Suspend Your Disbelief

Archive for 2010

Shop Talk |

Christine Hartzler's Essay Selected for Best of the Web Anthology

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

It’s with great pride that we announce that Christine Hartzler’s essay “Games Are Not About Monsters,” which FWR published in April of last year, was recently selected for inclusion in Dzanc’s Best of the Web 2010 anthology. Christine’s essay is a lyrical meditation on video games, the development of character, how we make meaning, and, of course, monsters. Drawing from her own experience playing RPGs like Shadow of the Colossus, she asks us to consider how the best games in this genre–like the best literature–not only challenge us to confront ourselves, but can also give us a glimpse of enlightenment. […]


Shop Talk |

Harvard Book Store Short-Short Contest

by Celeste Ng

Boston-area readers know Harvard Book Store as one of the best independent bookstores in the country. The store hosts author events and readings nearly every night, and the knowledgeable staff is always ready to help should you need a recommendation. Now, they’re encouraging writers as well. In honor of the shortest month, Harvard Book Store is running a short-short contest: Let’s make these 28 days count! Write a short short story (500 words or less). Send us your entries (no more than 3 entries per person) by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 17th. We’ll read them, pick our favorites, and, […]


Shop Talk |

Books We Can't Part With

by Celeste Ng

When I moved from Ann Arbor to Boston, movers came to pack our things. After the thirteenth box of books–literally–Mover #1 actually set down his tape gun and said in complete seriousness, “Do you really need all these books?” Oh yes. I needed them. The New York Times, however, understands that now and then one must actually cull one’s library for reasons of space. The editors asked several authors for their advice on how to do it: Francine Prose: Unless you are an Egyptologist, you only need one, at most two, enormous coffee table books on the Art of the […]


Reviews |

Amigoland, by Oscar Casares

by Phil Sandick

“Now he was the one smiling. He knew they were all around the table, he could feel their eyes on him—The One With The Flat Face, The One With The Big Ones, The One With The Worried Face, The Gringo With The Ugly Finger, The One With The White Pants, The One With The Net On His Head—staring at him and waiting for his next move.” There is so much more to Don Fidencio Rosales, the ninety-one year-old protagonist of Oscar Casares’s comedic and heartening first novel, Amigoland (Little, Brown 2009), than simply his age. First and foremost, there’s his […]


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Mr. President, tell us a story

by Celeste Ng

One year after President Obama’s inauguration, everyone seems to have either criticism or advice for his administration–for pushing health care reform; for not yet passing health care reform; for not waving his magic wand to fix the economy, eradicate H1N1, and end both wars; for not leaping tall buildings in a single bound. But author Junot Diaz points out a different problem in an an essay in the New Yorker: President Obama’s lack of storytelling since his election. All year I’ve been waiting for Obama to flex his narrative muscles, to tell the story of his presidency, of his Administration, […]


Shop Talk |

Gatsby, Uncut

by Celeste Ng

We’ve seen a lot of book adaptations lately, from Where the Wild Things Are to Precious to The Lovely Bones. Screenwriters and directors cut scenes here and add scenes there to transform the book into a cohesive viewing experience. A good adaptation can be a brand-new work of art. But in the process, the book is often boiled down to its essence while the particulars–the writer’s own words–are often lost. The American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is trying to work around that. The A.R.T.’s latest production is “Gatz,” a staged reading of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby […]


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WGA's 2009 Nominations for Best Video Game Writing

by Anne Stameshkin

Yesterday FWR published a very exciting essay by Michael Rudin on the history, future, and literary/artistic potential of video games. While this piece was in the publishing pipeline, the Writer’s Guild of America announced its 2009 nominations for best video game writing. The “destabilizing” narrative behind Modern Warfare 2, discussed in Rudin’s essay, was officially recognized by the WGA for its outstanding storytelling, earning one of the five nominee nods–and the final game Michael worked on at Activision, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, also received a nomination. Below is an excerpt from “Writing the Great American Novel Video Game”; click here to […]


Essays |

Writing the Great American Novel Video Game

by Michael Rudin

For some time I was one of few standing firmly in both camps—writer and gamer, fiction-fiend and pixel-popper. But the innovative nature of Next-Gen gaming, with its leaps in technology and massive install-base, means games have developed new depth–and the future of gaming promises to look a lot more like literature than flight simulators. This is, in many ways, the rise of a new novel. Like its lexicographic predecessor, the pixilated form revels in moral ambiguity, character motivations, conflicts between free will and fate.


Essays |

Writing the Great American Novel Video Game

by Michael Rudin

For some time I was one of few standing firmly in both camps—writer and gamer, fiction-fiend and pixel-popper. But the innovative nature of Next-Gen gaming, with its leaps in technology and massive install-base, means games have developed new depth–and the future of gaming promises to look a lot more like literature than flight simulators. This is, in many ways, the rise of a new novel. Like its lexicographic predecessor, the pixilated form revels in moral ambiguity, character motivations, conflicts between free will and fate.


Shop Talk |

THIS WEEKEND: Haiti Relief at Greenlight Bookstore

by Anne Stameshkin

In my old (and much-missed) neighborhood of Fort Greene in Brooklyn, the fabulous Greenlight Bookstore is doing its part to raise money for Haiti. NYC-based readers, shop at Greenlight today and tomorrow to help! Via the store’s newsletter: A lot has been given to us at Greenlight Bookstore. It’s high time for us to give back. The earthquake in Haiti has affected many of our Brooklyn neighbors, and we want to do what we can to assist in the relief efforts there. So, this weekend, Saturday January 23 and Sunday January 24, Greenlight Bookstore will donate 10% of all sales […]




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