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 |

What's your favorite position in bed?

by Celeste Ng

In which to read, that is. ABE Books asked this provocative question recently, wondering if it was “weird” to read on one’s stomach: I’ve asked around and have found many people who sit up, against the headboard or a pillow or two, and prop the book on their knees. Many side-readers. But no tummy-reader-elbow-proppers like me. Am I so strange? And across the literary interwebs, people responded, including Alison Flood of the Guardian: My technique is also lying on my side, but I prop myself up on a few pillows and hold the book in both hands. If it’s a […]


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Dancing with the… Authors?

by Celeste Ng

Nothing says “awesome reality TV” like “authors.” Right? On EW.com, Breia Brissey wonders why no authors have been featured in over 11 seasons of Dancing with the Stars: Even if you don’t watch the show, it’s hard to avoid the casting news each season. And if I’ve learned anything at all by watching week after week, it’s that the producers use the term ‘stars’ loosely. I get it. Dancing with the People You’ve Probably Heard About in the News, Regardless of Star Quality was never really a viable name choice. So I won’t hold that against the ABC powers that […]


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Tomatoes, Basil… Books?

by Celeste Ng

Boston author Jonathan Papernick has found a new market for selling his fiction: the farmer’s market. Reports the Boston Globe: [W]orking as a character he calls Papernick the Book Peddler, the Brandeis University writer-in-residence fills a neon-painted shopping cart with copies of his newest work, a collection of short stories called “There Is No Other,’’ and walks through local farmers’ markets offering his wares. […] “I call it market-fresh fiction for the people,’’ Papernick said. “I don’t need to rely on good reviews if I can show readers my book, talk to them about it, let them flip through it, […]


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You say Tomato, I say tomahto. You say paper, I say ebook

by Celeste Ng

Literature can bring people together—but it can also cause romantic tensions. Reports the New York Times: For Erin and Daniel Muskat, a couple in Brooklyn, the ink-stained quarrel has disrupted the togetherness of their reading habits. Ms. Muskat, 29, bought an iPad for her husband, 33, who works at his family’s shoe business, before their honeymoon in June, but quickly discovered that his electronic reading impinged on her old-fashioned reading. “I brought a book with me and I barely read it,” said Ms. Muskat, a media consultant. “We used to go to the beach and we’d both take out books, […]


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(How) Do Authors Make Money?

by Celeste Ng

Tim Ferriss, author of the Kindle-published The 4-Hour Work Week, has an interesting look at the economics of how writers get paid: – For a hardcover book, authors typically receive a 10-15% royalty on cover price. This means that for a $20 cover price, the author will receive $2-3. If you have a $50,000 advance, a $20 cover price, and a 10% royalty, you therefore need to sell 25,000 copies (“earn out” the advance) before you receive your first dollar beyond the advance. This is the basic rule, but several quietly aggressive outfits — both Barnes and Noble’s in-house imprint […]


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Okay, so IS the New York Times sexist?

by Celeste Ng

After all the Franzen-Freedom hoopla, Jennifer Weiner and Jodi Picoult imply yes. NPR’s Linda Holmes has some great reflections on the dustup, while Slate tries to break it down by the numbers: Of the 545 books reviewed between June 29, 2008 and Aug. 27, 2010: —338 were written by men (62 percent of the total) —207 were written by women (38 percent of the total) Of the 101 books that received two reviews in that period: —72 were written by men (71 percent) —29 were written by women (29 percent) What does this tell us? These overall numbers pretty well […]


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The New Self-Publishing

by Celeste Ng

Long seen as the last resort of those who couldn’t find a “real” publisher, self-publishing has undergone a dramatic change over the past few years. Now it’s often seen as a way to get the attention of those “real” publishers by getting one’s work out there. None of this is really news. But what is new is that even some established writers are self-publishing. Newsweek reports: Maybe Grisham isn’t a Lulu customer yet, but writer John Edgar Wideman (Philadelphia Fire) is. Wideman’s latest collection of short stories, Briefs, came out from Lulu this spring. In a traditional paperback publishing deal, […]


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Famous Rappers and Their Literary Counterparts

by Celeste Ng

If William Faulkner were a rapper, who would he be? (Or, if you prefer, if Lil Wayne were a writer, who would he be?) Flavorwire matches famous rappers with their 20th-century literary doppelgangers with surprisingly apt comparisons: Ja Rule = Jay McInerney In the 1980s, McInerney was a fresh-faced up-and-comer whose novel Bright Lights, Big City had just taken the New York literary world by storm. Similarly, Ja Rule exerted an iron-fisted rule over the radio waves in the late 1990s and early 2000s. McInerney and Ja Rule both celebrated cocaine culture and had an arsenal of flashy new-fangled tricks […]


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Wall Street Journal to Launch Book Review Section

by Celeste Ng

The news lately is almost always about book review sections folding—but the Wall Street Journal will soon be LAUNCHING a review section of its own. Reports GalleyCat: Former Atlantic editor Robert Messenger will helm a brand new pull-out book review section at The Wall Street Journal. According to the New York Observer, Messenger will edit the new section and supervise web reviews as well. Current books editor Erich Eichman will answer to Messenger as well. An internal memo projected that the section will launch sometime in September. The New York Observer sees this as the WSJ’s first salvo in a […]


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What's in a (Pen) Name?

by Celeste Ng

The Washington Post takes a look at pen names and why writers use them: In the ’80s and ’90s, pen names began to serve less sociopolitical needs. Now a pseudonym provides an artistic reboot, or serves as an experiment, or permits a writer to reach the wallets of a new audience. […] Authors also use pen names that italicize the genre in which they’re writing. Are you more likely to read a pulpy mystery by a writer named Robb or a writer named Nora? What would look better in swirling, golden script on the steamy jacket cover of a romance […]




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