Suspend Your Disbelief

Archive for 2010

Shop Talk |

Desert Nights, Rising Stars: The ASU Writers Conference

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Sponsored by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University, the Desert Nights, Rising Stars returns March 3-6, 2011. The conference brings writers of all levels together for four days in Tempe to study fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction. Participants have the opportunity to hone their craft in the classroom with distinguished writers, sharing dialogue during classes, readings, and other events. Master Classes add five hours of morning instruction, spread over three days, in a group of no more than ten. This allows an experience that is both intimate and affordable. The 2011 conference faculty includes […]


Shop Talk |

ReadThis book drive benefits New Orleans school

by Anne Stameshkin

At FWR, we’ve long admired ReadThis, an all-volunteer organization of writers and editors devoted to promoting access to books and reading wherever needed: to public schools, troops overseas, hospital pediatric wards, and homeless shelters. One of the organization’s recent and ongoing efforts has been to help rebuild the library of St. Bernard Parish’s recently reopened Andrew Jackson Middle School (AJMS), which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Want to donate a much-needed book? Here, drawn up by the school’s librarian, is a wishlist of specific titles; through this list, you can purchase a book for AJMS from the Garden District Book […]


Reviews |

Best of the Web 2010, edited by Kathy Fish and Matt Bell

by Michael Rudin

Our history with print’s first-rate publications can be a comforting force, a grid of familiar local streets against the sand-swept dunes of online. And it’s this lack of familiarity with digital’s landscape that makes Dzanc’s anthology so incredibly necessary: for new and old writers alike, it’s a guidebook as much as it is a book-book.


Shop Talk |

The Wonder of translation

by Lee Thomas

Translation gives those of us who are not linguistic polymaths access to the great books being written all over the planet. A good translation doesn’t simply convey the story being told – it pays attention to original voice of the author, picking up on nuance and subtleties. The judges of the 2010 PEN Translation Prize found just those shades of meaning in Michael Henry Heim’s translation from the Dutch of Hugo Claus’s Wonder (Archipelago Books). They write: Michael Henry Heim’s outstanding translation has succeeded masterfully in mirroring Hugo Claus’s many voices in this novel that reflects a complex, complicated vision […]


Shop Talk |

The "Wolf Hall Effect"

by Celeste Ng

With the 2010 Man Booker Prize announcement just over a week away, let’s take a quick look back. The Booker is one of world’s top literary prizes, and Booker prize winners are regarded as highly influential books. So what effect did last year’s winner, Hilary Mantel’s wildly popular Wolf Hall, have? First, the personal effect on the author herself: in The Economist’s Intelligent Life, Mantel describes her experience winning the Man Booker Prize. Some nine months on, I can report that the Man Booker has done me nothing but good. Because I am in the middle of a project—my next […]


Shop Talk |

Calling all Bostonians

by Lee Thomas

As a quick follow-up to the One City One Story post last week, we wanted to let you know where you can get your hands on a copy of Tom Perrotta’s “The Smile on Happy Chang’s Face,” courtesy of the Boston Book Festival. They write: Starting Monday September 27th the story will be available at all Boston Public Library branches, several cafes and bookstores from Charlestown to Rozzie and farmers markets from Dewey Square to Mattapan. You can also grab a copy from one of our fabulous volunteers at select T-stops from 7am – 9am September 27th – October 1st. […]


Shop Talk |

Library Art (Literally)

by Celeste Ng

Shelved books, in and of themselves, can be quite decorative, but perhaps you’re looking for book-themed art that’s more… frameable. No problem. On Etsy, artist Jane Mount will create a custom painting of your “ideal bookshelf.” (Via.) Writes Mount: It can include up to 22 books of your choice. All you have to do is send me a photo of the full spines of the books together on a shelf, large enough that I should be able to read all the authors, titles and publishers. If you don’t have them all together you can take photos of them separately and […]


Shop Talk |

Book of the Week Giveaway: The Wilding, by Benjamin Percy

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last month, Fiction Writers Review launched a Fan Page on Facebook. The goal is threefold: to introduce new readers to FWR, to create an informal place for conversations about writing, and also to give away lots of free books. Each week we’ll give away several free copies of a featured novel or story collection as part of our Book-of-the-Week program. All you have to do to be eligible for our weekly drawing is to be a fan of our Facebook page. No catch, no gimmicks. And once you’re a fan, you’ll be automatically entered in each subsequent drawing. Last week […]


Interviews |

Some Supernatural Source of Primal Energy: An Interview with Benjamin Percy

by Shawn Andrew Mitchell

Graywolf published Benjamin Percy’s much-anticipated debut novel The Wilding earlier this week. Shawn Mitchell talks with the acclaimed story writer about making the transition between the short and long forms, his apprenticeship to the craft of story, the obsessions that drive his work, and how he manages to balance his fiction and family life with teaching, traveling on assignment for magazines like Outside and The Wall Street Journal, and contributing regularly to publications like Esquire, Men’s Journal, and Poets & Writers.


Shop Talk |

The Future of the Book? Try Futures.

by Celeste Ng

As Barnes and Noble looks to sell itself, chatter about the “future of the book” has grown. But would “futures” be more appropriate? NPR investigates: Dan Visel, a founder of the appropriately named Institute for the Future of the Book, points out that, first of all, a “book” can mean many things: A cookbook, a comic book, a history book and an electronic book are all animals of different stripes. “It would be a mistake to think that these various forms have a single, unified future,” Visel says. “Rather, I think it’s more appropriate to say that there are futures […]




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