Reading Deanna Fei’s debut novel, A Thread of Sky, rescued Kate Levin from a giant post-MFA funk. In this conversation with Levin, Fei discusses the role cultural identity plays in a writer’s persona and work, the value of unknowability, the secret to writing great sex scenes, the reason she watches Jersey Shore—and more.
Quite a while back, we wrote about an anthology of literary tattoos. That book, The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos, came out last fall. And, judging by this slideshow of lit tattoos, there’s plenty of material out there for a sequel. Can you identify these? And check out the rest in the original post. Those that use the text of the literature itself are lovely—but I’m especially fond of those that are insider references to the text, like this one: Or this one: Maybe we can divide literary tattoos into two classes. First there are those that use a direct […]
FWR contributor Valerie Laken‘s story collection, Separate Kingdoms, has just come out, and those of you in NYC can hear her read from it live at KGB Bar this Sunday, April 3, at 7:00 pm. Laken will read with Cat Valente as part of KGB’s Sunday Night Fiction series. And stay tuned next month, when we’ll be giving away three copies of Separate Kingdoms in honor of Short Story Month! Further reading: Learn more about Valerie Laken and her work through this FWR interview Follow Valerie through “The Magical, Dreadful First Hundred Pages,” her essay adapted from the 2010 AWP […]
Earlier this month, this video celebrated Library Ireland Week: Notice how everyone is too engrossed in reading to notice the books falling all around? That’s how great reading is! Want more book-dominoes? Check out this run by “bookman”:
Last week, a personal book-review blog called BigAl’s Books and Pals posted a review of a self-published novel by Jacqueline Howett. Howett took exception to the review and posted a series of ranting comments, eventually deteriorating into obscenities—but not before the thread had gone viral, and not in a good way. Some insist that any publicity is good publicity, but the writing blogosphere unanimously agrees that Howett shot herself in the proverbial foot with her behavior. But for writers who don’t have public meltdowns over bad reviews, is any publicity good publicity? How do bad reviews affect book sales? David […]
Welcome to Thursday Morning Candy, where we highlight a sweet online journal or writely resource. Attention, Chicago writers! Newcity Lit is a website devoted to the Windy City’s writing scene. Says the site: We start with the core coverage found each week in Newcity magazine, Chicago’s only locally owned and operated cultural weekly, where we’ve been covering the turf for more than 22 years, and extend it with your input on this site. Please sign up and join the conversation! Recent topics include the School of the Art Institute’s second annual Small Press and Comics Symposium, a writeup of Columbia […]
In Icelandic author Bragi Ólafsson’s The Pets, the narrator spends the novel hiding under his bed as his “friends,” who assume he isn’t home, gather in his apartment. Aaron Cance reviews this voyeuristic tale, its quirky narrative, and its debt to Moby Dick.
How have I not heard of this site before? BookMooch allows you to trade books you don’t want for books you do—by mail, with a little help from the internet. Here’s how it works, according to the site: You earn points when you: Type books in: enter books you own and want to give away. Each book typed in gets you 1/10th of a point. Give books away: respond to a mooch request, and send your book to them. 1 point awarded, 3 points if sent to another country. Acknowledge Receipt: after you receive a book, leave feedback for the […]
AWP provided a perfect opportunity to discover what has captured the imaginations of fellow writers with vastly different viewpoints. One such writer is Eric Hendrixson, who introduced me to Bizarro fiction. As Hendrixson described his novel, Bucket of Face, I realized I’d been completely unaware of this genre that Horror World calls “the literary equivalent of a David Lynch or a Tim Burton film.” Hendrixson kindly offered to answer some of my novice questions. Define Bizarro fiction. Bizarro is literature of the weird. This isn’t the same thing as experimental fiction, which is weird in its structure and sometimes unreadable. […]
Rebecca Makkai’s Professor Alex Moore is one of the most memorable characters in 2010’s Best American Short Stories. Not just because she accidentally kills an albatross while hunting ducks in Australia, or because as a teacher of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” she becomes a minor celebrity on campus due to the ironic crime, but because that one pull of the trigger sets forth a steady unraveling of her personal and professional lives—so thorough a deconstruction that the reader soon joins Moore in doubting its authenticity. The conclusion to Makkai’s “Painted Ocean, Painted Ship” does what you would expect a […]
