The imagined Hungarian village of Zavitar is home to the indomitable Valeria, a single lady of a certain age, given a second chance at love and excitement in the arms of the local potter. Marc Fitten’s debut novel, Valeria’s Last Stand, explores how the fall of Communism effects a memorable cast of characters, all through the lens of fable.
Why do people read fiction? That’s what one user asked recently on Metafilter, a popular community weblog: I don’t understand human behavior. Why do people read and watch fiction books and dramas? It seems like a waste of time. The question garnered over 50 responses—most of which were elegant and eloquent explanations of the value of fiction: from Ash3000: To know that a character is like us, and their inner life includes the same cringing that ours does – or, conversely, to know that they are utterly free of our thinking habits – provides an avenue wherein we can compare […]
Eye-catching covers? Yup. Marginalia? Check. Decorative deckle edges? Indeed. But if paper books disappear, we’ll lose something else. This xkcd strip says it all.
There are few venues where a fiction reader might witness Steve Almond read student evaluations of his teaching (youth can be so cruel), Samantha Hunt perform a poem – backwards, or Ben Greenman‘s utter faith in humanity as he recites his credit card and pin numbers aloud to a packed bar. In fact, the only place I can think of off the top of my head is the Happy Ending Music & Reading Series. Started in 2003 by Amanda Stern, the series brings together emerging and established writers to read and take an onstage risk of the kind mentioned above, […]
For many aspiring writers, that’s the big question: How do you get from #1 to #3? No one can guarantee that you’ll actually profit, of course, but certain steps make it much much much more likely that your work will get out there and find an audience. Though I’m certainly no expert, I’ve been asked many times by students and friends-of-friends how to revise the manuscript, how to find an agent, how to find a publisher. Now Mediabistro—an expert if ever there was one—offers a new series of how-to videos, answering just those questions. Their series “I Just Wrote A […]
In case you missed them, here are the latest features, which FWR was proud to publish over the past month: Greg Schutz reviews American Salvage, by Bonnie Jo Campbell, noting that many of the stories [evoke] the ache at the center of the rural experience with startling clarity and force. The stories in American Salvage know what it means to occupy landscapes in which humans are outnumbered by animals and in which nature, beautiful and indifferent, rushes in to fill the physical and emotional distances between individuals. Reviewing Laura van den Berg‘s debut collection What the World Will Look Like […]
At last, a middle ground between those who love their computers and those who prefer typewriters. Sort of. Artist Jack Zyklin has found a way to connect a typewriter to a computer: The USBTypewriter is a new and groundbreaking innovation in the field of obsolescence. Lovers of the look, feel, and quality of old fashioned manual typewriters can now use them as keyboards for any USB-capable computer, such as a PC, Mac, or even iPad! For the curious, Zyklin’s website offers a demo video and a schematic of how it works. And for those wanting to take the plunge, you […]
Like many writers, I often get caught up in details. While working on my novel, I found myself checking the phases of the moon for a particular night, the temperature and weather for a particular day, whether Post-It Notes had been invented by 1977 (no), and when those annoying fasten-seat-belt warning lights became standard in cars (earlier than you’d think). Yes, fiction is made up—but sometimes, if I find myself setting an event in a particular place at a particular time, I feel obligated to get the facts right. Now the Canadian literary journal Taddle Creek is taking fact-checking to […]
Maybe it’s summer—too sunny out to work inside!—or maybe it’s just the 80º+ weather in Boston, but I’ve been feeling a little… tired. Just in time, Paperback Writer has a post on how to combat fatigue—physical, mental, and, most importantly for writers, creative: Creating on demand, always being on, always being told we’re not good enough, we’re not successful enough, and we’re not doing enough. I’ve been working this gig for twelve years now and I can tell you this much: the pressure never ends. I understand the siren song of all the hype that’s attached to things like social […]
As FWR readers know, we’re big fans of the work that Dzanc Books does for the literary world. Not just in terms of publishing, but also education. In addition to the Dzanc Writer In Residence Program, which helps put writers into Michigan schools, and the Dzanc Prize, which gives money to writers to conduct writing workshops in places like VA hospitals, prisons, and in refugee communities, they also offer online tutoring and manuscript consultation through the Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions. All of these are necessary and enriching programs, and we are grateful to have had the opportunity to partner with […]
