Suspend Your Disbelief

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FWR at AWP 2012!

by The Editors

We here at Fiction Writers Review are excited to hit AWP and catch up with our friends and contributors. All throughout the conference, you can find us at our Bookfair table (N16)—come by and say hi! And here’s a partial list of FWR-related events: Thursday, March 1st: 12 pm – “Beyond the Workshop”: Contributor Margaret Lazarus Dean and other panelists explore new ways of teaching creative writing.  (Private Dining Room 2, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor) 7 pm – University of Michigan Reception: Contributor Valerie Laken reads along with Darcie Dennigan.  (Marquette, Hilton Chicago Hotel 3rd Floor<) Friday, March 2nd: 9 […]


Reviews |

Three Ways of the Saw, by Matt Mullins

by Lee Thomas

Prodigals on a grand scale who don’t want to go home. Matt Mullins packs 25 stories into his high-velocity debut Three Ways of the Saw. Don’t be misled by the Zenlike title, these characters come at you like a karate chop to the windpipe. Read on to find out exactly why you’ll be thanking him for that bruised trachea.


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

by Anne Stameshkin

This week’s feature is Jack Driscoll’s new collection, The World of a Few Minutes Ago, which was released by Wayne State University Press this month. Driscoll is the author of four books of poetry and four previous books of fiction. His first story collection, Wanting Only to be Heard, won the AWP Award for Short Fiction in 1991, his novel Lucky Man, Lucky Woman won both the Pushcart Editors’ Book Award in 1999 and was subsequently selected as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award title in 2000, and his novel How Like an Angel was a Michigan […]


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Journal-of-the-Week Winners: Reed

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Reed as our Journal-of-the-Week feature, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: Stacy Chambers (@stacy_chambers) cbalexander (@gbalexander) Lee Prewett (@SaltonLee) To claim your free subscription, 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 our fans.


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Contributor News – Winter 2012

by The Editors

We know our contributors are amazing, and we’re always thrilled when the rest of the world notices, too.  So we’re delighted to tell you what some of our talented contributors have been up to beyond FWR’s pages. The latest news, in no particular order: Anne Barnhill‘s debut novel, At the Mercy of the Queen, released Jan 3 and has been receiving good reviews from Publishers Weekly, Amazon, and Goodreads.  Her poetry chapbook, Coal, Baby, will be released from Finishing Line Press in late February. Valerie Nieman recently completed a residency at the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities. Daniel […]


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Publinshers capitalize on Linsanity with instant Linterature, on Lindles

by Celeste Ng

Sorry. As a fellow dorky, Asian Harvard grad, I may have gotten swept up in the adoration of Jeremy Lin that’s sweeping the nation world. And, um, the puns—at least the ones that aren’t ethnic slurs. (Don’t get me started on that one, please.) Anyway. Thanks to his underdog-made-good story, Jeremy Lin has thoroughly saturated pop culture—everything from serious discussions of immigration to discount airfares. And now, Linsanity has entered the literary world. In the fortnight since Lin shot to fame, multiple authors have penned ebooks about him for the Kindle. Reports Fast Company: Several of the e-books repurpose publicly […]


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Ann Patchett bests Stephen Colbert

by Celeste Ng

It doesn’t happen often—a guest getting the last word on The Colbert Report?  But it happened just earlier this week, when author Ann Patchett came on the show to explain why she helped open Parnassus Books in Nashville: because she was horrified that her town had NO bookstores. I was lucky enough to hear Ann Patchett in person, at the Muse and the Marketplace conference in Boston a few years ago, and I was impressed by how sharp she was—for example, she delivered a witty and inspiring keynote address without a single page of notes.  (I wish I were cool […]


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What is the… What?

by Celeste Ng

Okay, let me walk you through this one. The Thing Quarterly is a “periodical in the form of an object.” Says its site: Each year, four artists, writers, musicians or filmmakers are invited by the editors (Jonn Herschend and Will Rogan) to create a useful object that somehow incorporates text. This object will be reproduced and hand wrapped at a wrapping party and then mailed to the homes of the subscribers with the help of the United States Postal Service. The most recent issue (Issue 16) is a work by Dave Eggers in the form of a shower curtain. The […]


Reviews |

Contents May Have Shifted, by Pam Houston

by Michael Byers

Pam Houston’s Contents May Have Shifted is made up of journal entries that recount the main character Pam’s travels, troubles, and search for meaning. In Michael Byers’s review, he wishes the novel were braver, and argues that the literary novel must take itself seriously, while considering why we hold genre fiction to a different standard.




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