Suspend Your Disbelief

Author Archive

Shop Talk |

the wovel

Editor/publisher Victoria Blake (Underland Press), along with programmer Jesse Pollack, is the force behind a new literary form: the online serial novel, or wovel; NPR describes it as “Choose your Own Adventure meets Wikipedia.” A self-confessed blog addict who loves reading frequently-updated online content, Blake thought it would be great to have opportunities to read literature online in a serial form, a la Dickens (and more recently Chabon), and to have that experience be interactive. Here is Underland’s official description of the wovel (from their website): Every week, the author posts an installment. Installment length hits the sweet-spot of online […]


Shop Talk |

How Fiction Works Discussion Review: Free Indirect Style

I’ve been trying to read Muriel Barbery’s critically acclaimed novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and while I’m relishing many of the author’s ideas, they feel to me like just that–the author’s ideas, not ones that belong to the book’s characters; a wealthy pre-teen and middle-aged concierge spend at least the first section of Hedgehog (I’m on p. 114) hiding their gifted selves from everyone they know while sharing them, mostly in monologue/journaling style, with us. Their use of language is almost identical, as is their attitude toward (and analysis of) the world around them. So much of the book […]


Shop Talk |

can you read like a girl?

On Preeta’s recommendation, here’s a great article from a mother who wishes she could still “read like a girl.” Do others (boys, too…this shouldn’t be so gendered) feel this way, that you can no longer really lose yourself in a book? I’d agree that it’s harder now, and that it depends on what you’re reading and the number of distractions in your life and whether or not you are officially enrolled in an MFA program at the time…but me, I can still read like a girl. What I can’t do, what I often long to do, is to write like […]


Shop Talk |

before the grande non-fat caramel macchiato

New Yorkish writers, take note: Where Edith Wharton grew up on 23rd St., there is now a Starbucks. On the one hand, I picture a quiet afternoon writing in this shop, imagining that Wharton once shared my same view of a (much changed) street. And on the other…I’m envisioning a new walking tour for NYC: “Starbucks and the City.” In my fantasy (wherein the coffee giant would not sue), tourists would amble from identical looking shop to shop whilst a green-aproned guide lectured on what once stood there or who once lived in the building. In addition to excavating layers […]


Shop Talk |

Get totally depressed! Then get your hope on.

The book industry–hell, literature itself–is in jeopardy, and even some of the most avid readers are getting blamed. This has been a very traumatic season for publishing…even highly successful celebrity editors have been laid off from houses big and small, and some publishers aren’t signing any new books. It’s clear we need to think about change at every level of the industry; as publishers, booksellers, journalists, and authors raise the alarm, will we find creative ways to fight the fire or curl up on the floor of a burning house? Read how we might learn to publish without perishing, why […]


Interviews |

Interview with Travis Holland, The Archivist’s Story

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Travis Holland’s first novel, The Archivist’s Story (2007, Dial Press), is set in Stalinist Russia in 1939. The book has been translated into eleven languages and has received numerous accolades, including: a Guardian Readers’ Pick of 2007, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, a Best Fiction of 2007 choice by Metro.co.uk, a Best Book of 2007 by both the Financial Times and Publisher’s Weekly, and the 2008 VCU Cabell First novelist award. He currently lives in Ann Arbor, where he is at work on his next novel. Jeremiah Chamberlin spoke with him for FWR on December 18, 2008.


Shop Talk |

Newbery skirmish

Earlier this fall, School Library Journal published an article called “Has the Newbery Lost Its Way?”, sparking a heated debate about criteria for what has long been recognized as the most prestigious prize in children’s literature. Are the latest Newbery medal-winning books really too “inaccessible” for kids? Should accessibility and popularity be issues in determining a winner? Are popularity and quality mutually exclusive? Does the Newbery tend to favor “good” books over “great” ones? What responsibility does the award have to young readers? What do you think?




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