Suspend Your Disbelief

Archive for 2010

Shop Talk |

I have an MFA in Fiction and a Master's in Vampire Studies

by Celeste Ng

How do you know when vampire lit has reached critical mass? When it gets an academic conference. Vampire literature is now receiving some scholarly attention with a conference at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. Despite the smirk factor, the conference—”Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture”— has some serious intellectual heft: The aim of the conference is to relate the undead in literature, art, and other media to questions concerning gender, technology, consumption, and social change. […] The irony of creatures with no reflection becoming such a pervasive reflection of modern culture pleases in […]


Reviews |

Swimming with Strangers, by Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum

by Brian Short

The stories in Kirsten Lunstrum’s new collection, Swimming with Strangers, are smart, harrowing, dramatic, and quite often surprising. In one, the narrator describes the story of her own birth; in another, as the characters discuss fairy tales—one of the characters forces his students to read the Brothers Grimm in their brutal, original forms—the roles of witch and distressed damsel switch back and forth. While we could easily imagine stories like these in which thematic elements take over, Lunstrum keeps them at a low burble, focusing on the reality of these characters’ struggles. It is a very brave choice.


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YA Authors Fight Bullying

by Celeste Ng

Here in Massachusetts, the story of Phoebe Prince has been big news for a while. Prince was a fifteen-year-old high school freshman in South Hadley, MA, who committed suicide after being repeatedly bullied at school. Now, as some of the teens who allegedly bullied Prince are charged in connection with her death, the story has gotten news coverage across the country. And it’s also sparking action from an unlikely group: YA authors. GalleyCat reports: To help combat the problem of bullying, YA authors Carrie Jones and Megan Kelley Hall have founded a new group–Young Adult Authors Against Bullying. Since the […]


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SHAY-bahn, not cha-BONE

by Anne Stameshkin

When you have a last name like Stameshkin, it’s rare–and lovely–to hear someone say it correctly. And I imagine that if even if you’re a world-famous author like Michael Chabon (see the subject line), Jonathan Lethem (that’s LEETH-um) or Chimamada Ngozi Adichie (en-GO-zeh ad-DEE-chay), it’s frustrating to hear thousands of fans and critics say they love…someone else. To avoid crimes of mispronunciation, study this guide to pronouncing authors’ names (via Buzzfeed via Dieselbookstore via The Panorama Book Review): it’s a great resource if you’re introducing, teaching, or even just talking about one of these writers. (Thanks to Tori and Todd […]


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Payment vs. Good Karma

by Celeste Ng

At the Coachella Review, Steve Almond makes a case—through his email exchange with an agent—against contributing to an anthology for free: Mark – I may be willing to do this, but I’d really like to know: who IS getting paid, if not the contributors? I contribute to a lot of anthologies, and almost without exception, they offer to pay contributors based on the advance, or a small percentage of the royalties. The idea is a great one, and the contributors are top-notch, so this book could make real money. Why wouldn’t the people who provided the material for the book […]


Interviews |

Literary Mentors & Friends: An Interview with Charles Johnson

by Zachary Watterson

Charles Johnson taught creative writing at the University of Washington from 1976 to 2009. He is the author of numerous books, including the National Book Award-winning Middle Passage. Zachary Watterson, one of Johnson’s former students, talks with his mentor about the literary friendships that have influenced the author’s more than forty-year writing career.


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The Hypothetical Library

by Celeste Ng

The subtitle of the blog The Hypothetical Library is “Imaginary Book Covers. Designed for Real Authors.” And that sums up this interesting little project nicely. Book designer Charlie Orr collaborates with real authors like Colum McCann, David Lehman, and Thomas Kelly to design covers for books that the authors have not written—and never will write. I ask each writer to provide flap copy for a book that they haven’t, won’t, but in theory could, write, and then I design a cover for it. I am not a writer. I have tried over the years, but it is simply something I […]


Shop Talk |

FWR @ AWP: Panels, Panels, Panels!

by Anne Stameshkin

Several of our fabulous contributors are participating in panels and readings at AWP. In addition to our panel on online journals and lit sites in 2010 (Saturday from noon to 1:15, featuring Jeremiah Chamberlin), don’t miss the following sessions: Thursday, April 8 10:30 – 11:45 a.m. Rooms 102, 104 Colorado Convention Center, Street Level R124. Bollywood, Bullets, and Beyond: The Poetry of South Asian America. (Featuring: Summi Kaipa, Pireeni Sundaralingam, Ravi Shankar, Bhanu Kapil, Subhashini Kaligotla and Monica Ferrell) What do a sestina, 9/11, and Amitabh Bachchan have in common? Popular, political, and poetic themes all appear in Indivisible (University […]


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More on the DIY Book Tour

by Celeste Ng

Jeremy recently posted about Allison Amend’s tips for a do-it-yourself book tour. Author-arranged promotions are becoming more and more common as publishers cut back on marketing and publicity, and the L.A. Times has some firsthand accounts of what such a book tour can be like: A cat peeing in an author’s bag? A writer waking up to discover that a complete stranger has left him four jars of delicious homemade preserves? Such things are not traditionally part of book promotion. But they happened to Bill Cotter and Annie La Ganga, an Austin, Texas-based couple who celebrated the simultaneous release of […]




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