Suspend Your Disbelief

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A Kindle for Dickens

by Celeste Ng

If Charles Dickens had had a Kindle, what would it have looked like? That’s the question art student Rachel Walsh tried to answer for her design class, which asked her to explain something modern to someone who died before 1900. Walsh’s explanation involved creating a visual metaphor: Since a 19th-century author wouldn’t have had any concept of downloads, e-readers, or the Internet, Walsh had to create a metaphor for the device that would resonate with Dickens. Realizing that a Kindle is just a lot of books inside a big book, she created an old-school version consisting of literal little books […]


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Book of the Week: Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar, edited by Richard Ford

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s featured title is Blue Collar, White Collar, No Collar: Stories of Work, edited by Richard Ford. This anthology was created as a benefit for 826michigan, a non-profit organization located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that is dedicated to supporting students ages 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills, and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. They offer drop-in tutoring, writing workshops, storytelling and bookmaking field trips, nighttime and weekend workshops, and various other community-related events and services. All are free of charge, always. Founded by Ann Arbor writer Steven Gillis, 826michigan is a chapter […]


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Book-of-the-Week Winners: Separate Kingdoms

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Separate Kingdoms as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Alex Carrick (@Alex_Carrick) Jenny Shank (@JennyShank) Amy Silverberg (@AmySilverberg) 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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One book review? That'll be $99.00, please.

by Celeste Ng

What’s wrong with these two sentences? We will keep the book in our stacks for another two weeks. If you decide to order a review after that time, we will ask you to send another copy. That’s from an email Chad Post of Three Percent received recently from ForeWord Reviews. Yes, you read that right: “if you decide to order a review.” ForeWord Digital Reviews, as the email explained, charges authors to have their books reviewed: Digital Reviews is our new review service for books that meet our standards for worthy books, but which we can’t cover in our print […]


Essays |

The Sorrow and Grace of My People’s Waltz, by Dale Ray Phillips

by Forrest Anderson

Forrest Anderson on the semester he “caught fire as a writer,” when Ron Rash handed him a life-changing copy of Dale Ray Phillips’s debut, My People’s Waltz. Anderson describes the exquisite moments of grace in the collection when “all of the bad things to come are brewing on the horizon but haven’t yet managed to fully snag the family.”


Shop Talk |

Journal of the Week subscription winners: Flyway

by Celeste Ng

We’re delighted to announce the winners of our Flyway Journal of the Week giveaway, chosen at random from our Twitter followers. Congratulations to: Tom Ryan (@crossroadskcmo) Diane Cook (@TheDMC) Jason Renshaw (@englishraven) You’ll each receive a complimentary one-year subscription to Flyway! Please email us at winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com with your contact information, and we’ll coordinate the rest. If you missed the profile of Flyway and the exclusive interview with Managing Editor Brenna Dixon and Fiction Editor Genevieve DuBois, you can read the whole thing in our blog archives. And remember: if you’d like to be eligible for future journal giveaways, […]


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"Jersey Shore" Gone Wilde!

by Celeste Ng

That’s the title of a hilarious video series by the cast of “The Importance of Being Earnest” on Broadway at Roundabout Theatre Company. They ask an important question: What if the characters of Broadway’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” traveled through a time warp and woke up on the beach with Snooki, The Situation and the rest of the gang of MTV’s “Jersey Shore”? In an exclusive video series created for Playbill by “Earnest” stars Santino Fontana and David Furr, the Roundabout Theatre Company cast puts “Jersey” in the mouths of Oscar Wilde’s famed Britons. Think of it as a […]


Shop Talk |

More powerful than a locomotive…

by Celeste Ng

Not a poet? Perhaps you are. David Brooks points out that we all use metaphors in our daily speech, all the time, without even knowing it: When talking about relationships, we often use health metaphors. A friend might be involved in a sick relationship. Another might have a healthy marriage. When talking about argument, we use war metaphors. When talking about time, we often use money metaphors. But when talking about money, we rely on liquid metaphors. We dip into savings, sponge off friends or skim funds off the top. Even the job title stockbroker derives from the French word […]




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