Reed, published at San Jose State University, is proud to reinvent itself regularly–that’s one of the ways it keeps itself current. Learn more about the journal, its history, and its ever-evolving tastes in our latest Journal of the Week feature.
The Onion must have some book-lovers on staff these days—because their literature-related headlines of late have been painfully funny. See their latest, “Miranda July Called Before Congress To Explain Exactly What Her Whole Thing Is.” You should really just read the whole thing, but—okay, here’s a little taste: Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) at one point attempted a drastically different style of questioning in which he clearly explained to July what his own whole thing is in hopes that she would reciprocate in a way that everyone could understand. “Perhaps we’re approaching this in the wrong way; Ms. July, when I […]
Most writing classes revolve around the workshop—but the workshop format, in which participants usually read 25-30 pages of a student’s work and then critique it as a group, is ill-suited to the novel form, where 30 pages may not even be a full chapter. Is there a better way to give feedback on a novel-in-progress? Grub Street, Boston’s independent writing center, aims to find out with an experimental new course dubbed the “Novel Incubator.” (Disclaimer: I have taught for Grub Street, but have not been involved in the novel course.) Billing itself as a “year-long MFA-level course, team-taught by two […]
Marriage is so last century. Natalie Bakopoulos contemplates the demise of the marriage plot and Jeffrey Eugenides’s complex, undermining revival of it in his aptly-titled novel, The Marriage Plot. Is love still the ultimate trump card? Dear reader, it is. With some qualifications.
So a monkey typing into infinity will eventually produce Shakespeare—or so the theory goes. Maybe robots would be faster? The New York Times recently discussed the phenomenon of robots writing books. After an encounter with a robo-writer called Lambert M. Surhone—literally a computer churning out titles like “Saltine Cracker” and “Pagan Kennedy” from pasted-together online text—author Pagan Kennedy (yes) was fascinated and preplexed: Could robots ever be trusted to write original novels, histories, scientific papers and sonnets? For years, artificial-intelligence experts have insisted that machines can succeed as authors. But would we humans ever want to read the robot-books? Mechanized […]
When media outlets that cover the American publishing industry report on book sales and e-books “vs.” print books, they often cite percentages of sales increases and sales decreases as evidence of the current state of affairs. In reality, percentages don’t and can’t offer a full picture. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) recently released book sales data for November 2011. The e-newsletter Shelf Awareness had this to say about the AAP report: E-books yet again had the biggest gain, but the 65.9% increase marked a slowing of what had been triple-digit increases for most of the preceding several years. In […]
Hello, FWR friends. I’m delighted to announce a new blog series: “First Looks.” This series, which I’ll be writing each month, will introduce you to soon-to-be released novels and short-story collections that have piqued my interest as a reader-who-writes. Consider it a public “to be read” announcement of sorts, a way for me to point out a new title (or two) every month and explain what about it has caught my eye. For the most part, we’ll be concentrating on books that fall within FWR’s chief interest: fiction by emerging authors. We’ll publish “First Looks” posts here on the FWR blog […]
This week’s feature is Joan Leegant’s debut novel, Wherever You Go, which was released by W.W. Norton and Company. Her first book, a collection of stories entitled An Hour in Paradise, was published when she was 53. Winner of the PEN/New England Book Award, the Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction, and the 2011 Nelligan Prize from the Colorado Review, Leegant was also a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. For eight years she taught fiction writing at Harvard. Currently she divides her time between Boston and Tel Aviv, where she is the visiting writer at Bar-Ilan University. In her […]
Last week we featured Ana Menendez’s new collection, Adios, Happy Homeland!, as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Jen McConnell Doron (@jentheauthor) Christina Strynatka (@cstrynatka) Sasha (@sashasilverfysh) To claim your free copy, 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!
I think this lovely, kicky video speaks for itself: Happy Valentine’s Day! from Whitney Blank on Vimeo. Which of your books seem attracted to each other, aesthetically or intellectually–or both? Here are a couple of pairings from the bookshelf nearest to my desk: Thanks to Valerie Laken for finding this video.
