Suspend Your Disbelief

Author Archive

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Our Job

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Since the death of The Virginia Quarterly Review’s Managing Editor, Kevin Morrissey, at the end of July, there has been much discussion in the literary, academic, and publishing communities about what led up to this tragedy. Some of the reporting has been sensational, some praised as investigative journalism. Frequently, both have been said of the same article. Needless to say, the dialogue at times has been vitriolic. Particularly in the sprawling comment threads that have followed so many of the essays published online in such places as The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Hook. Eventually the story grew so […]


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Reality and imagination: two sides of the same coin?

by Celeste Ng

In an essay for the New York Times, professor of logic Timothy Williamson examines the connections between imagination and reality—and comes to some counterintuitive conclusions: On further reflection, imagining turns out to be much more reality-directed than the stereotype implies. If a child imagines the life of a slave in ancient Rome as mainly spent watching sports on TV, with occasional household chores, they are imagining it wrong. That is not what it was like to be a slave. The imagination is not just a random idea generator. The test is how close you can come to imagining the life […]


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Choose Your Own E-venture

by Celeste Ng

If you decide to follow the tunnel, turn to page 151. If you decide to cross the bridge, turn to page 12. Remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books? Now you can enjoy the series in ebook format with the new iPhone app U-Ventures. The app was created by Edward Packard, one of the authors of the original Choose Your Own Adventure series and creator of U-Ventures. In an interview with NPR host Neal Conan, Packard comments on some of the narrative changes made possible by the new digital format. First there are the obvious bells and whistles that ebooks […]


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Sharpie's new liquid pencil

by Celeste Ng

So say you’ve decided to unplug for a while. That doesn’t mean you have to go completely low-tech. The new liquid pencil from Sharpie, for example, seems like an ingenious new invention. Wait, you may be saying. A pencil from Sharpie? Aren’t those polar opposites? As it turns out, no. The pencil’s “ink,” made from liquid graphite, can be erased like an ordinary pencil—for three days. After that, the ink becomes permanent. I’ve always liked writing in pencil, and to me, this sounds like it might offer all the benefits (erasability, flexibility of expression) without the downsides (smudging and ineveitable […]


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3rd Annual Dzanc Books Write-a-Thon

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Take a day off to write next week. Or maybe just an afternoon. Either way, you can disconnect for a few hours, put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, and in the process help raise money for Dzanc Books. Each year Dzanc holds a Write-a-Thon to raise money for their Writer-in-Residence Program and the Dzanc Prize. These charitable programs help put writers into schools and other places like VA hospitals, prisons, and refugee communities. So you’ll not only be helping a great nonprofit organization, but also setting aside some time for yourself and your work. As someone who’s participated […]


Interviews |

The Truth About Fiction: An Interview with Peter Selgin

by JT Torres

Peter Selgin’s debut novel, Life Goes to the Movies, is based in large part on his experiences growing up in New York in the 1970s. JT Torres talks to the author about bringing fact to fiction, strategies for the revision process, why identity is so important in his work, and more. Following the interview is an exclusive excerpt from Selgin’s novel-in-progress, Hattertown.


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"The Kids Are All Bright": Elizabeth Ames Staudt on childhood and writing

by Celeste Ng

Friend of FWR (and very talented writer) Elizabeth Ames Staudt reflects in the Kenyon Review on writing about children and one’s children becoming writers: Do writers want their babies to be writers? I feel like, in the way-too–many-celebrity-profiles I’ve read, most famous people hope their progeny will not head Hollywood-wards, but are quick to add that they will support them unflaggingly should they ultimately choose that dangerously glittery path. Except Britney Spears. I’m pretty sure she was quoted saying that she’d lock her sons in a room until they changed their minds. Okay, she really said she would lock them […]


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In Defense of MFA Programs

by Celeste Ng

The more MFA programs spring up, the more people seem to look down on them—as if some kind of MFA-inflation and devaluation were taking place. Novelist Lev Raphael, however, recently wrote about why he found his MFA program valuable: I was at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst MFA program for two and a half years back when it was rated in the top ten, for whatever that’s worth. The workshops kept me writing and turning in stories, even when I wasn’t in the mood, a good lesson to learn for a writer like me who later ended up doing […]


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How old is too old for YA*?

by Celeste Ng

That’s what Pamela Paul wants to know in her recent New York Times essay. Observes Paul: But big type and short, plot-driven chapters aside, the erosion of age-­determined book categories, initiated by Harry Potter, has been hastened along by an influx of crossover authors like Stephenie Meyer and interlopers like Sherman Alexie, James Patterson, Francine Prose, Carl Hiaasen and John Grisham, to name just a few stars from across the spectrum of adult fiction who have turned to writing Y.A. According to surveys by the Codex Group, a consultant to the publishing industry, 47 percent of 18- to 24-year-old women […]




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