Suspend Your Disbelief

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1,000 Words Are Worth a Picture

by Celeste Ng

Here’s something I hope becomes a trend: illustrated short stories. The Creative Company produces illustrated versions of classic short stories, each bound as its own beautiful mini-book. With titles that recall 11th-grade English, like Frank Stockton’s “The Lady or the Tiger,” Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” these books are geared towards in-school use. Writes The School Library Journal: Each book contains the story itself with various sections written in different colored fonts. Then there is a series of thoughts on the story, and finally a biography of […]


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Book Lamp, Literally

by Celeste Ng

Designer Martin Konrad Gloecke has designed a book lamp that uses your own book as a lampshade—and functions as a bookmark. Writes Gloecke on his website: wall light. complete lamp by adding book as lamp shade. remove book for reading, change lamp by changing book, use as bookmark. part of un-readymades series: inspires, encourages, and enables creativity, play, product interaction, and personal expression. And if you like that, check out Gloecke’s “Booked” table—a set of legs that attach to your own book to form an end table. Via GalleyCat and FYB.


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Price vs. Value

by Celeste Ng

How much does a book cost? What’s the value of a book? Obvious as it sounds, those are two separate questions—but as Kassia Krozser points out on her lit blog Booksquare, they’re often conflated by readers and publishers alike: The publisher sold readers a book they knew was not very good. Yes, the publisher had to know. Someone on the editorial staff (presumably) read the book. Someone with (presumably) enough discernment to realize the book was crap. Someone who should have had the guts to say to the author that the book didn’t pass muster. You know, instead of foisting […]


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Book of the Week Giveaway: Best of the Web 2010, edited by Kathy Fish and Matt Bell

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

At the end of August, Fiction Writers Review launched a Fan Page on Facebook. The goal is threefold: to introduce new readers to FWR, to create an informal place for conversations about writing, and also to give away lots of free books. Each week we’ll give away several free copies of a featured novel or story collection as part of our Book-of-the-Week program. All you have to do to be eligible for our weekly drawing is to be a fan of our Facebook page. No catch, no gimmicks. And once you’re a fan, you’ll be automatically entered in each subsequent […]


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Which are greener: paper books or ebooks?

by Celeste Ng

On Slate, Brian Palmer asks that very question: Think of an e-reader as the cloth diaper of books. Sure, producing one Kindle is tougher on the environment than printing a single copy of Pride and Prejudice. But every time you download and read an electronic book, rather than purchasing a new pile of paper, you’re paying back a little bit of the carbon dioxide and water deficit. The actual operation of an e-reader represents a small percentage of its total environmental impact, so if you run your device into the ground, you’ll end up paying back that debt many times […]


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Desert Nights, Rising Stars: The ASU Writers Conference

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Sponsored by the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University, the Desert Nights, Rising Stars returns March 3-6, 2011. The conference brings writers of all levels together for four days in Tempe to study fiction, poetry, or creative nonfiction. Participants have the opportunity to hone their craft in the classroom with distinguished writers, sharing dialogue during classes, readings, and other events. Master Classes add five hours of morning instruction, spread over three days, in a group of no more than ten. This allows an experience that is both intimate and affordable. The 2011 conference faculty includes […]


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ReadThis book drive benefits New Orleans school

At FWR, we’ve long admired ReadThis, an all-volunteer organization of writers and editors devoted to promoting access to books and reading wherever needed: to public schools, troops overseas, hospital pediatric wards, and homeless shelters. One of the organization’s recent and ongoing efforts has been to help rebuild the library of St. Bernard Parish’s recently reopened Andrew Jackson Middle School (AJMS), which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Want to donate a much-needed book? Here, drawn up by the school’s librarian, is a wishlist of specific titles; through this list, you can purchase a book for AJMS from the Garden District Book […]


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The Wonder of translation

by Lee Thomas

Translation gives those of us who are not linguistic polymaths access to the great books being written all over the planet. A good translation doesn’t simply convey the story being told – it pays attention to original voice of the author, picking up on nuance and subtleties. The judges of the 2010 PEN Translation Prize found just those shades of meaning in Michael Henry Heim’s translation from the Dutch of Hugo Claus’s Wonder (Archipelago Books). They write: Michael Henry Heim’s outstanding translation has succeeded masterfully in mirroring Hugo Claus’s many voices in this novel that reflects a complex, complicated vision […]


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The "Wolf Hall Effect"

by Celeste Ng

With the 2010 Man Booker Prize announcement just over a week away, let’s take a quick look back. The Booker is one of world’s top literary prizes, and Booker prize winners are regarded as highly influential books. So what effect did last year’s winner, Hilary Mantel’s wildly popular Wolf Hall, have? First, the personal effect on the author herself: in The Economist’s Intelligent Life, Mantel describes her experience winning the Man Booker Prize. Some nine months on, I can report that the Man Booker has done me nothing but good. Because I am in the middle of a project—my next […]


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Calling all Bostonians

by Lee Thomas

As a quick follow-up to the One City One Story post last week, we wanted to let you know where you can get your hands on a copy of Tom Perrotta’s “The Smile on Happy Chang’s Face,” courtesy of the Boston Book Festival. They write: Starting Monday September 27th the story will be available at all Boston Public Library branches, several cafes and bookstores from Charlestown to Rozzie and farmers markets from Dewey Square to Mattapan. You can also grab a copy from one of our fabulous volunteers at select T-stops from 7am – 9am September 27th – October 1st. […]




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