Suspend Your Disbelief

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Book of the Week: Everything Beautiful Began After, by Simon Van Booy

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s feature is Simon Van Booy’s Everything Beautiful Began After. Published earlier this month by Harper Perrenial, the book is Van Booy’s first novel. He is also the author of two story collections, The Secret Lives of People in Love and Love Begins in Winter, which won the 2009 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Additionally, he is the editor of three nonfiction philosophy titles: Why We Need Love, Why We Fight, and Why Our Decisions Don’t Matter. Born in London and raised in Wales, Van Booy now lives in New York City, where he teaches at the School […]


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How far can book promotions go?

by Celeste Ng

My friends who are literary agents have told me about the many ways authors try to catch their attention: packages of cookies sent with their manuscripts; queries tucked into oven mitts shaped like sunflowers (of all things). But this might be the ultimate guerrilla book promotion: faking a kidnapping to promote your book. Yes. Mark Davis, a thriller writer, did just that. Reports the News Advance of Lynchburg, Virginia: His main character, Perno Morris, is a failed novelist who has grown weary (and, perhaps, been pushed over the edge of sanity) by a discouraging series of rejections by publishers. So […]


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Journal of the Week subscription winners: PANK

by Michael Rudin

We’re delighted to announce the winners of our PANK Journal of the Week giveaway, chosen at random from our Twitter followers. Congratulations to: Samantha (@schpallir) Art Allen (@punsultant) Jenny Howard (@jennifhow) You’ll each receive a complimentary one-year subscription to PANK! Please email us at winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com with your contact information, and we’ll coordinate the rest. If you missed the profile of PANK and the exclusive interview with co-editor Roxane Gay, you can read the whole thing in our blog archives. And remember: if you’d like to be eligible for future journal giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” […]


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Unbound: a Kickstarter for books

by Celeste Ng

Unbound allows authors to pitch book ideas and interested readers to fund those books. Says the site: Unbound is a new way of connecting with writers. Most of the writers on our site will be well known, others will appear here for the first time. What’s different is that instead of waiting for them to publish their work, Unbound allows you to listen to their ideas for what they’d like to write before they even start. If you like their idea, you can pledge to support it. If we hit the target number of supporters, the author can go ahead […]


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Reminder: Dzanc Books Fourth Annual Write-a-Thon Fundraiser Starts Today

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Each year Dzanc Books hosts a Write-a-Thon to raise money for their charitable endeavors–The Dzanc Prize, the Dzanc Writer-in-Residence Program, Dzanc Day, and numerous other service-oriented endeavors that put writers in communities and classrooms around the country. This year’s Write-a-Thon starts today and runs through Sunday. Though there’s still time to participate! Sponsor a Writer The easiest way to support Dzanc is to sponsor one of the participating authors, a line-up that includes such writers as Laura Van Den Berg, Matt Bell, Eugene Cross, Kellie Wells, and Brian Sousa. Click here for the complete list. Donate No donation is too […]


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Does YA fiction lead to dark thoughts, or do dark thoughts lead to YA fiction?

by Celeste Ng

Which came first, the moody teen, or the YA fiction that moody teens often gravitate towards? Linda Holmes of NPR responds to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial that criticized YA fiction for being “too dark”: I’m more intrigued by the aspirational nature of the quaint but sad idea that teenagers, if you don’t give them The Hunger Games, can be effectively surrounded by images of joy and beauty. While the WSJ piece refers to the YA fiction view of the world as a funhouse mirror, I fear that what’s distorted is the vision of being a teenager that suggests […]


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Book-of-the-Week Winners: Knuckleheads

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Knuckleheads as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Artsieladie.com (@ArtsieladieHome) Adelphi MFA Program (@Adelphi_MFA) Mark Staniforth (@markbooks) To claim your signed copy of this collection, 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!


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The less-great Gatsby

by Celeste Ng

What happens when you take The Great Gatsby and try to make it more “accessible”? This: Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter–tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. becomes this: Gatsby had believed in his dream. He had followed it and nearly made it come true. Everybody has a dream. And, like Gatsby, we must all follow our […]




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