Suspend Your Disbelief

Author Archive

Shop Talk |

Lit doing good

by Celeste Ng

It might be made up, but fiction can still do a lot of very practical good in the world Here are three recent examples: 1. Tornado relief: In the wake of the tornadoes that devastated Alabama in April, author Shiloh Walker pledged to make a donation of $1 to United Way for every comment left on her blog post. (Via.) 2. Japan earthquake relief: In collaboration with Japanese editor Motoyuki Shibata, A Public Space has launched Monkey Business: New Voices from Japan, an annual English-language version of Shibata’s Japanese journal Monkey Business. To aid relief efforts for the recent earthquake […]


Shop Talk |

Journal of the Week subscription winners: American Short Fiction

by Celeste Ng

We’re delighted to announce the winners of our American Short Fiction Journal of the Week giveaway, chosen at random from our Twitter followers. Congratulations to: Stella MacLean (@Stella__MacLean) J.P. Cunningham (@jpcauthor) Rosemary O’Connor (@RosNovelIdeas) You’ll each receive a complimentary one-year subscription to American Short Fiction! Please contact us at winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com with your contact information and we’ll coordinate the rest. If you missed the profile of American Short Fiction and the exclusive interview with Assoiate Editor Callie Collins, you can read the whole thing in our blog archives. And remember: if you’d like to be eligible for future journal […]


Shop Talk |

Stories We Love: "Map of the City"

by Natalie Bakopoulos

Editor’s note: What? Isn’t Short Story Month over? Yes, it is—but that doesn’t mean we stop loving short stories. So here’s an encore round of “Stories We Love.” In “Map of the City,” a story from her new collection Separate Kingdoms, Valerie Laken portrays the life of an American college student in perostroika-era Moscow. The story is brilliantly structured—the names of Moscow metro stations head the various sections, each of which captures a new moment in time and space and thereby mimics the experience of using the subway: you descend into one station and resurface at another. Perestroika, after all, […]


Shop Talk |

Book of the Week: My American Unhappiness, by Dean Bakopoulos

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s featured title is My American Unhappiness, by Dean Bakopoulos. Bakopoulos was born and raised in metro Detroit, which is the setting of his first novel, Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon (Harcourt, 2005), a New York Times Notable Book. He has lectured at Michigan, Cornell, UW-Madison, and other universities about the economic and environmental problems facing the post-industrial Rust Belt, and has published related essays and criticism in The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, The Progressive, The Believer, and Real Simple. His one-act plays “Phonies” and “Wayside” have been produced […]


Shop Talk |

Plotting out "Plot"

by Celeste Ng

How can graphs and charts help you with your writing? Blogger Derek Sivers shares these story grids from Kurt Vonnegut to help you visualize the plot of your story. (via.) Here’s one of the story of Cinderella: And if nothing else, a graph might put things in perspective. Witness blogger Ed Yong’s graph of what the writing process feels like (via). He’s a science writer, but this could apply just as well to fiction writing: My favorite point, and one I’ve been at all too often: “Regurgitated a plate of idea spaghetti. I’ll never extract a single strand from this. […]


Shop Talk |

Furry little muses

by Celeste Ng

Bubba Zo. Pumpkin. Wanita. Marlowe. New York Social Diary has a great series of photos of writers and their dogs (including the above pooches of Amy Tan, Kurt Vonnegut, Amy Hempel, and Stephen King, respectively). Don’t worry, cat-lovers, we’ve got writers and their cats, too. Here’s Joyce Carol Oates and her kitty:


Shop Talk |

Book-of-the-Week Winners: The New Valley

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Josh Weil’s novella collection The New Valley as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Edward Jarrett (@Edwardjarrett) Daan Kogelmans(@TheVoidComic) J.L. Clyde (@ninsiana0) To claim your signed copy of this collection, 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!


Reviews |

Agaat, by Marlene van Niekerk, trans. Michiel Heyns

Preeta Samarasan finds South African novelist Marlene van Niekerk’s Agaat to be transformative. The story of an Afrikaner woman and the black servant who has worked for her for most of both their lives, Agaat examines relationships of race and power between the two women by employing a stunning combination of structural intricacy, stylistic range, and daring allegory.


Shop Talk |

Europa Editions celebrates publication of its 100th book

It was an unbridled love fest. And not only because I was there, Tuesday night in New York City, swooning a little to be in the presence of all those Europa-eans. Author Stacy Schiff described Europa’s Old Filth, by Jane Gardam, as “unforgivably perfect.” Two of the press’s translators, Alison Anderson and Ann Goldstein, spoke of their passion for their work: “If you really love the book, you make it your own,” Anderson said. The event was held at Housing Works Bookstore Café and co-sponsored by McNally Jackson Books—two of New York’s best beloved independent bookstores—and the circle of love […]




Literary Partners