Suspend Your Disbelief

Author Archive

Shop Talk |

Journal of the Week subscription winners: BOMB

by Celeste Ng

We’re delighted to announce the winners of our BOMB Journal of the Week giveaway, chosen at random from our Twitter followers. Congratulations to: Sonia Rumzi (@SRumzi) Fic Addict (@fic_addict) Alice Tasman (@AliceTasman) You’ll each receive a complimentary one-year subscription to BOMB! Please contact us at winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com with your contact information and we’ll coordinate the rest. If you missed the profile of BOMB and the exclusive interview with General Manager, Digital Strategy Paul Morris, you can read the whole thing in our blog archives. And remember: if you’d like to be eligible for future journal giveaways, please visit our […]


Shop Talk |

Book of the Week: Binocular Vision, by Edith Pearlman

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s featured title is Edith Pearlman’s story collection Binocular Vision. The consummate short story writer, Edith Pearlman has published more than 250 works of short fiction and non-fiction over the past four decades. Her fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, New Stories from the South, the Antioch Review, Ascent, the New England Review, and The Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses. Pearlman has written travel essays about Budapest, Tokyo and the Costwalds for the New York Times, and reflections on the allure of the roulette table, and her husband’s “mistress” – […]


Shop Talk |

"The loose change in the treasury of fiction"

by Celeste Ng

Why do we need a Short Story Month? The things we designate particular months or days to celebrate are the things we tend to overlook: mothers, ve terans, black history, flags. And indeed, the short story is often overlooked or dismissed in favor of its bigger, flashier, more prominent cousin, the novel. Think about it: how many short story collections can you name? Unless you’re a fiction writer—and maybe even if you are—the answer is probably in the single digits. How many novels can you name? You see my point. So why is the short story given such short shrift? […]


Shop Talk |

The Collection Giveaway Project 2011

by Lee Thomas

Short Story Month is off with a bang! Inspired by the Emerging Writers Network who inaugurated May as Short Story Month in 2007—and the Big Poetry Giveaway for National Poetry Month, Fiction Writers Review is excited to welcome you to our second year of The Collection Giveaway Project: a community effort by lit bloggers to raise attention for short story collections. Thanks to all who have already emailed FWR Contributing Editor Erika Dreifus, who is spearheading the CGP this year. For participating blogs, and details on how YOU can participate in The Collection Giveaway Project, please visit the CGP Home. […]


Shop Talk |

Stories We Love: "Dog Song"

by Lee Thomas

I’ve been wary of dog yarns ever since my mother sobbed through the final chapters of Where the Red Fern Grows, and I didn’t discover until years later the real fate of Old Dan. It was affecting – perhaps too much so – but I also felt cheated somehow, that an emotion so universally felt was a writer’s cheap shot. Some stories come like a revelation. Ann Pancake’s “Dog Song”—twenty-one pages of alchemical genius, pure voice, and indescribable originality—changed my mind about the dogs, and made me an evangelist. Evan Rehill has been championing this story, and gave it to […]


Shop Talk |

Get Writing: Cross-Out

by Celeste Ng

Sometimes, when you’re faced with a blank page, the thought of filling that page with even one word of your own is Just. Too. Daunting. Here’s an exercise for those days. You won’t need to write a single word—you’ll be taking words away. Find a paragraph of someone else’s writing. It can be a passage from a story or essay, a section of a news article, whatever. Cross off or delete words and create a mini-story (or story fragment) of 60 words or less from the remaining words. For an extra challenge, keep the original paragraph’s word order. Here is […]


Shop Talk |

You're invited: FWR's Stort Story Month Celebration!

by Celeste Ng

The editors and contributors of Fiction Writers Review cordially invite you to celebrate Short Story Month with them. Details below! Who: Short story lovers everywhere When: The entire month of May—coverage starts Sunday, May 1. As part of the celebration, we’ll have special weekend posts, too! Where: All across the site, from reviews to interviews to the blog What: Here’s just a preview of the content we’ll be featuring: Reviews of fantastic story collections Interviews with master short story writers like Mary Gaitskill and Robert Boswell “Stories We Love” blog posts – writers on the stories that inspire them—and why […]


Shop Talk |

Things to do with your books (besides read them)

by Celeste Ng

1. Make a vase. Craft blog Green Upgrader presents this video tutorial by crafter Jennifer Berry on turning a book into a (decorative) vase: 2. Make a carpet. Design blog Apartment Therapy highlights this rug made by artist Pamela Paulsrud from the spines of actual books: 3. Make a… restaurant. That’s right. The Brushstroke restaurant in NYC features one wall made entirely of books. The Gothamist has photos. I love books, and I love clever repurposing, but sometimes the sight of so many ex-books gives me the same queasy feeling I get when I look at taxidermy projects. How do […]


Essays |

Looking Backward: Third-Generation Fiction Writers and the Holocaust

by Erika Dreifus

As the annual observance of Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) approaches, Erika Dreifus discusses the literary kinship among works from an emerging cohort of “3G” (third-generation) Jewish writers: Julie Orringer’s The Invisible Bridge, Alison Pick’s Far to Go, and Natasha Solomons’ Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English.




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