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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Whiting Writers' Awards

by Anne Stameshkin

Warm congratulations to 2009’s Whiting Award winners for poetry, fiction, and plays! These are the winners in fiction (click here for a full list of recipients): – Adam Johnson: Emporium (Viking 2002), Parasites Like Us (Viking, 2003) – Nami Mun: Miles from Nowhere (Riverhead 2009) – Salvatore Scibona: The End (Graywolf 2008) – Vu Tran: as-yet-untitled first novel is forthcoming (W.W. Norton) In addition to the honor of receiving such a prestigious award, and the chance to be introduced by keynote speaker Margaret Atwood, these writers also received a substantial monetary prize: at $50,000, the Whiting is one of the […]


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the writer as conversationalist

by Anne Stameshkin

Are you “smarter in print than in person?” (I’m raising my hand.) And are you behind in your reading? (That’s me. Again.) In the Sept. 27 NY Times Sunday Book Review, Arthur Krystal investigates why good writers aren’t necessarily great conversationalists. Should we blame the antisocial demands of our work? Or do our mouths stammer because they’re out of practice — because our brains are used to the pace of writing (not to mention its magical editing function)? Or while our mouths make words, are our brains secretly elsewhere, still working on something? Or are they dormant, resting? Do our […]


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Critterati: the literary, costumed pet

by Anne Stameshkin

I’ve been meaning to post about the Book Bench‘s whimsical dress-up-your-pet-as-literary-character Critterati contest for several days, but there have been technical difficulties. Namely, my cat, Mr. Oliver Dash Stameshkin-Zook, has proved resistant to dressing up as Dickensian orphan Oliver Twist. Blood was shed; there may even be scars. What there isn’t, sadly, is a photograph of Oliver in a Newsies cap, looking expectantly up at me from an empty food bowl. Please sir, can I have some more? He was willing to show his love for the dictionary, however, so perhaps he prefers The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee? […]


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2009 National Book Award finalists: "strangers" no more

by Anne Stameshkin

For the Star Tribune, Laurie Hertzel comments on this year’s remarkably un-famous crop of fiction finalists; many seemed dark horses next to literary legends like Margaret Atwood, Kazsuo Ishiguro, Lorrie Moore, and John Irving — each of whom published new books this fall, and none of whom made the list. To get better acquainted with the work of one finalist, here’s an excerpt from Column McCann’s Let the Great World Spin.


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P&W: Top 50 creative writing programs, and a conversation with Jonathan Karp

by Anne Stameshkin

The numbers are in…and the top 50 creative writing MFA programs are ranked in the new issue of Poets & Writers. Here’s an excerpt from the accompanying article by Seth Abramson, who compiled the list based on extensive research. (Note: The full article is available only in the print edition.) Abramson admits the difficulties of quantifying and comparing MFA program experiences: [T]he evils of educational rankings are indeed legion and do urge caution on the part of any prospective analyst of MFA programs. At base it is impossible to quantify or predict the experience any one MFA candidate will have […]


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Apply for the 2009 Dzanc Prize – and spread the word

by Anne Stameshkin

The deadline to apply for the 2009 Dzanc Prize is rapidly approaching; be sure to get your work-in-progress manuscript and community service program proposal in by November 1, 2009. Here is a brief overview of what the submissions process and prize/service opportunity entail, via Dzanc’s website: In 2007, to further its mission of fostering literary excellence, community involvement, and education, Dzanc Books created the Dzanc Prize, which provides monetary aid in the sum of $5,000, to a writer of literary fiction. All writers applying for the Dzanc Prize must have a work-in-progress they can submit for review, and present the […]


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HuffPo Books launches!

by Anne Stameshkin

I’m a few days behind, so forgive the belated announcement: HuffPo Books is now live, and its content so far – a mix of blog posts and multimedia features (some interactive) — looks exciting! On Oct. 6, Arianna Huffington announced her first book club pick, a 2004 nonfiction title from HarperOne: In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed by Carl Honore. Read why she chose it and learn more about her selection process and book club goals. It seems that many in the HuffPo community have been inspired by this book and the slow movement it explores; in […]


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Issue 3 of Wag's Revue, and a contest

by Anne Stameshkin

Online-only literary mag Wag’s Revue‘s third issue, like its previous two, is full of great features (among them charcoal renderings of scenes from Point Break!), but for fiction’s sake, I’ll stick to–fiction. In addition to stories from Daniel Wallace, Louis Wittig, Gerald Barton, and Donald Dewey, I highly recommend Will Litton’s interview with George Saunders. And not just because there’s a charcoal drawing of Patrick Swayze before it. Here’s one of my favorite bits from the interview (this is Saunders speaking): I like it best when I’m just trying to make something funny and crazy and somehow a deeper truth […]




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