Suspend Your Disbelief

Archive for 2011

Shop Talk |

Things to do with your books (besides read them)

by Celeste Ng

1. Make a vase. Craft blog Green Upgrader presents this video tutorial by crafter Jennifer Berry on turning a book into a (decorative) vase: 2. Make a carpet. Design blog Apartment Therapy highlights this rug made by artist Pamela Paulsrud from the spines of actual books: 3. Make a… restaurant. That’s right. The Brushstroke restaurant in NYC features one wall made entirely of books. The Gothamist has photos. I love books, and I love clever repurposing, but sometimes the sight of so many ex-books gives me the same queasy feeling I get when I look at taxidermy projects. How do […]


Essays |

Looking Backward: Third-Generation Fiction Writers and the Holocaust

by Erika Dreifus

As the annual observance of Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) approaches, Erika Dreifus discusses the literary kinship among works from an emerging cohort of “3G” (third-generation) Jewish writers: Julie Orringer’s The Invisible Bridge, Alison Pick’s Far to Go, and Natasha Solomons’ Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English.


Shop Talk |

Thursday Morning Candy: Bookseller Chick

by Celeste Ng

After a long hiatus, the blog Bookseller Chick is back, providing thoughts on bookstores, publishing, and all things literary. Writes Linsey, the “Bookseller Chick” herself: A lot has been happening in the book world lately—the flood of great Young Adult books, the rise of the self-publishing success, the increased sales of ebooks, Borders’ bankruptcy, HarperCollins’ new electronic policy for libraries, and Apple’s new reading app requirements—and these things are really starting to make fundamental changes in publishing. Regardless of whether Old School wants it to or not, publish or perish has taken on a whole new meaning. These shifts from […]


Shop Talk |

Fiction, like fishes, turns up in strange dishes.

by Celeste Ng

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve seen a bunch of stories lately about fiction appearing in unusual places. And I like it. First, the Standard Hotel in New York City plans to provide every guest room with an American classic during during the PEN World Voices Festival (April 25 to May 1). Author Salman Rushdie will be selecting the titles. Wouldn’t it be great if all hotel rooms came with books to read, right next to the coffee maker and mini-fridge? Next, the Telegraph reports that excerpts from Roald Dahl stories will appear on cereal boxes in the UK. The […]


Shop Talk |

How to sign an e-reader

by Celeste Ng

Aside from copyright and industry-related questions (will they make pirating too easy? Will they kill/save publishing?) e-readers have sparked one other conundrum. If you meet the author, what do you ask them to sign? Some readers have asked the authors to autograph the e-reader itself—David Sedaris, for instance, inscribed “This bespells doom” on one. Those who’d like more than one author’s signature, however, now have a new option. Florida resident T. J. Waters has developed a program, Autography, that allows authors to sign an ebook: “Basically, what you do is pull up a copy of your book as the author, […]


Shop Talk |

Book of the Week Winners: Touch, by Alexi Zentner

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Alexi Zentner’s debut novel Touch as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: Barbara Buck, Hitesh Ratnani, and Megan Milks. Congratulations! To claim your signed copy of this novel, please email us at the following address: winners@fictionwritersreview.com To anyone who’d like to be eligible for our future drawings, visit our Facebook Page and “like” us. No catch, no gimmicks–just a great way to promote books we love. To everyone who’s already a fan, big thanks!


Shop Talk |

Journal of the Week: BOMB

by Michael Rudin

In May of 1981, a bomb went off. At the time, a tribe of Tribeca artists thought their newly minted BOMB magazine would do just that: bomb. Tank. Fail miserably. They had the courage to print an ambitious first run of 1,000 issues but expected to sell just a fraction of them. Reader reaction was, to their surprise, explosive. BOMB’s hope for a forum in which artists could speak about their work in the same ways they spoke about it amongst themselves wasn’t just well received, it was rallied behind. For the first time, a journal pinned artists together regardless […]


Shop Talk |

University of Michigan to offer post-MFA fellowships

by Celeste Ng

The University of Michigan has just announced that it will provide one year of post-MFA funding to all of its MFA graduates, starting with the cohort entering its second year this fall. Says a press release: Thanks to a new gift from Helen Zell, the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan is now able to offer all qualifying graduates of our program one year of post-MFA funding. The University of Michigan’s MFA Program in Creative Writing has been committed to offering post-graduate support to our writers since the first Meijer Fellowship was offered in 1999, thanks […]


Shop Talk |

Flipbook: "Culture"

by Celeste Ng

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 slide right here on […]


Shop Talk |

The "Nice" Review

by Celeste Ng

Are book reviews useful if they’re… well, nice? Two of the biggest names in reviewing, Janet Maslin and Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times, are known for delivering smarting critiques of the titles that cross their desks. Kakutani is so infamously harsh that an essay on The Millions came up with a term for her brand of criticism: the Kakutani two-step. But some book reviewers take a different tack. Author Ben Winters explained why he gives everything five stars on sites like Goodreads: The problem isn’t that “amateurs” are doing the reviewing: the opinions of regular old readers or […]




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