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Story Prize Finalists Announced

by Celeste Ng

This year’s finalists for The Story Prize have been announced, and the competition is, as usual, staggering: In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin (Norton) Drift by Victoria Patterson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) Even more remarkable, as Story Prize director Larry Dark points out, these are all books by emerging authors: What’s particularly exciting is that all three are debuts–a first for The Story Prize. In fact, in the previous five years of the award, only 2 of 15 finalists were the authors’ first books: 2004/05 finalist The Circus […]


REMINDER: Amazing *Poets & Writers* deal for FWR readers! Sign up by tomorrow to get the Jan/Feb Issue

by Anne Stameshkin

As we announced earlier this month, Poets & Writers is continuing to offer a special deal to FWR readers (a description that includes anyone lucky enough to stumble across this post): only $12 for a year-long subscription! Take advantage of this hugely discounted rate by subscribing — or renewing your current subscription — via this link. Be sure to sign up by Friday, January 15 (tomorrow) if you want your subscription to include the Jan/Feb 2010 issue, which includes the first installment of FWR Associate Editor Jeremiah Chamberlin’s Inside Indie Bookstores series. Subscribing through this link will help show support […]


Who should ReadThis help next?

by Anne Stameshkin

In 2009, the now year-old organization ReadThis hit the ground running with a number of ambitious (and notably successful) projects–such as sending books to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and creating libraries for a Bronx public school and a Harlem children’s hospital. Who should ReadThis help supply books to in 2010? If you have suggestions, the board would love to hear from you. Via today’s Facebook message: ReadThis will be having a board meeting in a couple of weeks to plan the next six months of ReadThis activities. If you know of a school, workplace, hospital, military base, literacy organization, […]


This is your brain on fiction

by Celeste Ng

Can neuroscience help you become a better writer? That’s what YA author Livia Blackburne, a graduate student in neuroscience at MIT, wonders on her blog Narrative and the Brain. …. the scientists used a brain scanner to see what regions lit up during the reading of a story. They watched the brains of volunteers as they read four short narrative passages. […] Motor neurons flashed when characters were grasping objects, and neurons involved in eye movement activated when characters were navigating their world. In summary then, different parts of the brain process different facets of our conscious experience, and those […]


The Perils of "Contact Me"

by Celeste Ng

One of my new year’s resolutions is to reach out to other writers more often. But in a recent New York Times essay, Ben Yagoda looks at the downside of being in touch with one’s readers: Reader-to-author e-missives come in a few, quite specific, categories. The message above is an example of the most common (for me), queries tied to an author’s area of expertise. I have written books about Will Rogers, The New Yorker and grammar, and a few times a week I get a question on one of these topics. This is flattering… […] Less welcome are the […]


Remembering DFW

by Celeste Ng

We still miss David Foster Wallace, and we’re not alone. In GQ, Deborah Treisman (head of the New Yorker‘s fiction department) discusses working with the late author: You’ve edited a lot of great writers—what was the process like with him? David was wonderful to edit because he was so involved with the minutiae of his work—he had a long explanation for every decision that he’d made, and yet, at the same time, he was willing to rethink anything that didn’t seem to be landing well for the reader. Editing him was sometimes a more painstaking process than editing most writers, […]


Keyhole Press Joins Dzanc Books

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

While many publishers and literary magazines are closing their doors, Dzanc has opened theirs to Keyhole Press. As of January 1st, Keyhole will join Absinthe: New European Writing, OV Books, Black Lawrence Press, and Monkeybicycle, as part of the Dzanc collective. This from the Dzanc press release: “Keyhole has an impressive list of writers including William Walsh, Stephanie Johnson, Shellie Zacharia, and has forthcoming work scheduled from Aaron Burch and Matt Bell, and also publishes the wonderful Keyhole Magazine, a fantastic literary journal.  Furthermore, Keyhole is developing a strong presence in the Nashville literary scene.  Dzanc is excited to formalize our […]


The Paris Review and Barnes & Noble Series in NYC

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

New York readers, ring in the New Year with a month of Monday readings to celebrate The Paris Review’s iconic interview series. Starting this Monday, January 4th, the Barnes and Noble flagship store at 86th and Lexington, in New York City, will host a month-long series of interviews showcasing authors, artists, and editors discussing writers, writing, and the writing life. The first event will feature Benjamin Percy–one of our favorite authors here at FWR–who will be interviewing Carol Sklenicka about her recent biography of Raymond Carver. Here is the schedule of the events: Monday, January 4th at 7:00pm: Benjamin Percy, […]


Lydia Davis, animated

by Celeste Ng

Electric Literature presents this video adaptation of “The Cows”–a one-sentence story by Lydia Davis–created by artist Donna K. Bonus: did I mention it’s claymation? Lydia Davis's "The Cows" Single Sentence Animation Via.


Writing Advice from Terminator: Salvation

by Celeste Ng

Proof that good advice can come from anywhere: writing advice from Terminator: Salvation courtesy of The Rejectionist: 1. You need a plot. You really, really do. A Good Idea (“What if it’s the future! And robots are the boss of everything and this hot non-emotive dude has to find this kid who is actually his dad and send him back in time before the robots kill everyone!”) is an excellent start, but a Good Idea is NOT sufficient to carry the entire vehicle of your novel. We don’t care how highfalutin’ your concept or your prose is; you leave out […]


By Its Cover: A Book Cover Contest

by Celeste Ng

Did our last post on book covers convince you that cover design makes a difference? Want to try your hand at it? Design blog Venus febriculosa is running a book cover design contest for Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. The deadline is February 26, 2010, and the winner gets $1000. More information on the contest is here. And for further inspiration, check out the stunning entries and winners for the last book cover contest: Nabokov’s Lolita. My favorite is the one with the scrunchie–how about you?


Poets & Writers Subscription Deal

by Anne Stameshkin

As you know, we’re big fans of Poets & Writers Magazine around here. So we’re excited to announce that this magazine has generously agreed to offer our readers a special subscription rate of only $12. The reason for this offer is to help build support for a new series in P&W called “Inside Indie Bookstores,” written by our Associate Editor, Jeremiah Chamberlin. Each issue will feature an important independent bookstore around the country. The first to be profiled will be Square Books, of Oxford, Mississippi. We hope that you will take advantage of this great deal. You’ll not only be […]




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