Suspend Your Disbelief

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Titles to Avoid

by Celeste Ng

Trimalchio in West Egg. A Jewish Patient Begins His Analysis. Catch-18. Even the greats struggle with their titles sometimes, toying with titles like these before settling on The Great Gatsby, Portnoy’s Complaint, and Catch-22. So what makes a good title–or a bad one? Author and teacher Eric Puchner has some thoughts in GlimmerTrain’s latest bulletin: So, based on years of teaching, I’ve compiled the following list of types of TITLES TO AVOID. (Note: some of the examples below are real titles, from good stories.) The Purely Descriptive: “One Early Morning in Topeka at Dawn” The Lofty Abstraction, AKA the Bad […]


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On (Non-Social) Reading

by Celeste Ng

From to Oprah’s Book Club to Goodreads, reading has become a more social activity than ever before. But what about those people who still like to curl up with a book–alone? The New York Times examines the private reader: Particularly with the books we adore most, a certain reader wants to preserve the experience for reflection, or even claim the book as hers and hers alone. Lois Lowry, an author of books for children and a two-time winner of the Newbery for “Number the Stars” and “The Giver,” said she recently read that Katherine Paterson, also a two-time Newbery winner […]


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2010 PEN/O. Henry Prize Winners Announced

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

The official list for the 2010 Pen/O. Henry Prize winners was released recently and we are pleased to announce that two FWR Contributors will have work in this year’s anthology: Natalie Bakopoulos, whose story “Fresco, Byzantine” was published in the Fall 2008 issue of Tin House, and Preeta Samarasan, whose story “Birch Memorial” was published in Issue 6 of A Public Space. Congratulations! The anthology, which is edited by Laura Furman, features Junot Díaz, Yiyun Li, and Paula Fox as this year’s prize jury. Here is the complete list of authors and selected stories: “Them Old Cowboy Songs” Annie Proulx “Clothed, Female […]


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The Death of the Slushpile

by Celeste Ng

The slush pile: Beginning writers get lost in it. Beginning editors sift through it. The Wall Street Journal points out some of the effects of its disappearance: As writers try to find an agent—a feat harder than ever to accomplish in the wake of agency consolidations and layoffs—the slush pile has been transferred from the floor of the editor’s office to the attaché cases of representatives who can broker introductions to publishing, TV and film executives. The result is a shift in taste-making power onto such agents, managers and attorneys. Theirs are now often the first eyes to make a […]


Reviews |

The Museum of Innocence, by Orhan Pamuk

by T. M. De Vos

Like most of us, Orhan Pamuk’s narrator Kemal rushes through his happiest moments in a preoccupied haze, only appreciating them in hindsight. A true materialist, he seeks to recreate them through his collections of mementos large and small, iconic and insignificant. His “museum” in The Museum of Innocence (Knopf, 2009) is a diorama not only of Kemal’s own nostalgia, but of Turkey itself in the late 1970s.


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The Lost Booker Prize

by Celeste Ng

The Booker Prize has announced the Lost Booker Prize, intended to honor books published in 1970, the only year since 1968 in which when no prize was given. The Booker Prize was created in 1968 as a retrospective prize – that is, honoring books published prior to the award year. Then, in 1971, two changes were made in the Booker rules: the Booker became a prize for the best novel published in the same year as the award, and the month in which the award was given changed from April to November. As a result of the new rules, books […]


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Christine Hartzler's Essay Selected for Best of the Web Anthology

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

It’s with great pride that we announce that Christine Hartzler’s essay “Games Are Not About Monsters,” which FWR published in April of last year, was recently selected for inclusion in Dzanc’s Best of the Web 2010 anthology. Christine’s essay is a lyrical meditation on video games, the development of character, how we make meaning, and, of course, monsters. Drawing from her own experience playing RPGs like Shadow of the Colossus, she asks us to consider how the best games in this genre–like the best literature–not only challenge us to confront ourselves, but can also give us a glimpse of enlightenment. […]


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Harvard Book Store Short-Short Contest

by Celeste Ng

Boston-area readers know Harvard Book Store as one of the best independent bookstores in the country. The store hosts author events and readings nearly every night, and the knowledgeable staff is always ready to help should you need a recommendation. Now, they’re encouraging writers as well. In honor of the shortest month, Harvard Book Store is running a short-short contest: Let’s make these 28 days count! Write a short short story (500 words or less). Send us your entries (no more than 3 entries per person) by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 17th. We’ll read them, pick our favorites, and, […]


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Books We Can't Part With

by Celeste Ng

When I moved from Ann Arbor to Boston, movers came to pack our things. After the thirteenth box of books–literally–Mover #1 actually set down his tape gun and said in complete seriousness, “Do you really need all these books?” Oh yes. I needed them. The New York Times, however, understands that now and then one must actually cull one’s library for reasons of space. The editors asked several authors for their advice on how to do it: Francine Prose: Unless you are an Egyptologist, you only need one, at most two, enormous coffee table books on the Art of the […]


Reviews |

Amigoland, by Oscar Casares

by Phil Sandick

“Now he was the one smiling. He knew they were all around the table, he could feel their eyes on him—The One With The Flat Face, The One With The Big Ones, The One With The Worried Face, The Gringo With The Ugly Finger, The One With The White Pants, The One With The Net On His Head—staring at him and waiting for his next move.” There is so much more to Don Fidencio Rosales, the ninety-one year-old protagonist of Oscar Casares’s comedic and heartening first novel, Amigoland (Little, Brown 2009), than simply his age. First and foremost, there’s his […]




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