Suspend Your Disbelief

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Reviews |

What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, by Laura van den Berg

by Liana Imam

“I imagine the seasonally unspecified stories in Laura van den Berg’s What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us must be set in spring because spring is a time that makes me feel young, young as girls and in as much danger. And then there’s always this odd moment of realization that I am young and a girl and in some dangers. I’m still in too-close contact with boys I once loved, still prone to crying in public, still not aware of the dynamic personal lives of adults. Spring in the Midwest is about babies and hope and vitality, but it’s also about knowing that eventually a late frost is going to swing in out of no place and kill everything you haven’t collected in the shed. And I wanted the people in these stories locked up safe.”


Shop Talk |

Literary Action Figures

by Celeste Ng

I am secretly envious of Star Wars and Star Trek geeks, because they get to decorate their desks (and cubicles and shelves and windowsills) with action figures in heroic poses. It’s like saying to the world: I’m letting my geek flag fly. I also suspect that when no one is around, they play with the action figures. As a literary geek, though, I must make do with pithy quotes by E. L. Doctorow and the like. It’s just not the same. Apparently I am not alone. The Huffington Post alerted me to this video, which surfaced on YouTube recently and […]


Interviews |

Writing with Intuition: An Interview with Hannah Tinti

by Charlotte Boulay

Hannah Tinti was raised in Salem, Massachusetts, a place she credits with having influenced the darker side of her fiction. Charlotte Boulay talks with the much-admired author and editor about the influence of art in her work, how writers find their subject matter, her editorial approach at One Story, and trusting your gut during the drafting process, among other subjects.


Shop Talk |

The Envelopes Please…

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Congratulations to this year’s winners of The Collection Giveaway Project! Earlier today we held four separate drawings to determine the recipients of our free story collections, and here are the results: Shannon for Laura van den Berg’s collection What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us Pete for Joshua Furst’s collection Short People Barrett Shipp for Skip Horack’s collection The Southern Cross Melanie Yarbrough for Robin Black’s collection If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This Thanks also to Erika Dreifus of The Practicing Writer (who first suggested the giveaway), the editors of The Replacement […]


Shop Talk |

Last Call: Win One of Eight Free Short Story Collections!

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

As the month winds to a close over Memorial Day weekend and summer officially begins, we’ll also be wrapping up our celebration of May as Short Story Month. Inspired by The Emerging Writers Network and their unparalleled coverage off all things story-related each May, as well as The Poetry Book Giveaway For National Poetry Month, we decided to launch The Collection Giveaway Project (warm thanks to Erika Dreifus of The Practicing Writer for suggesting our site as a home for this promotion). The goal is a simple one: to get readers talking about their favorite stories and story collections. So […]


Shop Talk |

Much Better Than Setting Fires: Chuck Palahniuk at "The Muse and the Marketplace"

by Celeste Ng

Grub Street is an independent not-for-profit writing center in Boston that runs writing classes as well as an annual literary conference, The Muse and the Marketplace. At the most recent Muse, Chuck Palahniuk was the keynote speaker, and even if you missed the conference, you can watch his speech below. Palahniuk tells the story of a very bad night in Paris on book tour and offers some possible metaphors for writing, as well as advice on eating cheese in France (!): Chuck Palahniuk from Grub Street on Vimeo. You can also listen to last year’s keynote address (in MP3 format) […]


Shop Talk |

New Audio Lit Mag: The Drum

by Anne Stameshkin

The Drum is a new online literary magazine that bills itself as “a literary magazine for your ears.” Founded and edited by writer Henriette Lazaridis Power, The Drum features short fiction and essays, read aloud by the authors. According to the journal’s website, the goal is to provide literature in portable, sharable, audio form: Each of The Drum’s ten annual issues brings you new literature you can weave into your daily life. Listen online or download the audio to listen to on your mp3 player and/or to share with up to five friends. Use our tags to choose a story […]


Shop Talk |

Fiction Meets Baby Names

by Celeste Ng

The Social Security Administration recently released its annual list of most popular baby names, and surprise! The influence of one particular novel—or rather, series of novels—was quite clear. Reports the New York Times: [F]lying up the list was an ancient name with modern fame: Cullen, the surname of one handsome bloodsucker, Edward, in the frighteningly popular vampire films “Twilight,” based on the best-selling novels by Stephenie Meyer. Cullen materialized at 485, leaping almost 300 spots from 2008 for the biggest increase of any boy’s name; it wedged firmly between Braiden and Kason. Other names from the Twilight series also showed […]


Interviews |

The Landscape of Fiction: An interview with Allan Gurganus

by Dana Kletter

Dana Kletter sits down to talk with famed fiction writer Allan Gurganus. Their conversation ranges from sexuality to southerness, from his affinity for the 19th century to how reading the work of fellow writers can be a shaping force in one’s fiction, from gardening between paragraphs to Halloween political activism, and plenty more about teaching and the craft of writing.


Shop Talk |

Win a copy of Laura van den Berg's What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Bob Dylan turned sixty-nine today. And regardless of how you feel about the man’s music, or how you feel about the different incarnations of his work—pre/post electric, pre/post born again, pre/post Victoria’s Secret—you’ve got to give him credit for knowing how to put together an album, which is a lot different than just writing a great song. My favorite is his 1976 album Desire. Maybe it’s the story writer in me, but the narrative quality of “Hurricane” and “Isis” and “Oh, Sister” just knock me out. More importantly, there’s a unity to the songs—in tone, in subject, in approach—that gives […]




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