Suspend Your Disbelief

Recent Posts

Shop Talk |

What's your Governor reading?

by Lee Thomas

Just in time for the election yesterday, David Kipen went on The Madeleine Brand show on KPCC with a list of what he though would be good required reading for the new California Governor. His list included theory, biography and classics of political writing – and some fiction. Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren, and The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice by Czech playwright, essayist and former President Václav Havel are just a few of the books Kipen selected. You can find his full list here. So now that the […]


Shop Talk |

Book of the Week Giveaway: Dakota, Or What's a Heaven For, by Brenda K. Marshall

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

At the end of August, Fiction Writers Review launched a Fan Page on Facebook. The goal is threefold: to introduce new readers to FWR, to create an informal place for conversations about writing, and also to give away lots of free books. Each week we’ll give away several free copies of a featured novel or story collection as part of our Book-of-the-Week program. All you have to do to be eligible for our weekly drawing is to be a fan of our Facebook page. No catch, no gimmicks. And once you’re a fan, you’ll be automatically entered in each subsequent […]


Shop Talk |

The new look of MQR

by Lee Thomas

Sometimes a fresh coat of paint and general sprucing up is all that’s needed to reinvigorate a literary journal’s true offering: knockout writing. Michigan Quarterly Review (MQR) has done just that with their website – redesigned as a clean, sleek affair in easy-on-the-eyes serifs and shades of charcoal and leafy green. Check out their new aesthetic here: michiganquarterlyreview.com Last year Jonathan Freedman assumed the role of Editor, taking over for Larry Goldstein, who ran MQR for more than three decades. In addition to welcoming on several Associate Editors – Michael Byers, who is on sabbatical this year, as well as […]


Shop Talk |

Robot Assistants: 2010 Edition

by Celeste Ng

Much has been said about what technology is doing to literature from the reading side. But what can technology do for those on the writing side? Several programs have recently been released to make the writer’s difficult task easier—or at least more manageable. Here’s a roundup, just in time for the start of NaNoWriMo: First, to help remove distractions, FocusWriter gives writers with a pared-down word processor that fills the entire screen, theoretically minimizing the temptation to waste time on the internet instead of writing. Unlike other stripped-down word processors, though, FocusWriter still provides basic features like word, paragraph, and […]


Reviews |

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender

by Jackie Reitzes

If you are what you eat, what happens when someone else eats what you are? In Aimee Bender’s latest novel, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, 9-year old Rose first experiences this conundrum when she tastes her mother’s birthday cake, only to come away with the uncomfortable understanding of her mother’s lonely dissatisfaction with life. The cake betrays the inner feelings of the cook. Over the course of the novel and Rose’s life, the predicament continues, building to an unwanted fixation of what constitutes food and those who grow and prepare it.


Shop Talk |

Commemorating 1,000 Fans on Facebook

by Michael Rudin

At the end of August, Fiction Writers Review launched a Fan Page on Facebook. The goal was threefold: to introduce new readers to FWR, to create an informal place for conversations about writing, and to give away lots of free books. And though we’d always hoped this project would also help bring together a thriving literary community, we had no idea it would happen so quickly! After just two months, our Facebook community has grown to over 950 friends and we fast approach 1,000. Still, the best surprise has been in the wonderful range of individuals who have joined us […]


Shop Talk |

Literary Halloween Costumes

by Celeste Ng

With just a few days left before Halloween, have you figured out your costume yet? The internets have some suggestions. On Flickr, the “Literary Halloween Costumes” group provides inspiration, from a classic Alice in Wonderland getup to Friar Tuck and Edgar Allen Poe to the obligatory Harry Potter. Need step-by-step instructions? Check out these tutorials to dress up as Heathcliff, Elizabeth Bennett, John Galt, or Jean Valjean and Cosette. For the kids, Apparently Not Deranged has suggestions, including Little Women, Peter Rabbit, and Waldo. (Via.) And for the do-it-yourselfer, there’s this colossally awesome Max costume, from Beau Baby: What’s your […]


Shop Talk |

Brief is beautiful

by Lee Thomas

Over on the Wall Street Journal’s newly-launched Book Review, Alexander McCall Smith laments the pitfalls of overwriting in “Block that Adjective!” Smith writes: Concise prose knows what it wants to say, and says it. It does not embellish, except occasionally, and then for dramatic effect. It is sparing in its use of metaphor. And it is certainly careful in its use of adjectives. Look at the King James Bible, that magnificent repository of English at the height of its beauty. The language used to describe the creation of the world is so simple, so direct. “Let there be light, and […]


Shop Talk |

Terrifying Tweets

by Lee Thomas

Thanks to Anne for alerting me to this, it sounds like just the diversion for a drizzly October morning. Today is the last day of the challenge, so if you’re feeling inspired for some Halloween creepy tweeting, get typing! Bestselling author and former Booker Prize judge Frank Delaney is hosting a Halloween Writing Challenge on Twitter. From Monday, October 25 to Wednesday, October 27, he’s challenging people to introduce the creepiest character possible in 140 creepy characters. Please enter! (Don’t forget to include the hash tag #FDcreepy in your tweet.) You just might win a secret creepy prize picked by […]


Shop Talk |

Book covers in your mailbox

by Lee Thomas

For better or worse, I’m one of those people who the postal service could charge $2 to send a simple letter and I’d still ante-up. With more of us sending email, especially in a work setting (I’m all for the environmental benefits of this), municipal mail service around the world has suffered. But there’s still something thrilling about receiving a handwritten letter – and they’re rare enough these days that a note from a friend in the mailbox can make my week. Enter: the perfect intersection of my admiration for the handwritten note and a love of cover design. Penguin […]




Literary Partners