literary career of transforming ancient tales into modern language and landscape. Her recent Oresteia re-imagines three ancient Greek tragedies, and more than a decade ago, Carson updated the myth of Herakles and Geryon. The resulting Autobiography of Red is a genuine delight for readers and writers of fiction and poetry. The life of Geryon, the red-winged monster obsessed with his camera and a boy named Herakles, unnerves as the best coming-of-age stories do, coming so close to […]


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Amazon calls FAIL "ham-fisted" – but questions linger

by Anne Stameshkin

The sales figures are coming back. But I have to say I’m still very suspicious of this whole thing…call it a “glitch,” or a flipped-switch error, or the fault of the French, or an elaborate prank by a famous hacker. Whatever may have happened and whoever may be at fault, Amazon is offering explanations, not apologies, and considering the magnitude of the situation, I think the latter is sorely needed. And said explanations have more than a few holes. Whatever unfolds in the next few days, Amazon owes customers (1) a speedy and complete fix…a “flipped-switch error” really shouldn’t take […]


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AmazonFAIL and the bookseller's new "adult" (read: homophobic) policy

by Anne Stameshkin

I finally succumbed and joined Twitter‘s ranks this weekend. Shortly after joining, I learned through a topic called #AmazonFAIL — 5 million+ comments — about Amazon’s new and highly sketchy policy regarding “adult” books. Below is Amazon’s response to author Mark Probst about why his YA book’s sales figures are no longer listed, followed by excerpts from and links to protests/responses: Amazon, to Probst: In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that […]




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