Suspend Your Disbelief

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FWR's Latest Features: The Biweekly Roundup

by Anne Stameshkin

Here’s a recap of the reviews, interviews, and essays you may have missed on Fiction Writers Review lately. Charlotte Boulay reviews The Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner, calling it “serial narrative of the best kind—the kind that gets richer and more complex as it develops” and adding, “Even among YA fantasy novels, The Thief is exceptional because it’s a story about adults. These are not the sudden inheritors of magical powers, but people who have carried the weight of responsibility for their entire lives.” Brian Short reviews Swimming with Strangers, the second collection by Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum. “Lunstrum […]


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P&W's Inside Indie Bookstores: Women & Children First

by Anne Stameshkin

In the newest installment of Poets & Writers magazine’s Inside Indie Bookstores series, FWR Associate Editor Jeremiah Chamberlin profiles Chicago’s fabulous Women & Children First bookstore, featuring an interview with the bookstore’s co-owner Linda Bubon. The online version (along with a slideshow of images from the store) is available at no cost on P&W‘s website…but if you want a print copy, Poets & Writers‘ special offer to Fiction Writers Review readers (only $12 for a year-long subscription) is still up for grabs; if you order through this page before May 15, you’ll get the current issue featuring Women & Children […]


Interviews |

New Ways of Looking at Old Questions: An Interview with Heidi Durrow

by Mary Westbrook

“I don’t mind that when I’m interviewed I am speaking as a representative of biracial women. I’m heartened that people are interested. I do wonder, though, when the book is critiqued as being not enough about the biracial experience. To that criticism I say, Well, okay, but it’s not a position paper. It’s a story. … I have had a number of people “come out” to me, for lack of a better word, about their blended families, or about their grief, or about simply being a young person struggling against the labels, like geek or nerd, that they’d been assigned by peers. … They’ve connected their own stories to the stories I’ve told and suddenly feel empowered to talk about it.”


Shop Talk |

Should You Get an MFA in Creative Writing?

by Anne Stameshkin

Are you currently weighing the benefits of an MFA? If you heard Michael Chabon’s take on MFA programs in his amazing AWP keynote, you’re probably hitchhiking to UC Irvine, a typewriter strapped to your heart — but even so, you might be wrestling with important questions like these: Will an advanced degree help you with your particular goals as a writer — and if so, when is the right time to go? How important is full or partial funding? What about opportunities to teach or work on a journal? What are program directors and committees looking for in MFA students, […]


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Book Design Nerdery, Part I: Designing a Cover

by Celeste Ng

Have you ever wondered how book covers get designed? This video shows how Orbit Books’ Creative Designer Lauren Panepinto designed the cover for an upcoming novel. The whole process took over 6 hours, but the video condenses that into just under two minutes: On Orbit’s webpage, Panepito explains: Trust me, no one wants to watch it in real-time…and even then I left out the not-as-riveting-onscreen stages of my cover design process, such as reading the manuscript, sifting through Alexia photoshoot outtakes, background photo research, etc. And since this is a series look that has already been established for Soulless and […]


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I have an MFA in Fiction and a Master's in Vampire Studies

by Celeste Ng

How do you know when vampire lit has reached critical mass? When it gets an academic conference. Vampire literature is now receiving some scholarly attention with a conference at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK. Despite the smirk factor, the conference—”Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture”— has some serious intellectual heft: The aim of the conference is to relate the undead in literature, art, and other media to questions concerning gender, technology, consumption, and social change. […] The irony of creatures with no reflection becoming such a pervasive reflection of modern culture pleases in […]


Reviews |

Swimming with Strangers, by Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum

by Brian Short

The stories in Kirsten Lunstrum’s new collection, Swimming with Strangers, are smart, harrowing, dramatic, and quite often surprising. In one, the narrator describes the story of her own birth; in another, as the characters discuss fairy tales—one of the characters forces his students to read the Brothers Grimm in their brutal, original forms—the roles of witch and distressed damsel switch back and forth. While we could easily imagine stories like these in which thematic elements take over, Lunstrum keeps them at a low burble, focusing on the reality of these characters’ struggles. It is a very brave choice.


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YA Authors Fight Bullying

by Celeste Ng

Here in Massachusetts, the story of Phoebe Prince has been big news for a while. Prince was a fifteen-year-old high school freshman in South Hadley, MA, who committed suicide after being repeatedly bullied at school. Now, as some of the teens who allegedly bullied Prince are charged in connection with her death, the story has gotten news coverage across the country. And it’s also sparking action from an unlikely group: YA authors. GalleyCat reports: To help combat the problem of bullying, YA authors Carrie Jones and Megan Kelley Hall have founded a new group–Young Adult Authors Against Bullying. Since the […]


Shop Talk |

SHAY-bahn, not cha-BONE

by Anne Stameshkin

When you have a last name like Stameshkin, it’s rare–and lovely–to hear someone say it correctly. And I imagine that if even if you’re a world-famous author like Michael Chabon (see the subject line), Jonathan Lethem (that’s LEETH-um) or Chimamada Ngozi Adichie (en-GO-zeh ad-DEE-chay), it’s frustrating to hear thousands of fans and critics say they love…someone else. To avoid crimes of mispronunciation, study this guide to pronouncing authors’ names (via Buzzfeed via Dieselbookstore via The Panorama Book Review): it’s a great resource if you’re introducing, teaching, or even just talking about one of these writers. (Thanks to Tori and Todd […]




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