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

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THIS WEEKEND: Haiti Relief at Greenlight Bookstore

by Anne Stameshkin

In my old (and much-missed) neighborhood of Fort Greene in Brooklyn, the fabulous Greenlight Bookstore is doing its part to raise money for Haiti. NYC-based readers, shop at Greenlight today and tomorrow to help! Via the store’s newsletter: A lot has been given to us at Greenlight Bookstore. It’s high time for us to give back. The earthquake in Haiti has affected many of our Brooklyn neighbors, and we want to do what we can to assist in the relief efforts there. So, this weekend, Saturday January 23 and Sunday January 24, Greenlight Bookstore will donate 10% of all sales […]


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REMINDER: Amazing *Poets & Writers* deal for FWR readers! Sign up by tomorrow to get the Jan/Feb Issue

by Anne Stameshkin

As we announced earlier this month, Poets & Writers is continuing to offer a special deal to FWR readers (a description that includes anyone lucky enough to stumble across this post): only $12 for a year-long subscription! Take advantage of this hugely discounted rate by subscribing — or renewing your current subscription — via this link. Be sure to sign up by Friday, January 15 (tomorrow) if you want your subscription to include the Jan/Feb 2010 issue, which includes the first installment of FWR Associate Editor Jeremiah Chamberlin’s Inside Indie Bookstores series. Subscribing through this link will help show support […]


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Who should ReadThis help next?

by Anne Stameshkin

In 2009, the now year-old organization ReadThis hit the ground running with a number of ambitious (and notably successful) projects–such as sending books to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and creating libraries for a Bronx public school and a Harlem children’s hospital. Who should ReadThis help supply books to in 2010? If you have suggestions, the board would love to hear from you. Via today’s Facebook message: ReadThis will be having a board meeting in a couple of weeks to plan the next six months of ReadThis activities. If you know of a school, workplace, hospital, military base, literacy organization, […]


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Poets & Writers Subscription Deal

by Anne Stameshkin

As you know, we’re big fans of Poets & Writers Magazine around here. So we’re excited to announce that this magazine has generously agreed to offer our readers a special subscription rate of only $12. The reason for this offer is to help build support for a new series in P&W called “Inside Indie Bookstores,” written by our Associate Editor, Jeremiah Chamberlin. Each issue will feature an important independent bookstore around the country. The first to be profiled will be Square Books, of Oxford, Mississippi. We hope that you will take advantage of this great deal. You’ll not only be […]


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Literary Gifts #1: EWN's Holiday Shopping Guide and more

by Anne Stameshkin

During this holiday season, many FWR contributors and readers enjoy giving friends and family gifts of the literary variety: novels we know they’d love, subscriptions to lit magazines or journals, a Kindle or Nook, blank notebooks, the perfect pen, novelist-friendly software like Scrivener. Want some inspiration? We’ll be linking to bookish gift ideas throughout the holiday season. Be sure to visit the Emerging Writers Network frequently over the next month: the site has just kicked off its Holiday Shopping Guide; in the EWN’s most recent newsletter, Dan Wickett tells us the guide will feature numerous posts (at least one a […]


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Largehearted Lit, with Marie Mutsuki Mockett and Emma Straub

by Anne Stameshkin

NYC-based writers: on Sunday, December 6 at 5 PM, gather for a free and awesome Largehearted Lit event at the Knitting Factory (361 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn). We at FWR are big fans of (and frequent linkers to) David Gutowski’s LargeheartedBoy.com, a music-lit-culture website whose Book Notes column gives established and emerging authors the chance to create and discuss music playlists connected to–or inspired by–their books. Now a new Largehearted Lit series, curated by Brooklyn-based fiction author Jami Attenberg (Instant Love, The Kept Man, The Melting Season), actualizes these playlist interviews into live readings with musical performances. In this interview, David […]


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Mentors, Muses, and Monsters event at Greenlight Books

by Anne Stameshkin

NYC-based writers, head to Brooklyn’s newest bookstore, Fort Greene’s Greenlight Books (686 Fulton St., at S. Portland), tonight (Monday, November 23) at 7:30 PM for a special event featuring local authors and the editor of Mentors, Muses, and Monsters, a book that we at FWR are excited to read. This is also the bookstore’s first installment of what promises to be an exciting series of events featuring both authors and lit bloggers. On a personal note, I’m thrilled at Greenlight’s birth, if a bit heartsick that I had to leave Fort Greene about a month before it opened; when I […]


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NYC's first Independent Bookstore Week: Nov. 15-22

by Anne Stameshkin

New York-based writer-readers: next week, the NYCIB is hosting the very first Independent Bookstore Week, featuring day and evening events in indie bookstores across all five boroughs! For a (still-growing) list of events–readings, signings, meals, lectures, discussions, book launch parties, a master class, a midnight costume party, and more–visit the NYCIB’s website. This double-launch party at Unnameable Books sounds particularly insane/intriguing: November 17 MIDNIGHT A never-before-seen, new publication from the posthumous Vladimir N. AND A we’ve-seen-it-all-before, new publication from the maverick Sarah P. THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA by V. Nabokov & GOING ROGUE by S. Palin Dress as your favorite […]


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Andrew's Book Club: November Picks

by Anne Stameshkin

As a huge fan of Munro and Dzanc, I’m especially excited about Andrew’s picks for this month. (This is what the world will look like when there is too much happiness!) – Indie Pick: Laura van den Berg’s debut, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (Dzanc) / description (via ABC): A failed actress takes a job as a Bigfoot impersonator. A botanist seeking a rare flower crosses paths with a group of men hunting the Loch Ness Monster. A disillusioned missionary in Africa grapples with grief and a growing obsession with a creature rumored […]


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scary, scarier, scariest

by Anne Stameshkin

Happy Halloween! If you’re looking for creepy literature or inspiration on All Hallow’s Eve, here are some recommendations (and warnings): – The Baltimore Museum of Art is currently featuring an exhibit of paintings — some by renowned artists like Gauguin and Matisse — inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s stories. This is only one event in Nevermore, Baltimore’s year-long celebration of Poe throughout 2009 (in January, Poe would have turned 200). Tonight at the Strand Theatre (1823 N. Charles Street), see David Keltz read/perform as Poe, and afterwards, grab a pint at the Annabel Lee Tavern. For a full list of […]




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