Suspend Your Disbelief

Contributor Types

Anne Stameshkin

Founding Editor

Anne Stameshkin lives in Brooklyn. Her fiction has been published in the Chattahoochee Review andNimrod, and her book reviews have appeared inEnfuse magazine. Anne holds an MFA (fiction) from the University of Michigan. She pays the bills as a freelance editor, writer, and writing teacher, most recently at Connecticut College. While in-house at McGraw-Hill, Anne edited a number of literature and composition texts and two craft books—Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola and The Sincerest Form: Writing Fiction by Imitation by Nicholas Delbanco, among other projects. She is currently at work on a novel. Some recently published collections she recommends include If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This by Robin Black, The Theory of Light and Matter by Andrew Porter, and Boys and Girls Like You and Me by Aryn Kyle.


Articles

Shop Talk |

National Book Awards — and brief musings on "theme"

by Anne Stameshkin

Congratulations to Peter Matthiessen, whose novel Shadow Country just captured the 2008 NBA in Fiction. In this interview (conducted after his book was named a finalist), Mattheissen describes his writing process and shares why he thinks fiction matters. Interviewer Bret Anthony Johnston asked the author what the “engine” behind his novel was: BAJ: For some writers, the engine that powers their fiction is character. For others, it’s language. For others still, the engine might loosely be called “theme.” Do you identify with any of those? What sparked the initial idea for you? PM: Very important as those are, the seed […]


Shop Talk |

the fiction of development

by Anne Stameshkin

A new report called The Fiction of Development: Literary Representation as a Source of Authoritative Knowledge praises literary fiction as an important resource for a global society. To quote the Guardian‘s Books Blog: A team from Manchester University and the London School of Economics claim that stories and their writers can do just as much as academics and policy researchers, perhaps even more, to explain and communicate the world’s problems. Fiction, they boldly venture, can be just as useful as fact. You can read the report in its entirety (including a recommended reading list) here.


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recommended exhibit: Eudora Welty in New York

by Anne Stameshkin

Fellow NYCers and fans of Fiction Goddess Eudora Welty, this one’s for you. Today at 2 PM, curator Sean Corcoran will lead a tour (free with museum admission) of the Museum of the City of New York’s exhibition Eudora Welty in New York: Photographs of the Early 1930s. For more information on today’s event, read this, and to learn about the exhibit itself (which runs through February 16) and teaser photos, go here.


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AWP 2009

by Anne Stameshkin

This is just a happy little note to say that FWR will be at AWP in February 2009; this year, the conference is in Chicago. We won’t have a table of our own or a listing in the program, but we will be operating in guerrilla-style from a corner of the Michigan MFA table, spreading the Fictional Word with mugs and T-shirts and business cards (and possibly a working laptop). I’ll be actively looking to make publisher contacts, to recruit writer-reviewers, to meet authors, and to boost readership. If you’re going to be at the conference, let me know if […]


Shop Talk |

maintenance

by Anne Stameshkin

FWR’s super-amazing designer Marissa is doing some site maintenance/improvement work this weekend (because she is the Patron Saint of Fiction). I want to assure readers who have emailed to say, “Help! A review is also listed on the blog!” (or similar) to have no fear; everything will be restored to its rightful place – and look even nicer – in the end. Thanks, Marissa!!


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Yes we did!

by Anne Stameshkin

At least today, words can’t capture what this election day means to our country and to the entire world. We hosted a party, hollered and cheered with hoards of fellow Brooklynites in the streets till nearly dawn, yawped from the rooftops, hugged strangers, wept. It may be a few days before I come down from this real, real high and can think about fiction. OBAMA!!!


Shop Talk |

VOTE!

by Anne Stameshkin

In case there’s a long line, bring some election-themed litereature; the Picador blog has a few suggestions, along with a lament that there aren’t more novels in this genre. To explain voting to the little ones, here’s a list of children’s books about elections. Also check out Jon Meacham’s essay “How to Read Like a President,” in which he discusses the reading habits of past presidents, Barack Obama, and John McCain. What do each candidate’s favorite books say about how he sees the world or might lead this country? Now stop reading this, all you writers and readers; go out […]




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