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NaNoWriMo Grab Bag: Robot Assistants and More

by Celeste Ng

As Gwen announced last week, it’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), the annual challenge to write a 175-page (50,000 word) novel during the month of November. How many of you are taking part? We have at least one FWR editor and one contributor on the scene, and so far they’re keeping up with the wordcounts. You’re 1/10 of the way through your novel by now, right? Right? Here’s some extra motivation. NaNoWriMo’s profile has risen from Crazy Thing 21 People Did in 1999 to Mass Writing Event in 2008. Last year, NaNoWriMo reported over 120,000 participants, 20,000 of whom finished […]


Jim Shepard on Using History in Fiction

by Celeste Ng

Over at The Outlet, Jim Shepard has a great essay on working with historical events in fiction: Writers shouldn’t lose sight of the essential chutzpah involved in trying to imagine any other kind of sensibility. And that they should take heart from that chutzpah, as well. The whole project of literature – the entire project of the arts — is about the exercise of the empathetic imagination. Why were we given something as amazing as imagination, if we’re not going to use it? Shepard is a master at inhabiting and re-imagining historical events in his stories. One of my all-time […]


Andrew's Book Club: November Picks

by Anne Stameshkin

As a huge fan of Munro and Dzanc, I’m especially excited about Andrew’s picks for this month. (This is what the world will look like when there is too much happiness!) – Indie Pick: Laura van den Berg’s debut, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (Dzanc) / description (via ABC): A failed actress takes a job as a Bigfoot impersonator. A botanist seeking a rare flower crosses paths with a group of men hunting the Loch Ness Monster. A disillusioned missionary in Africa grapples with grief and a growing obsession with a creature rumored […]


scary, scarier, scariest

by Anne Stameshkin

Happy Halloween! If you’re looking for creepy literature or inspiration on All Hallow’s Eve, here are some recommendations (and warnings): – The Baltimore Museum of Art is currently featuring an exhibit of paintings — some by renowned artists like Gauguin and Matisse — inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s stories. This is only one event in Nevermore, Baltimore’s year-long celebration of Poe throughout 2009 (in January, Poe would have turned 200). Tonight at the Strand Theatre (1823 N. Charles Street), see David Keltz read/perform as Poe, and afterwards, grab a pint at the Annabel Lee Tavern. For a full list of […]


Does the brain like e-books?

by Celeste Ng

The rise of the Kindle, and the recent advent of competitor e-readers the QUE, the Nook, and the Alex, have sparked much discussion about the future of paper books, publishing, and the universe. But there’s been little discussion about whether e-books are really a good substitute for, you know, book books. The New York Times‘s “Room for Debate” column asked several experts to weigh in: Is there a difference in the way the brain takes in or absorbs information when it is presented electronically versus on paper? Does the reading experience change, from retention to comprehension, depending on the medium? […]


Whiting Writers' Awards

by Anne Stameshkin

Warm congratulations to 2009’s Whiting Award winners for poetry, fiction, and plays! These are the winners in fiction (click here for a full list of recipients): – Adam Johnson: Emporium (Viking 2002), Parasites Like Us (Viking, 2003) – Nami Mun: Miles from Nowhere (Riverhead 2009) – Salvatore Scibona: The End (Graywolf 2008) – Vu Tran: as-yet-untitled first novel is forthcoming (W.W. Norton) In addition to the honor of receiving such a prestigious award, and the chance to be introduced by keynote speaker Margaret Atwood, these writers also received a substantial monetary prize: at $50,000, the Whiting is one of the […]


NaNoWriMo: FWR FTW!

by Gwen Glazer

For a few Novembers now, I’ve been dimly aware that a few thousand people around the world were doing some weird writing thing during one of the busiest months of the year. NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. 50,000 words — a whole novel — in one month. No editing, no going back, no working on previous projects. Quantity over quality. Revise later. That’s crazy, I thought. Who would do that? Then I came up with 10,000 reasons not to do it, including but not limited to my travel schedule in November, my schoolwork, my job, my boyfriend, my family, my […]


The Rise of "Universal Authorship"

by Celeste Ng

Ever had the feeling that everyone is writing a book these days? Maybe it’s true. In SEED magazine, NYU psychology professor Denis G. Pelli and MacArthur “Genius” Charles Bigelow discuss the rise of “universal authorship”: We found that the number of published authors per year increased nearly tenfold every century for six centuries. By 2000, there were 1 million book authors per year. One million authors is a lot, but they are only a tiny fraction, 0.01 percent, of the nearly 7 billion people on Earth. Since 1400, book authorship has grown nearly tenfold in each century. Currently, authorship, including […]


Why Slow Thinking (and Slow Writing) Can Be Good for You

by Celeste Ng

A while back, Anne blogged about J. Robert Lennon and the argument that writers are really working all the time. Here’s further reason to back away from the writing schedule and cut yourself some slack now and then. Carl Honore, author of In Praise of Slowness, makes a compelling case for “slow thinking” when it comes to finding new ideas: […] Slow Thinking is intuitive, woolly and creative. It is what we do when the pressure is off, and there is time to let ideas simmer on the back burner. It yields rich, nuanced insights and sometimes surprising breakthroughs. Research […]


"She calls us all by our last names."

by Celeste Ng

Alexander Chee, on Annie Dillard: In my clearest memory of her, it’s spring, and she is walking towards me, smiling, her lipstick looking neatly cut around her smile. I never ask her why she’s smiling—for all I know, she’s laughing at me as I stand smoking in front of the building where we’ll have class. She’s Annie Dillard, and I am her writing student, a 21-year-old cliché—black clothes, deliberately mussed hair, cigarettes, dark but poppy music on my Walkman. I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m funny. She walks to class because she lives a few blocks from our classroom building […]


the writer as conversationalist

by Anne Stameshkin

Are you “smarter in print than in person?” (I’m raising my hand.) And are you behind in your reading? (That’s me. Again.) In the Sept. 27 NY Times Sunday Book Review, Arthur Krystal investigates why good writers aren’t necessarily great conversationalists. Should we blame the antisocial demands of our work? Or do our mouths stammer because they’re out of practice — because our brains are used to the pace of writing (not to mention its magical editing function)? Or while our mouths make words, are our brains secretly elsewhere, still working on something? Or are they dormant, resting? Do our […]


A book a day

by Celeste Ng

According to Goodreads, which I keep more or less up to date, I have read 31 new books so far in 2009. This does not include the substantial amount of re-reading I do, but it seems like a reasonable number to me–almost three new books a month. However, this New York Times article (much like this L.A. Times piece, which Anne blogged about in January) makes me feel a bit inadequate. Nina Sankovitch, a Harvard-educated former environmental lawyer, has made a project out of reading one book a day for an entire year. Lest you think she’s taking the easy […]




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