Suspend Your Disbelief

Author Archive

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Under the Influence: Around the Campfire of Literature with James Salter’s Opening Paragraphs

“Above all, it must be compelling,” James Salter told the Paris Review in 1993 when asked about his idea of the short story. “You’re sitting around the campfire of literature, so to speak, and various voices speak up out of the dark and begin talking. With some, your mind wanders or you doze off, but with others you are held by every word. The first line, the first sentence, the first paragraph, all have to compel you.” Long before I ever read those remarks by Salter, I’d already come under the influence of his short stories and, in particular, his […]


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Stories We Love: The Great Salt Gift of Alistair MacLeod’s “The Boat”

“Slow and rich and so atmospheric that you can taste the ocean’s salt spray on your lips, ‘The Boat’ is run through with that rarest of qualities in fiction: the story feels mythic”: Joshua Bodwell on Alistair MacLeod’s short fiction.