Suspend Your Disbelief

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Shop Talk |

Banned Books Week = An Act of Censorship? Say what?

by Celeste Ng

It’s currently Banned Books Week, an event sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA), the American Booksellers Association, and other book- and writing-related organizations. The purpose, according to the ALA website, is “highlighting the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.” To celebrate Banned Books Week, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed piece by Mitchell Muncy entitled “Finding Censorship Where There Is None,” which asserts that Banned Books Week is, basically, a time for overzealous First-Amendment freaks to […]


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Issue 3 of Wag's Revue, and a contest

by Anne Stameshkin

Online-only literary mag Wag’s Revue‘s third issue, like its previous two, is full of great features (among them charcoal renderings of scenes from Point Break!), but for fiction’s sake, I’ll stick to–fiction. In addition to stories from Daniel Wallace, Louis Wittig, Gerald Barton, and Donald Dewey, I highly recommend Will Litton’s interview with George Saunders. And not just because there’s a charcoal drawing of Patrick Swayze before it. Here’s one of my favorite bits from the interview (this is Saunders speaking): I like it best when I’m just trying to make something funny and crazy and somehow a deeper truth […]


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West Hollywood Book Fair: Sunday, Oct. 4

by Anne Stameshkin

L.A.-based writer-readers: On Sunday, October 4th, check out the West Hollywood Book Fair from 10 AM – 6 PM in Hollywood Park (647 N. San Vicente Blvd). In addition to the book fair itself, there will be more than 400 authors and artists in attendance, more than 100 panels and book signings, live performances/events on 15 stages, writing workshops, programs for children, and the presentation of the annual Algonquin West Hollywood Literary Award. At 3:45 on the Salon Stage, be sure to attend the 2009 Emerging Voices reading; presented by PEN USA, it will feature Erika Ayon, John Boucher, Rachelle […]


Reviews |

The Collectors, by Matt Bell

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

In both of the recent New York Times reviews of E.L. Doctorow’s new novel, Homer & Langley, which is based on the lives of the Collyer brothers, the reviewers go out of their way to point to other works drawn from the lives of these eccentric, hoarding bachelor shut-ins: Marcia Davenport’s My Brother’s Keeper, Richard Greenberg’s The Dazzle, Franz Lidz’s Ghosty Men: The Strange but True Story of the Collyer Brothers and My Uncle Arthur, New York’s Greatest Hoarders, and a variety of other books, films, plays, and TV shows. In short: we are obsessed with the obsessed. Nowhere is this clearer than in Matt Bell’s The Collectors, which is also based on the lives of the Collyer brothers, and deserves to be added to this canon.


Shop Talk |

Embracing the bad reviews

by Anne Stameshkin

You’ve got to hand it to novelist Brad Meltzer for bouncing back from brutal criticism of his novel Book of Lies with this hilarious YouTube video. His grandmother and members of the Little League team he coaches all take a turn quoting, rather gleefully, from published pillories, urging viewers to buy the book so they, too, can hate Brad. If you want to hate Brad Meltzer in paperback, please do so at your local indie bookseller. (Via Kathryn, via InkyGirl.)


Essays |

Novel Dishes: The Time Traveler's Wife IV: Recipes for Respite: Kimy's Sangria, Duck Breasts with Raspberry and Pink Peppercorn Sauce, and Almond Torte

by Kathryn McGowan

Clare: “But don’t you think that it’s better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?”

Richard DeTamble: “I’ve often wondered about that. Do you believe that?

Clare: “Yes, I do.”


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TriQuarterly to be Shut Down after 45 Years

by Celeste Ng

Some sad news: recently, we heard that venerable literary journal TriQuarterly was transitioning to an online-only format. It’s sad enough to think that one of the oldest and most respected literary mags would no longer be in print, but there’s more to the story, as shown in this email from Ian Morris, TriQuarterly‘s associate editor: I just wanted you all know that as of spring 2010 after forty-five years TriQuarterly magazine will cease to exist. Susan Hahn and myself were notified of this fact yesterday just hours before the press release announcing the decision was sent out. After terminating TriQuarterly’s […]


Shop Talk |

Graphic Classics

by Celeste Ng

Vernerable publisher Penguin has quietly been putting out a series of “Graphic Classics”–classic novels such as Moby Dick and The Three Musketeers with snazzy covers by prominent graphic artists. Over at his blog, illustrator Michael Cho discusses designing the cover for the recent reissue of Don Delillo’s White Noise: The first thing I did, of course, was read the book again. It had been over 10 years since I last read it, so I needed to re-familiarize myself with it. After reading it though this time, I skimmed it again but with an eye toward the major concepts and images. […]


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Simon Van Booy wins world’s largest short story prize

by Joshua Bodwell

On September 20th, at a ceremony in Cork, Ireland, the 34-year-old author Simon Van Booy collected the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and a 35, 000 Euro check for his collection, Love Beings in Winter (Harper Perennial, 2009). When last year’s O’Connor Award was given to Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth, judges did away with even selecting a shortlist. This year, however, Van Booy one of six writers that made up an impressive, international shortlist: An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe); Singularity by Charlotte Grimshaw (New Zealand); Ripples and other Stories by Shih-Li Kow (Malaysia); The Pleasant Light […]


Shop Talk |

why the genius grants are, well, ingenious

by Celeste Ng

Yesterday the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced the 20 recipients for the 2009 Fellowships–popularly known as the “Genius” Grants. Each of the fellows learned in a single phone call that they will receive $500,000 with no strings attached. This year’s crop includes two fiction writers, novelist Edwidge Danticat and short story writer Deborah Eisenberg. Two things about this: First, the program’s stated mission is “to enable recipients to exercise their own creative instincts for the benefit of human society.” So as a fiction writer, I find it empowering that the MacArthur Foundation believes writers can benefit society […]




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