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

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What's the most literate city in the U.S.?

by Celeste Ng

According to the latest study by Central Connecticut State University, Washington, D.C., is the nation’s most literate city. USA Today reports: The study examines not whether people can read, but whether they actually do. […] The study, based on 2010, looks at measures for six items — newspapers, bookstores, magazines, education, libraries and the Internet — to determine what resources are available in each city and the extent to which its inhabitants take advantage of them. Seattle fell from #1 last year to #2, while Minneapolis—another perennial contender for the top spot—took the bronze. Interestingly, some smaller cities like Cleveland, […]


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Thursday Morning Candy: Fogged Clarity

by Celeste Ng

Founded in 2009, Fogged Clarity is an online, non-profit arts review that incorporates visual art and music in addition to fiction, poetry, essays, interviews, reviews, and original multimedia content. The “Fogged Clarity Sessions,” for instance, feature musicians visiting the studio to record several tracks, mostly acoustic. Writes executive editor Ben Evans: I have always believed that the most important thing a human being can do is create, and if creation is the whispering of personal truths into the commotion of existence, then I established Fogged Clarity to make those whispers a little more audible. The combination of visual art, music, […]


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Gender Disparities in Reviewing (and Essaying, and Interviewing)

by Celeste Ng

Recently, I wrote about literary cameos on The Simpsons. In response, Charlotte wondered, “Are they tweaking on the Franzen gender controversy by only having literary cameos by men?” This is a timely question. A recent study by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts showing that male writers vastly outnumber female writers at many major literary magazines—as writers, reviewers, and review subjects. The New Republic, startled by this disparity, did some number-crunching and found that publishers also publish fewer books by women than men: In fact, these numbers we found show that the magazines are reviewing female authors in something close to […]


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Baudelaire, $2.45?

by Celeste Ng

I really like vending machines. There’s something very cool about peering through the glass and scoping out what’s there, putting in your money and typing in the right code, then watching your treat slowly tumble down into the chute. I also enjoy seeing what weird things people decide to sell via machine. while ago, to my great delight, I spotted an iPod vending machine at Logan Airport. A mall near me has a ProActiv vending machine—for those times when you must treat your acne on the go, I guess. Now Polk County, Florida, has introduced a vending machine I’d love […]


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Better Book Titles

by Celeste Ng

Titles are many a writer’s Achilles heel. Even the greats had trouble—F. Scott Fitzgerald, for one, originally considered several alternative titles for The Great Gatsby, including Trimalchio in West Egg and The High-Bouncing Lover. (Yikes.) Each weekday, Dan Wilbur’s blog Better Book Titles features one book, retitled more honestly—and hilariously. Some of my favorites: Cynical? A little, but many of the Better Book Titles strike right to the heart of a book’s theme. Like this one: Visit the blog here, and don’t miss the archive.


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So you're NOT in DC right now…

by Celeste Ng

Maybe the holidays left you broke. Maybe you couldn’t take vacation days off work. Or maybe you got stranded by the SnOMG! XVIII that snarled flights from the Midwest to the east coast. Whatever the reason, you’re not at AWP this weekend. What to do instead? Well, if you’re in Brooklyn, there’s always the first annual Fake AWP. Slice Magazine has the scoop: To provide a haven for those either too broke, too busy, or too disillusioned (with the fact that really it ought to be AWWP, jeez) to attend the massive four-day conference in Washington, D.C., an assortment of […]


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Thursday morning candy: The Drum

by Celeste Ng

Those who take public transportation get to read during their commutes every day. But what about those who have to drive? Here’s one solution: The Drum, an online audio literary magazine, which bills itself as “a literary magazine for your ears.” Issues feature short stories, essays, and novel excerpts, all available to stream or to download to the device of your choice. Most content is free access; individual pieces are available for purchase after they’ve been on the site for three months. Recently, The Drum also formed a partnership with audio publisher Iambik: Being in the business of audio literature, […]


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Best. Literary Cameos. Ever.

by Celeste Ng

GalleyCat reports the mashup of two of my favorite things: literature and The Simpsons. Sometime in the upcoming season, novelist Neil Gaiman will be an animated guest star on the long-running TV show. In a blog post, Gaiman notes: I play myself. I play a very different version of myself to the me I played in Arthur, though. For a start, I do not appear in anyone’s falafel. Also, I expect I will be yellow. The Simpsons has a long history of literary references, from a rendition of Poe’s “The Raven” to a spoof of Lord of the Flies in […]


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Bookworm Dating Hits the New York Times

by Celeste Ng

Last summer, FWR reported on Alikewise, a free dating site based on your taste in books. Only five months later, the New York Times has picked up the story, including Alikewise in a roundup of “niche dating sites.” Compared to some of the other sites, in the list—matchmaking sites for senior citizens, Apple lovers, virgins seeking other virgins, and mustache fetishists—finding a date based on shared literary tastes is hardly weird. Is this a sign, maybe, that literary dating is ready for the mainstream?


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Reviews from the Younger Set

by Celeste Ng

Here at Fiction Writers Review, many of our contributors are emerging writers, so we love sites that encourage those early in their writing careers. Recently I heard of a few sites that encourage those really early in their writing careers: kids and young adults. On The Huffington Post, Monica Edinger, a teacher at New York’s prestigious Dalton School, writes about an afterschool book blogging club she and several other instructors founded: Every week these literary enthusiasts come to my room; sift through my books and advance reader copies; choose to read whatever catches their fancy; and, after reading them, write […]




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