Suspend Your Disbelief

Archive for 2011

Shop Talk |

Jesmyn Ward wins National Book Award for fiction!

by Celeste Ng

HUGE congratulations to friend of FWR Jesmyn Ward, who just won the 2011 National Book Award for fiction for her novel Salvage the Bones! In reviewing Ward’s novel, Ron Charles wrote in the Washington Post, When the finalists for the National Book Award in Fiction were announced last month, I’m embarrassed to admit that I was among those critics grumbling about the obscurity of some of the authors (Andrew Krivak?), even some of the publishers (Lookout Books?). […] I’m happy to eat my words. And my spinach. I’ve just read another one of the so-called obscure finalists, “Salvage the Bones […]


Shop Talk |

User PapaHem99 gives this place 3 stars

by Celeste Ng

First, there was Ernest Hemingway, Yelper: Infusion Tea and Coffee House Category: Coffee & Tea THREE STARS I got up late and the sun was already high and I had been drunk the night before. The barista brought me a cup of coffee and asked if I wanted anything else and when I said no she left. The coffee was good and very hot. I sat at the table for a while. When I was done the barista came and cleared my mug and went back behind the counter. I ordered a muffin to go and walked out into the […]


Shop Talk |

What's in between a novel and a short story? A lot.

by Celeste Ng

Novels are like sensible, high-achieving older children. Short stories are the quirky, free-spirited, lovable babies of the family. And the oft-overlooked middle kid? In the writing world, that would be the novella. The novella has been getting a little more attention lately. The Booker Prize went to Julian Barnes’s 150-page A Sense of an Ending, prompting The Guardian to wonder if “is it not time for the novella once again to be out and proud?” But then again, it seems it’s always been almost the novella’s time to shine. Last summer, Taylor Antrim predicted on The Daily Beast that the […]


Shop Talk |

Book of the Week: White Truffles in Winter

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s feature is N.M. Kelby’s new novel, White Truffles in Winter, published this month by W.W. Norton. Kelby is the author of five previous books of fiction: A Travel Guide for Reckless Hearts: Stories (Borealis Books, 2009), Murder at the Bad Girl’s Bar and Grill (Crown, 2008), Whale Season (Three Rivers Press, 2006), Theater of the Stars (Hyperion, 2003), and In the Company of Angels (Theia, 2001). She’s also the author of The Constant Art of Being a Writer: The Life, Art and Business of Fiction (Writer’s Digest Books, 2009). Her short fiction has appeared in such places as […]


Shop Talk |

Journal-of-the-Week Winners: Slice

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Slice as our Journal-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Elena Mauli Shapiro (@elenamshapiro) Brian Henry (@brianhenry63) Josh Loomis (@bluinkalchemist) To claim your free subscription, 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!


Shop Talk |

Taboo book words: Readable and Plot?

by Celeste Ng

Are “readable” and “plot-driven” now backhanded compliments for books? At The Star, Bert Archer argues that there’s nothing wrong with “readable” books (via): You could make snide comparisons to see-ability in art and hear-ability in music, but I think the best analogy might be livability and architecture. Can a house be excellent if it is not also livable? If you find yourself stumbling on the stairs because they’re not big enough for your feet, or if you get wet when it rains because there are cleverly carved holes in the roof, I would say you have a legitimate complaint against […]


Shop Talk |

Rock of Authors

by Celeste Ng

At first blush, few people are less like rock stars than writers. Generally speaking, we avoid the spotlight. We don’t have cool outfits, we don’t have groupies, and our tours are waaaay less flashy–and lucrative–than musicians’. But deep down there’s some connection between writing and rock. Lots of authors have compiled playlists for their books, most noteably on David Gutowski’s Largehearted Boy’s “Book Notes” section. It sounds like a recent trend, but it’s been going on for a while, according to Salon: Since 2005, in the site’s recurring Book Notes column, authors including Bret Easton Ellis, Sloane Crosley, Karen Russell, […]


Shop Talk |

Is literary monogamy overrated?

by Celeste Ng

The Millions has a wonderful essay by Jeffrey Eugenides on his process of writing his latest novel, The Marriage Plot. It began with what he called “an act of literary adultery”: In the late 90s, during an impasse in the writing of Middlesex, I put the manuscript aside. (I hadn’t fallen out of love, exactly, but I wasn’t sure where the relationship was headed.) Over the following weeks I began flirting with another novel, not a comic epic like Middlesex but a more traditional story about a wealthy family throwing a debutante party. At first, the new novel seemed to […]




Literary Partners