Suspend Your Disbelief

Contributor Types

Celeste Ng

Editor at Large

Celeste Ng is the author of the novels Everything I Never Told You  (2014) and Little Fires Everywhere (2017). She earned an MFA from the University of Michigan (now the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan), where she won the Hopwood Award. Her fiction and essays have appeared in One Story, TriQuarterly, Bellevue Literary Review, the Kenyon Review Online, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of the Pushcart Prize, the Massachusetts Book Award, the American Library Association’s Alex Award, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.


Articles

Shop Talk |

Costume ideas… for your books

by Celeste Ng

So you’ve figured out what to be for Halloween. But why shouldn’t your books get in on the fun, too? The website Facsimile Dust Jackets sells reproductions of early-edition dust jackets, sized to fit whatever book you want–so you can “dress up” your volumes for Halloween or year-round. Here’s the cover of Of Mice and Men: Or why not let your staid dictionary let its hair down and disguise itself as Barney O’Hara: Trapper? If these are out of your budget, you can always make your own book costumes–uh, I mean, dust jackets. Craft blog Hydrangea Girl has a how-to. […]


Shop Talk |

Literary Halloween Costume Ideas

by Celeste Ng

Going to a Halloween party this weekend? Here’s a roundup of costume ideas–literary, of course! Last year, LitDrift published a great list, including some clever ideas: Gulliver from Gulliver’s Travels: This one will evoke true fright, since we all know how terrifying it is to be tied down by hundreds of miniature Lilliputians. Use a simple outfit for the base: oxford shirt and slacks pushed up to reveal your socks. Then add the finishing touch by attaching a bunch of little army men to string and pinning them all over your body so that they are hanging down at all […]


Shop Talk |

Vampires and zombies and literature, oh my…

by Celeste Ng

A while back, we noted that vampire lit had–well, gone legit. (If you can major in it in college, it’s legit.) But it’s not just vampires. All kinds of characters previously relegated to genre writing–zombies, werewolves, and monsters galore–have migrated into mainstream literature. Can we blame this on Twilight, or is something bigger at work here? Harldy, says Joe Fassler in The Atlantic, offering several reasons “literary” fiction has turned towards genre: There was a time in recent memory when writers took their cues primarily from the literary figures that came before them. But in 2011, our literary, media, and […]


Shop Talk |

Occupy… Your Bookshelf

by Celeste Ng

So you may have heard about this little thing happening on Wall Street (and in L.A., Boston, Phoenix, San Diego, Chicago, Cincinnati, Berlin, Paris–oh, just read the list here). What you may not know is that the Occupy Wall Street protestors have a library of their own. Reports GalleyCat: As the Occupy Wall Street protest continues, the activists camped out in New York City have built an impressive library. Thanks to Library Thing, you can now explore the library online and watch it grow. Currently, the makeshift library counts 390 books. Well, that was on October 11–the library now stands […]


Shop Talk |

One Letter Missing

by Celeste Ng

Oh, the difference a single letter makes! The recent Twitter hashtag #bookswithalettermissing marks hilarious (and sometimes brilliant) titles like: @CodeNameTanya: Notes on a Sandal @KBreathnach: Civilization and its Disco Tents @SPLBuzz Harold and the Purple Rayon @EditorEric: The Mon Is a Harsh Mistress: Heinlein’s memoir of a relationship w/Jamaican transvestite dominatrix @atbennet: Far from the adding crowd: a little something for the math-phobic @GetUpInFront: “F” Mice and Men. Steinbeck’s middle finger to the plight of the migrant laborer. The Huffington Post has a great roundup, and you can search Twitter for the latest. Share yours with us!


Shop Talk |

Franz Kafka. Frank Capra. Franz Capra. Frank Kafka.

by Celeste Ng

To you into the Halloween spirit, here is a wacky and delightfully creepy little short film combining Kafka–struggling to write his story “The Metamorphosis”–and Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. The film won an Oscar for Best Short Live Action Film in 1994. Here’s Part 1. Hooked? Here ‘s the rest:Part 2 / Part 3. (Via.)


Shop Talk |

WBUR's Zip Code Stories

by Celeste Ng

I live in the 02138 zip code, popularly known around here as “the nation’s most opinionated zip code,” thanks to the hordes of Harvard and MIT students. I’m not sure about that title–94720 could probably give it some competition–but I like the idea that a zip code, which is really just an arbitrary zone, can have its own personality. That’s the idea behind WBUR’s Zip Code Stories. A joint project by Boston’s NPR station and audio lit mag The Drum, the series asks writers to develop stories based on a given local zip code: Each month, we’ll pick four ZIP […]


Shop Talk |

A new model for advances?

by Celeste Ng

The traditional model of publishing–for books, at least–has become a large(ish) upfront advance, followed by royalties: a small percent of the book’s sale, once the book has earned enough to pay off the advance. Here’s a counteroffer: as an author, would you trade a larger advance for a smaller payment upfront PLUS a bigger slice of the proceeds? That’s the new model of payment companies like Byliner and The Atavist are trying out. Reports The New York Observer: Like most magazines, The Atavist pays a fee up front when a story arrives in decent shape. Mr. Dobbs called The Atavist’s […]


Shop Talk |

National Writers Series to host Jeffrey Eugenides October 20

by Celeste Ng

On Thursday, October 20, the Traverse City National Writers Series will host An Evening with Jeffrey Eugenides at 8pm at the Lars Hockstad Auditorium in Traverse City, Michigan.  The evening will conclude with a reception and book signing with the author. Here at Fiction Writers Review, we’re very excited about this reading–and not just because our own Jeremiah Chamberlin will be hosting, speaking with Eugenides about his new novel The Marriage Plot as well as his life and other work. The Traverse City National Writers Series’ events aren’t your typical readings.  Explains the organization’s website: In 2009, Doug Stanton, wife […]


Shop Talk |

Real-life literary mysteries!

by Celeste Ng

Writers are sometimes a shy bunch, but two recent writing-related mysteries take that to a new level. Call it “stealth lit,” maybe. Case #1: The Mysterious Incident of the Sculptures in the Libraries Intricate sculptures carved from books have been appearing in Scottish libraries. Way back in March, the Guardian reported on the first occurrence: A tiny tree has taken root in the hearts of librarians at the Scottish Poetry Library. None of the staff at the Crichton’s Close library know who left the fragile paper tree on a table among their bookshelves. It was discovered by Julie Johnstone on […]




Literary Partners