In the conclusion to his season-long exploration of Saul Bellow’s work, Daniel Wallace tackles the sticky problem of Bellow’s endings, what happens to characters over a 50-year career, and how the author’s nonfiction illuminates his talent for storytelling and argument—perhaps even moreso than the novels.
In this two-part essay, Daniel Wallace devotes himself to the work of Saul Bellow for a season. Total immersion in Bellow’s progress as a writer reveals the perplexing philosophical problems at the heart of many of the novels, the difference between early and later books, and the unadulterated beauty of Bellow’s paragraphs.
(Editor’s note: “Stories We Love” made its debut as part of Fiction Writers Review’s Short Story Month celebration. But we love short stories year-round. So here’s another installment, courtesy of FWR contributor Tyler McMahon.) As an undergraduate, I took my first fiction-writing workshop around 1997. It didn’t go well. My peers were entrenched in Mafia stories and Christian parables. I failed to find my voice. The instructor was accepted into law school for the following fall, and declared there was no future in writing. Near the semester’s end, she invited one of her fellow graduate students, Eric Rickstad, to visit. […]
Can’t get enough of beautiful bookshelves, stunning stacks of stories, juicy journals? Turn to the internet for your fix. Breathing Books posts amazing book-related photos every day, many featuring old leather-bound hardbacks: And the Guardian has recently started a Flickr group for bookshelf photos, asking readers for the stories behind their books and cataloguing systems as well. One commenter, who has a small owl statue peering out from between her books, notes, “Not really a bookend, more an owl sandwich. I’ve got quite a collection of childrens books featuring owls – I think it was the first bird type my […]
Over the past six decades, Iraqi writer Mahmoud Saeed has used his novels, stories, and nonfiction to deconstruct the political and social turmoil of his beloved homeland. In a wide-ranging conversation with Stephen Morison, Jr., Saeed describes the difficulties Arab authors face in getting published, the institutionalized barriers to freedom of expression, and his constant attempt, through fiction, to “solve the puzzle of man and his actions.”
FWR Contributor Michael Shilling‘s debut novel, Rock Bottom, will be adapted into a stage musical by the Landless Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.! The novel—and the new show—tells the story of the Blood Orphans, a once-great rock band, in Amsterdam on the last day of their final tour. The musical is a collaboration between Shilling, playwright/composer Andrew Lloyd Baughman, and songwriter/vocalist Talia Segal. It runs July 15th-August 7th at the D.C. Arts Center. And, as befits a show about a rock band, it contains explicit language, graphic adult situations, and nudity—so what are you waiting for? For more information, including […]
We seldom think of judges as writers, but as any lawyer will tell you, written decisions are the bulk of the court’s work. Recently, the Scribes Journal of Legal Writing published interviews with the SCOTUS justices (as they’re known in legal circles), and surprise: many of them appreciate reading, especially fiction, as the basis of good writing. NPR reports: “The only good way to learn about writing is to read good writing,” says Chief Justice John Roberts. That sentiment is echoed by Breyer, who points to Proust, Stendhal and Montesquieu as his inspirations. Justice Anthony Kennedy loves Hemingway, Shakespeare, Solzhenitsyn, […]
This week’s featured title is Knuckleheads, by Jeff Kass. Published in April by Dzanc Books, this is Kass’s first collection. He is also the author of a chapbook of poetry, Invisible Staircase, a chapbook of essays, From the Front of the Room, and a one-man poetica performance, Wrestle the Great Fear. Kass teaches creative writing at both Pioneer High School and Eastern Michigan University. He also serves as the Literary Arts Director at Ann Arbor’s teen center, The Neutral Zone. In March of this year, Carlina Daun and Allison Kennedy sat down with their former writing teacher to talk about […]
Last week we featured The Oregon Experiment as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Ed Quest (@edquest) Shuchi Saraswat (@ssaraswat) Matt Ellsworth (@1MJE) To claim your signed copy of this collection, please email us at the following address: winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us!
Myla Goldberg, author of Bee Season and lead singer of The Walking Hellos, discusses her voracious reading as a child, her new novel The False Friend, the trickiness of memory, love of a good trashy novel, and much more with Casey Tolfree.
