Suspend Your Disbelief

Shop Talk

the controversy in the rye

by Celeste Ng

Remember Holden Caulfield? Young, angst-ridden, wandering the streets of New York? In the novel 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, by Fredrik Colting, Holden is seventy-six-year-old “Mr. C,” still angst-ridden and wandering the streets once more. Holden’s sister Phoebe and prep-school roommate Stradlater also make appearances. But does Colting have the right to use these characters–and a fictionalized version of J.D. Salinger himself–in his own work? We’ll see. Salinger is suing Colting, claiming that 60 Years Later is “a rip-off pure and simple.” Colting and his lawyers insists the novel is neither plagiarism nor a sequel to Catcher in […]


Book Blog Tour: Pamela Ehrenberg visits FWR

by Gwen Glazer

Pamela Ehrenberg is the author of a new YA novel, Tillmon County Fire, which has just been released from Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. Eerdmans also published her first book, Ethan, Suspended, in 2007. Pam and I have been members of a six- or seven-person writing group since 2004. She has an amazing ability to make characters come alive, a natural instinct for the puzzle of a story, and also a tremendous sense of dedication and productivity that existed long before she had a book contract. She’s also one of the kindest people I know, and it shows in her […]


four ways of looking at a novel

by Anne Stameshkin

To answer the personal question “Do I love books, or do I love reading?” — and the larger question “In which format(s) is the book most likely to endure?” — author Ann Kirschner (Sala’s Gift) tried Dickens’s Little Dorrit in four formats: paperback, audio, iPhone, and Kindle. She discusses her impressions of each in this Chronicle of Higher Education article. Among them: the particular pleasures of audio books, why the iPhone e-reader is “a Kindle killer,” and the power of story to transcend any device. Read Little Dorrit in paperback. Listen to Little Dorrit as an audio book Read Little […]


new lit journal from Dzanc

by Anne Stameshkin

Dzanc Books announced yesterday that they are launching a monthly online literary journal, The Collagist, which will feature stories, poems, essays, and book reviews; the first issue will publish on August 15. Each month The Collagist will deliver outstanding new short stories, poems, and essays from both emerging and established writers, as well as an exclusive excerpt from a forthcoming novel. Early excerpts will include works from the standard bearers of independent publishing, including Coffee House, Two Dollar Radio, and Unbridled Books. The Collagist will also publish several new book reviews in every issue. The Collagist is immediately open for […]


new review on FWR: The Moon in Deep Winter by Lee Polevoi

by Tyler McMahon

Click here to read Tyler McMahon’s review in full. Here’s a taste: Like a cold, northeastern version of Thomas McGuane’s 92 in the Shade, Lee Polevoi’s impressive debut novel, The Moon in Deep Winter, is the story of a misguided homecoming gone wrong. After years spent as a bit player on the margins of Southern California’s criminal underworld, Parker returns to his rural New England town, hoping to reconcile differences with his mother, his younger half-siblings, and his dictatorial step-father. He soon finds that his family secrets run even deeper and darker than he thought.


Center for Fiction Writers' Conference

by Anne Stameshkin

Fiction super-hero Ron Hogan (editor of Beatrice and senior editor of GalleyCat) and the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction have been in cahoots, and I am thrilled to announce that in just a few weeks, they will launch an exciting event: the first ever Center for Fiction Writers’ Conference. This day-long symposium is specifically intended for writers who already have a finished book and an agent, but who want to learn more about how the publishing world works–and how best to navigate it. In this post on Buzz, Balls, and Hype, Ron Hogan blogs about why this conference is important […]


The Program Era: future FWR discussion?

by Anne Stameshkin

After a hermitish week and weekend of work, I finally had the chance to sit down with my New Yorker this morning and read Louis Menand’s essayistic review of Mark McGurl’s The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing (Harvard UP, Apr. 2009). It inspired me to order a copy of the book, which I think might be a great one to discuss via a group review on FWR. Who would be interested in joining this group review, which we’d aim to do in early August? Celeste, I know you’re in (and thanks to both you and […]


Pittsburgh's Gist Street Reading Series

If there’s such a thing as an ordinary reading series, Gist Street is not it. For starters, the monthly readings–the hub of the Pittsburgh literary scene for over eight years now–are held as potlucks in the warehouse of sculptor and tai chi master James Simon, so readers and attendees spend the evening surrounded by Simon’s quirky sculptures (plant people, dogs with human heads…) and, in the summer, when the series sometimes moves outdoors, his chickens and his cats. Novelist Sherrie Flick‘s homemade vegan pastries can be found at no other reading series, and the clawfoot bathtub full of ice and […]


new essay on FWR: Peering and Leaping into the Author/Character Vortex, Part 1, by Steven Wingate

by Anne Stameshkin

FWR just posted the first installment of Quotes and Notes, a monthly craft essay series by Steven Wingate. Each essay responds to a (famous or obscure) dictum on writing from a prominent fiction writer. This month’s quotation comes from Raymond Carver: “You are not your characters, but your characters are you.” From Steven’s response: Let’s face it: fiction writers do not have a reputation for being carefree, untroubled souls. Even our fellow artists consider us broody navel-gazers who are overly introspective and perhaps even in love with our own problems. (We do, after all, tend to keep writing about characters […]




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