Suspend Your Disbelief

Author Archive

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McSweeney's 33: Litmag Meets News

by Celeste Ng

McSweeney’s next issue will be packaged in the form of an old-fashioned newspaper. The New York Times‘s ArtsBeat reports: McSweeney’s No. 33 is to be in the form of a daily broadsheet — a big, old-fashioned broadsheet. The pages will measure 22 by 15 inches. (Pages of The New York Times, by comparison, are 22 by 11 1/2 inches.) Called San Francisco Panorama, the editors say it is, in large part, homage to an institution that they feel, contrary to conventional wisdom, still has a lot of life in it. Their experience in publishing literary fiction is something of a […]


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I Can't Go On, I'll Go On

by Celeste Ng

Junot Diaz has a powerful and inspiring essay in O Magazine about writing his Pulitzer-Prize winning novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Though the piece is titled “Becoming a Writer,” it’s really an account of almost giving up on writing and, inexorably, being drawn back to it: Nothing I wrote past page 75 made any kind of sense. Nothing. Which would have been fine if the first 75 pages hadn’t been pretty damn cool. But they were cool, showed a lot of promise. Would also have been fine if I could have just jumped to something else. But […]


Interviews |

Unexpected Connections: A Conversation with Allison Amend

by Celeste Ng

Celeste Ng talks with Allison Amend about the author’s debut short story collection, Things That Pass for Love, as well as “likeable” characters, unfaithful dogs, the future of short fiction, Allison’s current projects, and those unexpected moments we share with strangers.


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Rolling back prices, indeed—Wal-Mart and Amazon in preorder price war for this season’s new hardcovers

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

In the Arts section of today’s New York Times, Motoko Rich reports on the “tit-for-tat price war between Wal-Mart and Amazon [that] accelerated late on Friday afternoon when Wal-Mart shaved another cent off its already rock-bottom prices for hardcover editions of some of the coming holiday season’s biggest potential best sellers, offering them online for $8.99 apiece.” Originally the company had intended to sell these selected books at $10, but Amazon, perhaps feeling threatened by Wal-Mart’s foray into the online retail market, retaliated by lowering their prices on the same titles to a mere $9. So Wal-Mart responded in kind, […]


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Furnishings of a literary life

by Celeste Ng

How often do we think about our books as physical objects, part of the essential furniture of our homes? The Elegant Variation has a lovely little post about the joy of setting up one’s library again after a move: So now the arduous task of refilling the books begins. First, we need to douse the whole collection to protect against silverfish (also at Mrs. TEV’s insistence). Then I need to incorporate new additions to my library into the boxes packed more than a year ago, and figure out exactly how to order the whole thing. (The previous arrangement could politely […]


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2009 National Book Award finalists: "strangers" no more

by Anne Stameshkin

For the Star Tribune, Laurie Hertzel comments on this year’s remarkably un-famous crop of fiction finalists; many seemed dark horses next to literary legends like Margaret Atwood, Kazsuo Ishiguro, Lorrie Moore, and John Irving — each of whom published new books this fall, and none of whom made the list. To get better acquainted with the work of one finalist, here’s an excerpt from Column McCann’s Let the Great World Spin.


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P&W: Top 50 creative writing programs, and a conversation with Jonathan Karp

by Anne Stameshkin

The numbers are in…and the top 50 creative writing MFA programs are ranked in the new issue of Poets & Writers. Here’s an excerpt from the accompanying article by Seth Abramson, who compiled the list based on extensive research. (Note: The full article is available only in the print edition.) Abramson admits the difficulties of quantifying and comparing MFA program experiences: [T]he evils of educational rankings are indeed legion and do urge caution on the part of any prospective analyst of MFA programs. At base it is impossible to quantify or predict the experience any one MFA candidate will have […]


Reviews |

Asta in the Wings, by Jan Elizabeth Watson

by Lee Thomas

In her debut novel, Asta in the Wings (Tin House, 2009), Jan Elizabeth Watson captures the peculiar insightfulness of childhood through her seven-year-old narrator, Asta. Forbidden – ever – to leave the house and left alone during the day, Asta and her brother, Orion, fear a plague that their troubled mother has convinced them lurks outside their locked door and tar-papered windows. As Orion recounts: “The plague started some years ago … in a faraway land … not long after our father died from walking straight into the ocean.” These dark allusions underpin the children’s day as it unfolds in whimsical games amid stark circumstance. Yet when the children are forced to enter the outside world, we become even more fearful for their safety.


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National Book Award Finalists Announced

by Celeste Ng

The National Book Foundation has announced the 2009 National Book Award Finalists. Here are the contenders in fiction: Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press) Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin (Random House) Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W. W. Norton & Co.) Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf) Marcel Theroux, Far North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) The complete list, as well as other fun stats and figures, can be found here. Winners will be announced on November 18 at the 60th National Book Awards Benefit Dinner and Ceremony in New York. […]


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Win A Critique From Nathan Bransford

by Celeste Ng

Over at his eponymous blog, literary agent Nathan Bransford (of Curtis Brown Ltd. in San Francisco) is running his “3rd Sort-of-Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge.” Post the first paragraph of your work-in-progress on the contest page, and Bransford will select those he deems strongest as finalists. Readers of his blog will then vote to determine the contest winner. Finalists get query critiques, and the winner will receive: “(1) Their choice of a partial critique, query critique, or phone consultation; (2) A very-sought-after galley of THE SECRET YEAR by Jennifer Hubbard, which will be published by Viking in January; (3) […]




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