Suspend Your Disbelief

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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 |

Do words hurt the world?

by Celeste Ng

In the Guardian, author Rick Gekoski argues that writing is “bad for you”: When I am writing I wander in a fug all day, wake in the middle of the night – waking my wife Belinda as well – and stagger downstairs to record a thought or two. Leave the bed with my mind whirling with gorgeously formed sentences which are as evanescent as the smell of lily of the valley, and about as easy to recall. By the time I get to the keyboard their perfection (as it seems to me in my drowsy creative mode) has dissipated, and […]


Shop Talk |

The End of Borders: A Daily Show Perspective

by Celeste Ng

I admit it: when current events become a bit too much to handle, I turn to the Daily Show for some much-needed comedic perspective. Usually it’s politics that’s making me tear my hear out, but here’s Jon Stewart and John Hodgman (a fiction writer himself) finding the humor in the Borders closing. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c Borders Goes Out of Business www.thedailyshow.com Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook Happy Monday. As John Hodgman would put it, “You’re welcome.” Further Reading: Does the end of […]


Shop Talk |

Jane Austen: Word Fighter

by Celeste Ng

The love affair between literature and video games keeps going strong. Who’s the newest literary figure to cross over? Why, Jane Austen, of course. App developer Feel Every Yummy presents Word Fighter, a head-to-head word puzzle game starring literary characters. The game looks like Street Fighter crossed with Boggle, and here’s the trailer, which can only be described as AWESOME: Players can battle as Edgar (Allen Poe), Agatha (Christie), and yes, Jane (Austen). Forbes has the scoop: When Gian Cruz and Kris Zabala, the founders and sole employees of up-and-coming app developer Feel Every Yummy, came up with the idea […]


Shop Talk |

Second-hand, but not second-rate

by Celeste Ng

Yesterday we talked about why Borders’ demise doesn’t necessarily mean the end of books. Great, you may be saying. But where am I supposed to buy my books now? Well, for new books, consider your local indie bookstore—you can find one near you on the IndieBound website. But there are also amazing used bookstores out there. First, here’s a video on Brazenhead Books, a speakeasy-like (illegal) bookstore in NYC with a secret location—you can read more about them in the New Yorker, too. (Via.) There’s No Place Like Here: Brazenhead Books from Etsy on Vimeo. (By the way, owner Michael […]


Shop Talk |

What the end of Borders REALLY means

by Celeste Ng

Borders may be a thing of the past, but does it mean there’s no market for books anymore? The MobyLives blog of Melville House does some pithy analysis: Was this whole thing basically a fifteen-year-long advertisement for Amazon? In a word, no. The story of Borders failure is, first and foremost, a real estate story. Simply, Borders gobbled up a lot of expensive square footage in the real estate boom of the nineties, as did Barnes and Noble, with a seemingly insatiable lust that curdled into craven predatoriness. […] When the economy imploded in 2008, they were locked into severely […]


Shop Talk |

The essence of a story

by Celeste Ng

Kid-and-design blog OhDeeDoh pointed me to these beautiful, minimalist posters of children’s stories by artist Christian Jackson. Here are a few more: What I love most about these—aside from the obviously amazing graphic design—is the way each poster strips the story down to its most basic elements. It’s the visual version of the old writing exercise: can you tell your story in one paragraph? One sentence? One word? Here, each story is condensed into one image. You can see all of Jackson’s children’s story posters, as well as buy prints (or iphone skins!) featuring the artwork, on his website.


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2011 PEN Literary Awards Announced

by Celeste Ng

The winners of the prestigious PEN Literary awards were recently announced–and we’re proud to have featured some of the winners and judges right here on Fiction Writers Review. Here are the main winners for fiction: PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize ($25,000): To a fiction writer whose debut work, published in 2010, represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise. This year, the judges have chosen two winners to share the award. Susanna Daniel, Stiltsville (FWR interview here) Danielle Evans, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self (FWR interview here) Runner up: Teddy Wayne, Kapitoil Judges: Susan Cheever, Paul Harding, and Yiyun […]


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The Ultimate Personality Test: Your Favorite Writer

by Celeste Ng

When you’re on a first date, what’s the first question you ask? “What do you do?” “Where did you grow up?” “What did you think of Inception?” Maybe you should ask “Who’s your favorite author?” Thought Catalog presents this handy (though somewhat tongue-in-cheek) guide to personalities based on favorite authors. For example, love Tao Lin? 3. Tao Lin If your favorite author is Tao Lin, you’re the type of introspective person who recognizes absurdity in typical daily behavior. You’re most likely a combination of all or some of the following: hipster, twee, Into Literature, shy/ anxious/ curious/ depressed, Poet, and […]


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How to write a book–or how to return to one

by Celeste Ng

Forget New Year’s Day: I think fall might be the time that writers make all their resolutions. As the summer winds to a close, students prepare for a new school year. Teachers polish old syllabi and draw up new ones. Publishers, editors, and agents return from the Hamptons. And writers everywhere make themselves promises to buckle down and get back to work. If you’re one of the latter, you may find these practical tips on writing a book helpful. Culled from 22 established writers, the list has lots of ideas for making THIS the year you finish your book at […]


Shop Talk |

BookPig rents books, Netflix-style

by Celeste Ng

Netflix revolutionized the movie-rental industry when it launched, allowing subscribers to have movies sent to their homes and keep them as long as they wanted, all for a monthly fee. (Okay, until recently.) The site BookPig aims to do the same for children’s books, which are (1) expensive and (2) quickly outgrown. Says the site: When you are ready for more books, just return the first set in the pre-paid mailer provided and we’ll “swap” them for the next set of books from your queue! For faster turnaround, we recommend that you log in and use the “Instant Return” feature […]




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