Suspend Your Disbelief

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A Story Sung: Why Fiction Writers Should Read Poetry

Any writer who desires to get at the truth of human experience should read poetry, because it contains a multitude of possibility. Poetry is the mud that grows the seed that becomes the forest. It is the clay that makes the brick that forms the building. It is the blood that moves the body that holds the spirit. Poetry has the essence of life in it. Poets voice that which has no voice in this world. They speak in tongues, and hope their words reach the ears and touch the hearts of those who know what it means to live. […]


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Stories We Love: The Great Salt Gift of Alistair MacLeod’s “The Boat”

by Joshua Bodwell

“Slow and rich and so atmospheric that you can taste the ocean’s salt spray on your lips, ‘The Boat’ is run through with that rarest of qualities in fiction: the story feels mythic”: Joshua Bodwell on Alistair MacLeod’s short fiction.


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First Looks, Buzz Books: May 2013

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Hello again, FWR friends. Welcome to the latest installment of “First Looks,” which highlights soon-to-be (or just) released books that have piqued our interest as readers-who-write. We publish “First Looks” here on the FWR blog around the 15th of each month, and as always, we’d love to hear your comments and your recommendations of forthcoming titles. So please drop us a line with buzz-worthy titles you’re anticipating: editors(at)fictionwritersreview(dot)com. Thanks in advance! Though we devote the entire month of May to celebrating short stories, there are still plenty of great collections that slip through the cracks. I guess it’s a good […]


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Book of the Week: What You Are Now Enjoying, by Sarah Gerkensmeyer

by The Editors

This week’s feature is Sarah Gerkensmeyer’s debut collection, What You Are Now Enjoying, which was selected by Stewart O’Nan as winner of the 2012 Autumn House Press Fiction Prize and has been longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. A Pushcart Prize nominee and a finalist for the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction and the Italo Calvino Prize for Fabulist Fiction, Sarah has received scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Ragdale, Grub Street, and the Vermont Studio Center. Her stories have appeared in Guernica, The New Guard, The Massachusetts Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Cream […]


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Book-of-the-Week Winners: I Want to Show You More

by The Editors

Last week’s feature was Jamie Quatro’s debut collection, I Want to Show You More, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: Monica Miller (@MonicaCMiller) Tobey Forney (@TobeyForney) Pamela Oberg (@stonecreekwrite) Congrats! To claim your free copy, please email us at the following address: winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us! Thanks to all of you who are fans. We appreciate your support. Let us know your favorite new books out there!




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