Suspend Your Disbelief

Author Archive

Shop Talk |

new review on FWR: The Moon in Deep Winter by Lee Polevoi

by Tyler McMahon

Click here to read Tyler McMahon’s review in full. Here’s a taste: Like a cold, northeastern version of Thomas McGuane’s 92 in the Shade, Lee Polevoi’s impressive debut novel, The Moon in Deep Winter, is the story of a misguided homecoming gone wrong. After years spent as a bit player on the margins of Southern California’s criminal underworld, Parker returns to his rural New England town, hoping to reconcile differences with his mother, his younger half-siblings, and his dictatorial step-father. He soon finds that his family secrets run even deeper and darker than he thought.


Essays |

Quotes & Notes: Peering and Leaping into the Author/Character Vortex, Part 1

by Steven Wingate

Let’s face it: fiction writers do not have a reputation for being carefree, untroubled souls. Even
our fellow artists consider us broody navel-gazers who are overly introspective and perhaps even in love with our own problems. (We do, after all, tend to keep writing about characters whose psychic profiles overlap significantly with ours.) The general public is hardly more charitable, usually assuming that (a) we study them to gather material, or (b) we all write thinly-veiled autobiography, and are so blind as to not even be aware of it. Do we deserve assessments like these? Probably so…


Shop Talk |

Center for Fiction Writers' Conference

by Anne Stameshkin

Fiction super-hero Ron Hogan (editor of Beatrice and senior editor of GalleyCat) and the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction have been in cahoots, and I am thrilled to announce that in just a few weeks, they will launch an exciting event: the first ever Center for Fiction Writers’ Conference. This day-long symposium is specifically intended for writers who already have a finished book and an agent, but who want to learn more about how the publishing world works–and how best to navigate it. In this post on Buzz, Balls, and Hype, Ron Hogan blogs about why this conference is important […]


Shop Talk |

The Program Era: future FWR discussion?

by Anne Stameshkin

After a hermitish week and weekend of work, I finally had the chance to sit down with my New Yorker this morning and read Louis Menand’s essayistic review of Mark McGurl’s The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing (Harvard UP, Apr. 2009). It inspired me to order a copy of the book, which I think might be a great one to discuss via a group review on FWR. Who would be interested in joining this group review, which we’d aim to do in early August? Celeste, I know you’re in (and thanks to both you and […]


Reviews |

Forgetting English, by Midge Raymond

by Erika Dreifus

In her impressive debut collection, Forgetting English, Midge Raymond sets her stories in a variety of locations outside the continental United States. How many other collections can you think of that contain eight stories spanning four continents: Africa, Asia, Antarctica, and North America (mainly Hawaii)? Alongside personal, human histories, Raymond incorporates larger traditions. Marriage rites. Fertility symbols. The meaning of jade. The natural history of the penguin.


Shop Talk |

new essay on FWR: Peering and Leaping into the Author/Character Vortex, Part 1, by Steven Wingate

by Anne Stameshkin

FWR just posted the first installment of Quotes and Notes, a monthly craft essay series by Steven Wingate. Each essay responds to a (famous or obscure) dictum on writing from a prominent fiction writer. This month’s quotation comes from Raymond Carver: “You are not your characters, but your characters are you.” From Steven’s response: Let’s face it: fiction writers do not have a reputation for being carefree, untroubled souls. Even our fellow artists consider us broody navel-gazers who are overly introspective and perhaps even in love with our own problems. (We do, after all, tend to keep writing about characters […]


Shop Talk |

Pamela Ehrenberg's blog tour: June 7-15

by Anne Stameshkin

On June 11th, Pam Ehrenberg will make FWR a stop on the blog tour for her second YA novel, Tillmon County Fire (Eerdmans). Here’s an excerpt from School Library Journal‘s review (by Melissa Moore, Union University Library, Jackson, TN) of Tillmon County Fire: This cleverly plotted and well-crafted story of abuse and vengeance is told in pieces from the varying perspectives of a half-dozen teens, and Ehrenberg uses intertwining chapters to explore their motives and desires. Particularly compelling are the voices of Rob, a gay teen transplanted from Manhattan, and Albert, a developmentally challenged 16-year-old whose twin is befriended by […]


Shop Talk |

Andrew's Book Club: June 2009 recs

by Anne Stameshkin

Andrew’s Book Club recommends Josh Weil‘s debut collection, The New Valley (Grove), as June’s Big House pick and Midge Raymond‘s Forgetting English (Eastern Washington UP), winner of the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, as its University Press pick. Also new on the ABC site is Andrew’s interview with Bonnie Jo Campbell, whose story collection American Salvage was a pick last month. **This week, FWR will publish Erika Dreifus‘ review of Forgetting English, so check back to read more about it.**




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