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Book-of-the-Week Winners: The World of a Few Minutes Ago

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Jack Driscoll’s new collection, The World of a Few Minutes Ago, as our Book-of-the-Week title. Here are this week’s winners: Emilia Fuentes Grant (@EmiliaFGrant) Roz Morris fiction (@ByRozMorris) Adria Haley (@adria_haley) Congrats! To claim your free copy, please email us at the following address: winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us! Thanks to all of you who are fans.


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How to Succeed In Business? Read fiction.

by Celeste Ng

There are lots of reasons to read fiction. But did you know it can also make you a better businessperson? In the Harvard Business Review, Anne Kreamer makes “the business case for reading novels.” She argues: Over the past decade, academic researchers such as Oatley and Raymond Mar from York University have gathered data indicating that fiction-reading activates neuronal pathways in the brain that measurably help the reader better understand real human emotion — improving his or her overall social skillfulness. […] In one of Oatley and Mar’s studies in 2006, 94 subjects were asked to guess the emotional state […]


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Police Composite sketches for literary characters

by Celeste Ng

Like most readers, you probably have your own mental image of Humbert Humbert, or Emma Bovary, or the Misfit. But if you’re the kind of person who likes a visual, check out The Composites, a Tumblr site that plugs literary descriptions of characters into police composite sketch software. The results are… well, take a look below and decide for yourself. Here’s how the police sketch program portrayed the three characters I mentioned above, along with the passages that generated them. (All images via The Composites.) Humbert Humbert, from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: Gloomy good looks…Clean-cut jaw, muscular hand, deep sonorous […]


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Get Involved

Hi there; we are Fiction Writers Review We’ve been fueled entirely by donated time, work and funds since FWR was founded in 2008, and in that time we’ve created thousands of articles, reviews, interviews, and original works — everything in our rich archive, and we’re not stopping here (read more about how we’re getting writers and readers talking…). So, do you come here often? If you’re an avid reader (writers included), you’re enjoying FWR, and you happen to be a wealthy philanthropist, we’d love to tell you how to donate your extensive estate to FWR upon your demise. Step right […]


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Donate

Thank you for supporting Fiction Writers Review! Fiction Writers Review is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide a public forum for conversations about the craft of fiction, literature, and the writing life. In an age where fiction coverage is an endangered species, Fiction Writers Review brings fiction back into the conversation. Because fiction matters! Fiction Writers Review is the only non-profit organization dedicated to exploring fiction with the same devotion to depth of craft as the authors who create it. Your financial contribution allows us to continue this mission, serving emerging writers, professional authors, and readers alike, […]


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Great Literary Things You Can Do Because You're Not at AWP

by Celeste Ng

Not at AWP—and wishing you were?  Don’t.  Here are 3 great literary things you can do this weekend because you’re not at AWP: 1. Go to a reading. Hear Alice McDermott at Hofstra, Karen Joy Fowler in San Francisco, Jodi Picoult in Boston, or any of a dozen other great readings.  Poets & Writers has a handy calendar, searchable by state or city, or check your local bookstore’s website. 2. Take a writing class. Many writing centers offer one-night classes, so take advantage of them while others are away. Happening AWP weekend: in Boston, Grub Street offers classes such as […]


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Cooler than AWP

by Celeste Ng

So you’re not at AWP right now, and you’re wondering what kind of highjinks you’re missing?   I can promise you, you’re not missing anything as fun as the sessions on Full Stop’s mock AWP schedule, which I must confess looks way more exciting than the original. Here are the sessions I’d be attending at this alterna-AWP: 4 Over 400: The Gutenberg Problem. Noted grimoire authors Merlin, Gandalf, Conor MacLeod, and Albus Dumbledore discuss the potentially disastrous consequences of printing presses. Will the grimoire survive this radical new development in publishing? How should scroll hawkers best adapt to the new […]


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2012 Sozopol Fiction Seminars Application Deadline March 7th

by The Editors

Reminder: There are still a few days left to apply for the 2012 Sozopol Fiction Seminars. This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Seminars, which take place each year in the historic, seaside town of Sozopol, on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. Famed fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and naturalist Barry Lopez will be the distinguished English language guest lecturer this season. Lopez is the author of many books, including Arctic Dreams, which received the National Book Award, Of Wolves and Men, which was a National Book Award finalist and the recipient of the John Burroughs and Christopher medals, and numerous […]




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