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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Moscow's Dostoevsky-Themed Metro Stop

by Celeste Ng

Subways are not known for being bright and cheerful—but Moscow’s new Dostoevsky-themed station takes subway gloom to a new level. The Dostoevskaya Station opened in June in northern Moscow as a tribute to the famed Russian author and features murals based on his works. Here’s one from Crime and Punishment: But some worry that the grim, black-and-white murals will have negative psychological effects on subway riders. NPR reports: Mikhail Vinogradov, who heads a psychological help center in Moscow, went on Russian TV to complain that the murals will make people “afraid to ride the subway.” Like other psychologists who raised […]


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The Problem with "Chick Lit"

by Celeste Ng

Over at the Huffington Post, novelist Diane Meier takes issue with the label “chick lit”: Let me suggest that Chick Lit is what we used to call the “Beach Book.” And that it is its own genre, like mysteries or sci-fi; interesting to a specific audience primarily because of the nature and form of the genre itself. Some good stuff, some bad, no doubt, as in all genre writing, you come across an Ed McBain every now and then. But crossover is not the point, if the targeted reader simply wants a light little fantasy with some kissing scenes and […]


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Slice Magazine to offer writing workshops

by Celeste Ng

Launched in 2007, Slice is a nonprofit print magazine based in Brooklyn that “aims to bridge the gap between emerging and established authors by offering a space where both are published side-by-side. In each issue, a specific cultural theme becomes the catalyst for articles and interviews from renowned writers and lesser known voices alike.” (The current issue, pictured, focuses on the theme of “villains.”) This fall, Slice will begin a series of in-person writing/publishing workshops, We Who Write. Says the magazine’s website: In a new series of classes and workshops developed exclusively by Slice, aspiring writers will have a chance […]


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Love of A.S. Byatt = basis for a date?

by Celeste Ng

Ever just wish you could find someone who loves Lydia Davis/Milan Kundera/David Sedaris as much as you do? Alikewise is here to help. Describing its goal as “Dating Based on Book Tastes,” Alikewise is a free dating service for literary folk. Says the site: Alikewise is about finding common ground based on what you like to read. Imagine a dinner party where you wander over to your host’s bookshelf, and strike up a chat with the person next to you. You loved The Black Swan? Me too. Other sites say they know what makes people compatible. We’re skeptical of that […]


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Jonathan Franzen on the cover of TIME

by Celeste Ng

Jonathan Franzen is on the cover of the August 23 issue of TIME Magazine, with an article marking the publication of his latest novel, Freedom. Since he’s the first living author to be so featured in over a decade (the last being Stephen King), it’s caused quite a stir in the lit world. In particular, the caption below Franzen’s photo is catching some snark. The L.A. Times notes: Franzen appears on the cover of the upcoming issue of Time magazine — an honor not extended to a living author since Stephen King in 2000 — with the words “Great American […]


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Five Chapters to publish print books

by Celeste Ng

Most of the news lately is about print publishers moving to electronic publishing. So it’s refreshing to hear about the opposite: short story website Five Chapters will soon begin publishing print books. In January 2011, Five Chapters will publish three short story collections by Five Chapters alums: Nobody Ever Gets Lost by Jess Row, Other People We Married by Emma Straub, and “an anthology of stories which have been published on FC over the last four years.” Five Chapters founder David Daley shared the news with Mediabistro’s Morning Media Menu. Click here to listen to the interview with Daley, and […]


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Crazyhorse Literary Journal launches ebook format

by Celeste Ng

Lit journal Crazyhorse now offers its readers two options: print and ebook. But unlike many ebooks, in which font and typesetting may be very different on-screen and on paper, the editors describe the ebook version as “a digital book version of the same Crazyhorse paper-and-print page.” Indeed, the pages are nicely laid out and there’s even a turning-page animation for that printed-page feel. You can see a sample from the current ebook issue here. What’s more, ebook-only subscriptions are half the price of print subcriptions ($8 for one year of ebooks; $16 for one year of print, with free ebook […]


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What this book needs is more whiskey.

by Celeste Ng

Are you looking for more ways to combine drinking with your reading life? (Hey—it’s summer.) This past week, the internet has overflowed with suggestions: First, from Jezebel, there’s “Drink ‘Til He’s Witty: The Reader’s Drinking Game.” Some suggested rules, depending on which author you’re reading: David Foster Wallace: Drink every time a sentence has three or more conjunctions. Jane Austen: Drink every time someone plays whist, goes riding, or gets married. Gabriel García Márquez: Drink every time someone’s name is “Aureliano.” (Note: this only works for A Hundred Years of Solitude) Or, if you prefer to drink while mourning the […]


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Help during "The Long Haul"

by Celeste Ng

So maybe Tuesday’s post on the 10-year novel got you down. Here’s some encouragement: lit site The Rumpus is introducing a new occasional column, “The Long Haul,” featuring writers reflecting on the (long-term) writing life. Or, as the editors put it: Whether you’re a literary wunderkind whose first book was a bestseller, or one of the thousands of writers who have to claw their way to a sustainable career, the writing life requires patience and resilience, a commitment to faithfully staying the course though the course sometimes offers little encouragement or reward. And yet we do it; we pass up […]


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A decade in the making…

by Celeste Ng

On Slate.com, Susanna Daniels reflects on the process of writing her first novel—which she describes as “the quiet hell of 10 years of novel writing”: During my should-be-writing years, I thought about my novel all the time. Increasingly, these were not happy or satisfying thoughts. My “novel” (which had started to wear its own air quotes in my head) became something closer to enemy than lover. A person and his creative work exist in a relationship very much like a marriage: When it’s good, it’s very good, and when it’s bad, it’s ugly. And when it’s been bad for a […]




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