Lee Thomas is a fiction writer. She was the Managing Editor of FWR from 2010-2013. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Charlotte Observer, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles, where she is finishing a story collection.
“It took me writing these stories to understand that I’d been carrying rage with me, and what I’d done to suppress it even as I didn’t believe in suppressing it”: Danielle Lazarin talks with Lee Thomas about her debut collection, Back Talk.
In this 2009 interview from our archives, Lee Thomas talks with Aravind Adiga about neo-realism, myth, and being a misfit.
About nine months after I heard Steven Millhauser’s incendiary reading at The Story Prize, his story “A Voice in the Night” arrived in the December 10, 2012 New Yorker. It starts with the title conceit: God’s voice calling the boy Samuel, who thinks the old temple priest Eli must be shouting his name in the darkness. I settled into a straight retelling of the biblical story. Wait. Suddenly we’re in Stratford, Connecticut in 1950 with a boy lying awake one hot summer night thinking about the Samuel story, which he heard in Sunday school that afternoon. He’s listening, too. I […]
Miroslav Penkov wins the BBC prize; plus the importance of money to art.
It was a wild night on the East Coast. For several hours, as late as yesterday afternoon, it felt on the ground like the threats and warnings and evacuations might be overblown, a product of a media hungry for Events and glued-to-the-television-worthy programming in the midst of election fatigue. Well. The power’s out on much of Manhattan south of 42nd street, which meant blackness last night as far as the eye could see, the dark hulking shadows of tall buildings. The images of houses along the Jersey shoreline with water to the second floor. The flooded subway tunnels. The several […]
The debut author on the inherent tensions of Appalachia, choice and chance, and how opportunistic, narcissistic, desperately flawed teenagers provide the fertile ground for Wild Girls.
This summer some dear family friends gave us a few antique German children’s books for our son. They included a huge and heavy tome of Wilhelm Busch’s work for children – author of the savagely funny and come-uppance-heavy Max and Mortiz (look it up, it’s worth it) – and a curious little volume of (what do I call them?) morality tales for children called Der Struwwelpeter, which roughly translates from the German as “Shaggy Peter.” I’d seen a copy on my husband’s grandmother’s shelf, and even the cover illustration–fingernails like tentacles and ominous scissors–creeped me out a bit. Heinrich Hoffman […]
By October 1 all those start-of-the-school-year jitters have worn off (especially if, like me, you’ve no current connection to an academic calendar). In honor of the younger generation of readers, for the month of October FWR will highlight YA lit. Books for young people differ slightly from children’s literature, bridging the gap where Squirrel Nutkin leaves off and The Brothers Karamazov picks up. But, as every serious reader knows, good literature knows no age limit. A Wrinkle in Time still feels as magical as when my father read it aloud when I was eight. Along with our regular content, between […]
Not for the faint of heart. Glitter, doom, and a bracing imaginative landscape await in Binder’s debut collection.
via Mashable. There’s a new route to publishing your book: find the audience first. You’ve heard of Kickstarter, yes? Well, take that model, apply it to your unpublished manuscript, add in a dash of philanthropic good-will you’ve got a potentially game-changing new company: Pubslush. Been trying to find an agent, publisher, anyone to take your manuscript seriously? Perhaps it’s time to take it to the people: The process is simple. First, authors submit ten pages and a summary of their book. Then, we let you browse the submissions based on your preferences. You read a brief overview, and if it […]
Stories We Love: “White Angel,” by Michael Cunningham
Stories We Love: Donald Barthelme’s “The School,” In Which is Revealed the Meaning of Life
Stories We Love: "A Small, Good Thing" by Raymond Carver
Stories We Love: "The Fall River Axe Murders," by Angela Carter
Stories We Love: "Incarnations of Burned Children"
