Suspend Your Disbelief

Contributor Types

Michael Rudin

Development Director

Michael Rudin is an author and the founder of the creative agency Armed Mind. His short fiction, novel-length fiction, and digital storytelling has earned numerous awards, including recognition from The Webby Awards, Creativity Awards, and a Hopwood Award. Say hello via Twitter @mikerudin or www.mikerudin.com.


Articles

Shop Talk |

The Story Behind Storyville

by Michael Rudin

Don’t call Paul Vidich the Mayor of Storyville. He prefers Matchmaker. That’s because Storyville is less about Vidich, its creator, than his application’s ambitious plan to “bring together writers and readers.” As you might imagine, Storyville is focused solely on the short story. Exclusive to owners of iPhones and iPads, the application promises to deliver one story every week, for which subscribers must pay $4.99 for a six-month subscription. In the end, this means Storyville’s residents will end up paying less than a quarter per story. Vidich promises they won’t be just any stories. The Storyville editorial team is focused […]


Shop Talk |

This Saturday: Biblioball 2010

by Michael Rudin

Biblioball 2010 from Desk Set on Vimeo. ‘Tis the season, and that means New York’s annual Biblioball has arrived! The event occurs on December 4th and those of you who have attended before know what to expect: not just a winter formal for the “well-read and well-attired,” but an incredible way to support Literacy for Incarcerated Teens. Starting at Brooklyn’s The Bell House at 8 pm and going into the wee hours of the morning, attendees have plenty to look forward to: In addition to these food and drink items, Happy Hour ticket holders can mingle with local literary stars, […]


Shop Talk |

Celebrating 1,000 Fans on Facebook

by Michael Rudin

A little over a week ago, we announced that the Fiction Writers Review Facebook Page was closing in on the 1,000 Fan Milestone. First and foremost, we’d like to thank you for your support. The response to our weekly Book of the Week giveaway has been excellent. Not only are we thrilled to have the opportunity to publicize books we love, and to put them in the hands of our readers, but it’s also been great to have so many of you–writers, editors, publishers, booksellers, agents, and fellow readers–come together to help us spread the word. After all, the more […]


Shop Talk |

Commemorating 1,000 Fans on Facebook

by Michael Rudin

At the end of August, Fiction Writers Review launched a Fan Page on Facebook. The goal was threefold: to introduce new readers to FWR, to create an informal place for conversations about writing, and to give away lots of free books. And though we’d always hoped this project would also help bring together a thriving literary community, we had no idea it would happen so quickly! After just two months, our Facebook community has grown to over 950 friends and we fast approach 1,000. Still, the best surprise has been in the wonderful range of individuals who have joined us […]


Reviews |

Best of the Web 2010, edited by Kathy Fish and Matt Bell

by Michael Rudin

Our history with print’s first-rate publications can be a comforting force, a grid of familiar local streets against the sand-swept dunes of online. And it’s this lack of familiarity with digital’s landscape that makes Dzanc’s anthology so incredibly necessary: for new and old writers alike, it’s a guidebook as much as it is a book-book.


Shop Talk |

Free Books for A Small Price: The Future of E-Reading?

by Michael Rudin

While Apple and Amazon wage price wars over hardware and e-books, the new Spanish-based firm 24Symbols aims to use their gadgets’ own Wi-Fi connections against them. Using the Kindle and iPad’s internet browsers, 24Symbols promises totally free e-books. Readers will be served advertisements in return for free access to a wide-ranging catalogue, from comic books to novels. Springwise.com recently highlighted the new firm by linking it to popular free ad-based serving platforms in the music world: Just as ad-supported sites like Pandora and Spotify let music lovers listen to and share their favourite music for free, so Spanish 24symbols is […]


Reviews |

The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats, by Hesh Kestin

by Michael Rudin

Prior to writing his novel The Iron Will of Shoeshine Cats, Hesh Kestin mastered all things non-fiction, serving as European bureau chief of Forbes and war reporter for Newsday before founding two newspapers himself—the Israeli daily The Nation, as well as the prize-winning expatriate, The American. A career crafting leads and managing word counts has shaped Kestin’s fiction in a distinct way: though written richly, it never wastes a cent.


Essays |

The Age of Binary Bookmaking

by Michael Rudin

Today’s technological delights are well on their way to becoming tomorrow’s demands, entrenching themselves in ways that will do more than force bookbinding as a business model to adapt, but allow writing, as an art form, to expand and thrive. These are good things. Welcome to the age of Binary Bookmaking.


Essays |

Writing the Great American Novel Video Game

by Michael Rudin

For some time I was one of few standing firmly in both camps—writer and gamer, fiction-fiend and pixel-popper. But the innovative nature of Next-Gen gaming, with its leaps in technology and massive install-base, means games have developed new depth–and the future of gaming promises to look a lot more like literature than flight simulators. This is, in many ways, the rise of a new novel. Like its lexicographic predecessor, the pixilated form revels in moral ambiguity, character motivations, conflicts between free will and fate.


Essays |

Writing the Great American Novel Video Game

by Michael Rudin

For some time I was one of few standing firmly in both camps—writer and gamer, fiction-fiend and pixel-popper. But the innovative nature of Next-Gen gaming, with its leaps in technology and massive install-base, means games have developed new depth–and the future of gaming promises to look a lot more like literature than flight simulators. This is, in many ways, the rise of a new novel. Like its lexicographic predecessor, the pixilated form revels in moral ambiguity, character motivations, conflicts between free will and fate.




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