Suspend Your Disbelief

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Shop Talk |

Bookish Gift Idea #12: The Storymatic

by Celeste Ng

Here’s a great gift for a young writer, a game buff, or a teacher. The Storymatic provides 500 cards suggesting characters, images, and events to lead players into a story: First, draw two gold cards. Combine the information on the two cards to create your main character. For example, if you draw “surgeon” and “amateur boxer,” your character is a surgeon who is also a boxer. Next, draw one or two copper cards. Let the information on the cards lead you into a story. Wild cards are interspersed throughout, and they prompt you to go in directions you might not […]


Shop Talk |

Bookish Gift Idea #10: Banned books bracelet

by Celeste Ng

Help a friend flaunt her love of forbidden fiction with this banned books bracelet. Each enameled panel features a book that’s been banned, from To Kill a Mockingbird to Huckleberry Finn. It’s from the UK—but defying censorship knows no bounds. Right? Available from The Literary Gift Company. And check back here at FWR every day in December for a bookish gift idea!


Shop Talk |

Bookish Gift Idea #9: Membership to a writing center

by Celeste Ng

If you’re looking for a way to encourage a writer-friend, what about membership to a local independent writing center? Most writing centers offer workshops and seminars, but they also provide quiet places to work, as well opportunities for writers to meet, share ideas, and talk shop. Let’s face it: writing is a lonely task, and reminders that you’re not alone can make a huge difference. Here’s just a sampling of what’s out there: In Boston: Grub Street offers workspace as well as everything from one-night seminars to ten-week workshops. (Disclaimer: I teach at Grub Street–but I can also testify to […]


Shop Talk |

The Worst Book Ever (?)

by Celeste Ng

Publishers Weekly’s blog has named the Worst Book Ever, and it’s pretty bad. But the Amazon reviews of Microwave for One are themselves delightful little vignettes of fiction: It used to be that I got home from work and the only thing I’d want to put in my mouth was the cold barrel of my grandfather’s shotgun. Then I discovered Sonia Allison’s Chicken Tetrazzini, and now there are two things. This book is all you need for all the cooking you will ever do. Yes, even when you’re cooking for more than one! Impossible you say? Well, I thought so […]


Shop Talk |

Bookish Gift Idea #8: Hardcover Picture Frame (DIY)

by Celeste Ng

Today we have a simple but striking DIY gift idea: a picture frame made from a hardcover book. Maybe you’ve got an old book with unreadable pages but an intact cover, or maybe you found a gorgeous old hardcover at a used bookstore that could use a new lease on life (hello, Illustrated Cheeses of the World). Craft blog Papernstitch offers this tutorial on making that hardcover into a picture frame for a one-of-a-kind gift. The full tutorial is here (via)—you’re on your own for the book, though.


Shop Talk |

This is your brain. This is your brain on Art.

by Celeste Ng

Breaking Copy highlights these ads, by the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, that satirize anti-drug PSAs: I can see an MFA program putting together its own series of these ads: Anita Desai: “Where did you learn to write stories? Who taught you how to do this stuff?” Kiran Desai: “You, all right? I learned it by watching you!” Ad campaign, anyone?


Essays |

Creative Defiance

by Ellen Prentiss Campbell

What do the 2011 Japanese Tsunami, the Cuban Missile Crisis and one family’s personal heartbreak have in common? For Ellen Prentiss Campbell the answer lies in Pearl S. Buck’s 1948 young adult novel The Big Wave and the individual acts of creative defiance that help survivors not only carry on, but value life’s beauty more highly because they know it will not last.


Shop Talk |

Bookish Gift Idea #7: Retro reading posters

by Celeste Ng

We’ve already looked at some posters to encourage kids to read, but what about adults? Take a peek at these amazing vintage-y reading posters. There’s the “Be Kind to Books Club” poster above, as well as several reminding you to read each month, like this one for March: How great would these look over your desk–or in your library, should you be so lucky? Available—along with other historical reading posters—at Art.com. And check back every day in December for another bookish gift idea from FWR!




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