Suspend Your Disbelief

Author Archive

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Boston's Most Powerful Women: Sheriffs, Senators, Attorneys General, and… Writers?

by Celeste Ng

Boston Magazine recently compiled “The 50 Most Powerful Women in Boston,” listing “the players who pull the strings around here.” The list included Beantown superwomen like the county sheriff, a state senator, the founder of Zipcar, the Massachusetts Attorney General, bank executives, lawyers, the presidents of Harvard and MIT, and… Eve Bridburg, the founder and executive director of the nonprofit writing center Grub Street. The magazine describes Bridburg as “[g]uiding more than 10,000 writers over the literary center’s 14 years, including everyone from untried hopefuls to award-winning novelists such as Iris Gomez and Randy Susan Meyers.” How refreshing that a […]


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[Poetry for Prosers] Recommended Reads from 2010

Fiction writers are sometimes the first to prostrate themselves and say they don’t get poetry, but these five recommendations have been hand-picked for prosers: Post Moxie by Julia Story, Thin Kimono by Michael Earl Craig, Noose and Hook by Lynn Emanuel, The Madeleine Poems by Paul Legault, and American Fanatics by Dorothy Barresi.


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"To train our hearts and our minds in the art of complexity"

by Celeste Ng

Do yourself a favor and read this fantastic essay, “How Reading Junot Diaz Can Help America Prosper,” by friend of FWR Dean Bakopoulos, right now. It’s one of the most eloquent, passionate explanations for why fiction matters that I’ve ever seen. I’d like to quote the whole thing, but here’s just a taste: Another morning, after I lectured on Junot Diaz’s story “Nilda,” a heartbreaking coming-of-age story in which the narrator, Junior, learns that nobody is invincible, not even his once mythically heroic brother, struck down by cancer at seventeen. Despite Junior’s intentions on leaving his neighborhood and moving on, […]


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Thursday morning candy: Vectors

by Lee Thomas

In homage to the conversation about teaching creative writing in 21st century that we published last week, I’d like to highlight something a little different to jolt your creativity this Thursday morning. Vectors: A Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular. I first heard of it via Anna Leahy’s shout out in Part 2 of the aforementioned essay, “Where Are We Going Next?” The USC-based journal may not be a lit magazine in the traditional sense, but spending some time on the site has certainly gotten my mind racing with ideas, connections, energy – all vital to the […]


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HuffPo, $315 mil, and when to write for free

by Lee Thomas

At 9 a.m. on the Saturday of AWP, I rallied for “When Should We Write for Free?” – a panel that, just like it sounds, featured writers discussing their own guidelines to answer that question. The panel gave insight into a marketplace that has rapidly grown accustomed to free content. There was much discussion during the audience Q&A about providing free content – mostly in the form of blogging – and folks mentioned the Huffington Post several times, since their bloggers are not paid. Fast forward to last week, when the Huffington Post announced that AOL would acquire it for […]


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DO Judge a Book By Its Cover.

by Celeste Ng

Speaking of judging books by their covers, one branch of the New York Public Library recently asked readers to do just that. The NYPL blog explains: At the Webster Branch, we recently put up a display with all of the books covered in brown paper. Above it there is a sign that reads: “Do You Judge a Book by Its Cover?” The rules are if you unwrap a book—based on the short description taped to it—you must check it out. Even if you’ve read it before, or if you think you won’t like it. Take it home, give it a […]


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Best American Short Fiction from Storyville

by Lee Thomas

Many of you blog readers may recall Michael’s great post about the launch of Storyville – the mobile short story magazine that sends a short story to your iPhone or iPad every week for $4.99 / 6 month subscription. Quite a steal. Starting today, and for the next two Tuesdays, Storyville will feature one story from each of the three collections that are Finalists for The Story Prize, the largest cash prize – $20,000 – for best story collection published the previous year. The stories will be drawn from the three finalist collections: Memory Wall by Anthony Doerr (Scribners), Death […]


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Book of the Week: The Bigness of the World, by Lori Ostlund

Each week we give away several free copies of a featured novel or story collection as part of our Book-of-the-Week program. Last week we featured Urban Waite’s debut novel The Terror of Living, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: John Taylor, Jodi Paloni, and Michelle Hoover. Congratulations! Each will receive a signed copy of this novel. This week we’re featuring Lori Ostlund’s debut collection The Bigness of the World. Stories from this book have appeared in The Georgia Review, New England Review, The Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Bellingham Review, Hobart, and Blue Mesa Review. Additionally, “All Boy” was selected […]


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Got 10 Minutes? Save Publishing!

by Celeste Ng

Supply and demand is the basic rule of economics. But will it work for books? Author Sean Cummings thinks so. He’s created a Facebook group and an accompanying website called “Save Publishing! Read a Book at Bedtime.” The site’s rationale: Read what you like. A magazine, a newspaper or a book. Read it in print or on an eBook reader or an iPad – whatever. Just ten minutes a night, a tiny commitment but an important one. If enough people will commit to reading at bedtime for ten minutes, they’ll eventually finish the books they’re reading. If they continue to […]


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Good Sex Awards (NSFW)

by Celeste Ng

Perhaps you’ve enjoyed the Literary Review’s Bad Sex Awards in the past. This year, Salon inaugurated its first annual Good Sex Award, intended to “reward the best-written, most interesting and most convincing piece of sex writing published in a novel in 2010.” The winner, announced today, is James Hynes’s Next. Here’s an excerpt: Then Lynda murmurs “Wait” right in his ear, and as he clutches her waist under her dress she unbends first one leg and then the other over the railing, settling tightly against him, taking him in even deeper. She tightens her calves against the railing and squeezes […]




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