Suspend Your Disbelief

Archive for February, 2011

Shop Talk |

"To train our hearts and our minds in the art of complexity"

by Celeste Ng

Do yourself a favor and read this fantastic essay, “How Reading Junot Diaz Can Help America Prosper,” by friend of FWR Dean Bakopoulos, right now. It’s one of the most eloquent, passionate explanations for why fiction matters that I’ve ever seen. I’d like to quote the whole thing, but here’s just a taste: Another morning, after I lectured on Junot Diaz’s story “Nilda,” a heartbreaking coming-of-age story in which the narrator, Junior, learns that nobody is invincible, not even his once mythically heroic brother, struck down by cancer at seventeen. Despite Junior’s intentions on leaving his neighborhood and moving on, […]


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Thursday morning candy: Vectors

by Lee Thomas

In homage to the conversation about teaching creative writing in 21st century that we published last week, I’d like to highlight something a little different to jolt your creativity this Thursday morning. Vectors: A Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular. I first heard of it via Anna Leahy’s shout out in Part 2 of the aforementioned essay, “Where Are We Going Next?” The USC-based journal may not be a lit magazine in the traditional sense, but spending some time on the site has certainly gotten my mind racing with ideas, connections, energy – all vital to the […]


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HuffPo, $315 mil, and when to write for free

by Lee Thomas

At 9 a.m. on the Saturday of AWP, I rallied for “When Should We Write for Free?” – a panel that, just like it sounds, featured writers discussing their own guidelines to answer that question. The panel gave insight into a marketplace that has rapidly grown accustomed to free content. There was much discussion during the audience Q&A about providing free content – mostly in the form of blogging – and folks mentioned the Huffington Post several times, since their bloggers are not paid. Fast forward to last week, when the Huffington Post announced that AOL would acquire it for […]


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DO Judge a Book By Its Cover.

by Celeste Ng

Speaking of judging books by their covers, one branch of the New York Public Library recently asked readers to do just that. The NYPL blog explains: At the Webster Branch, we recently put up a display with all of the books covered in brown paper. Above it there is a sign that reads: “Do You Judge a Book by Its Cover?” The rules are if you unwrap a book—based on the short description taped to it—you must check it out. Even if you’ve read it before, or if you think you won’t like it. Take it home, give it a […]


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Best American Short Fiction from Storyville

by Lee Thomas

Many of you blog readers may recall Michael’s great post about the launch of Storyville – the mobile short story magazine that sends a short story to your iPhone or iPad every week for $4.99 / 6 month subscription. Quite a steal. Starting today, and for the next two Tuesdays, Storyville will feature one story from each of the three collections that are Finalists for The Story Prize, the largest cash prize – $20,000 – for best story collection published the previous year. The stories will be drawn from the three finalist collections: Memory Wall by Anthony Doerr (Scribners), Death […]


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Book of the Week: The Bigness of the World, by Lori Ostlund

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Each week we give away several free copies of a featured novel or story collection as part of our Book-of-the-Week program. Last week we featured Urban Waite’s debut novel The Terror of Living, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: John Taylor, Jodi Paloni, and Michelle Hoover. Congratulations! Each will receive a signed copy of this novel. This week we’re featuring Lori Ostlund’s debut collection The Bigness of the World. Stories from this book have appeared in The Georgia Review, New England Review, The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Bellingham Review, Hobart, and Blue Mesa Review. Additionally, “All Boy” was selected […]


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Got 10 Minutes? Save Publishing!

by Celeste Ng

Supply and demand is the basic rule of economics. But will it work for books? Author Sean Cummings thinks so. He’s created a Facebook group and an accompanying website called “Save Publishing! Read a Book at Bedtime.” The site’s rationale: Read what you like. A magazine, a newspaper or a book. Read it in print or on an eBook reader or an iPad – whatever. Just ten minutes a night, a tiny commitment but an important one. If enough people will commit to reading at bedtime for ten minutes, they’ll eventually finish the books they’re reading. If they continue to […]


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Good Sex Awards (NSFW)

by Celeste Ng

Perhaps you’ve enjoyed the Literary Review’s Bad Sex Awards in the past. This year, Salon inaugurated its first annual Good Sex Award, intended to “reward the best-written, most interesting and most convincing piece of sex writing published in a novel in 2010.” The winner, announced today, is James Hynes’s Next. Here’s an excerpt: Then Lynda murmurs “Wait” right in his ear, and as he clutches her waist under her dress she unbends first one leg and then the other over the railing, settling tightly against him, taking him in even deeper. She tightens her calves against the railing and squeezes […]


Reviews |

American Rust, by Philipp Meyer

Philipp Meyer sets his debut novel, American Rust, within a landscape of retired warehouses, rattling railways, prisons and Wal-Mart. The crumbling underpinnings of American industry provide the backdrop for human catastrophe. Meyer made The New Yorker‘s “20 Under 40” list on the strength of a book in which Hanna Pylväinen finds echoes of Mark Twain, Frank O’Hara and Cormac McCarthy.


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Flipbook: "Inspiration"

by Lee Thomas

Every few weeks, we launch a new Fiction Writers Review “Flipbook.” During the past two and a half years, we’ve featured more than 50 interviews with authors established and emerging. They’ve had such valuable insights into the writing life – from thoughts on process and craft to ideas about community and influence – that we wanted to find a way to further these conversations within our community. Each Flipbook highlights some of the very best of the conversations on our site, centered around a particular topic. Our latest Flipbook is now up on the FWR Facebook page, with an exclusive […]




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