Suspend Your Disbelief

Shop Talk

gimme fiction!

by Anne Stameshkin

According to a new report by the NEA (“Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy”), the percentage of US adults reading fiction is growing for the first time in a quarter-century (chart borrowed from the NY Times). But I’m not ready to hit the street with pom-poms and a marching band just yet: a higher percentage of Americans were reading literature in the late 20th century–and it kind of blows my mind that only 50.2% of my fellow citizens have read even one novel, short story, poem, or play in the past year…


recommended reading: Nami Mun at B&N-Tribeca (NYC) on 1/12

by Anne Stameshkin

Join me tomorrow night at Barnes & Noble in Tribeca (97 Warren St. @ Greenwich St.) at 7 PM to hear Pushcart- and Hopwood-prize-winning Nami Mun read from her debut novel, Miles From Nowhere. And look for an interview (soon!) with Nami on FWR. Miles from Nowhere began as a collection of linked stories (two of which I had the pleasure to read in workshop at Michigan, and several of which have been published in prestigious lit journals). As a novel, it holds together beautifully; Miles remains episodic, but breaks between chapters feel hauntingly like lost years–perfect for this particular […]


recommended reading: Allison Amend at T&W Collective (NYC) on 1/21

by Anne Stameshkin

I go to a lot of readings. It’s a rare week when I don’t attend at least one or two. And while I’d say I enjoy them in the abstract, I have to admit that too often, even when I love the writer, I wind up kind of bored or restless: I think about my own writing, or I agonize over that leaning tower of laundry back home, an unfinished freelance project, the friend whose novel draft I *still* haven’t finished reading, whether my water bottle is slowly emptying into my sad, overstuffed purse… Not so with the One-Story reading […]


"Move over, Oprah," says book club for story collections

by Anne Stameshkin

Writer-blogger Andrew Scott has started Andrew’s Book Club, which recommends two story collections every month, one from a mainstream publisher and one from an independent press; Andrew encourages all book club members to buy at least one of these two books each month, investing in twelve collections each year. His January picks are Lauren Groff’s Delicate, Edible Birds and Allison Amend’s Things That Pass for Love. Andrew’s Book Club offers a blog, a Facebook site, and a mission: to boost sales of the collections Andrew endorses; to boost sales of story collections, period; and to encourage discussion of the books […]


distractions while writ…*clicks away*

by Anne Stameshkin

Cory Doctorow defends the Internet, saying the worst piece of writing advice he ever received was to stay away from it. He offers some solid tips for avoiding distractions while writing and setting small, attainable daily goals. How distracted are you by IM, skype, blogs, email, internet research etc. while trying to write? Are you more tempted by online or off-line distractions? How (and how successfully) do you resist them?


publishing fiction as fiction

by Anne Stameshkin

I swore I wasn’t even going to blog about the whole Angel at the Fence debacle, but then I saw this: that York House Press hopes to publish this so-called “fake memoir” by a Holocaust survivor as a work of fiction; this book certainly contains some fictional (or, it could be argued, mis-remembered) details–including the one its title refers to–but author Herman Rosenblat really is a death camp survivor, and he hardly deserves to be viciously attacked as the next Margaret B. Jones. Here’s the publisher’s official statement, which defends, quite convincingly and movingly, their decision to publish the book […]


ERN/Rock Bottom best band name contest!

by Anne Stameshkin

FWR contributor (and original Long Winters drummer) Michael Shilling’s debut novel Rock Bottom, an account of a band’s final tour, is publishing on January 9, and the Emerging Writers Network is sponsoring a very fun contest in its honor: Come up with the best imaginary band name you can think of and post it by midnight on January 14 here; there’s a limit of three entires per person, and Michael’s the judge. The reward is a free copy of Rock Bottom. Coming soon…an interview with the author on FWR.


the wovel

by Anne Stameshkin

Editor/publisher Victoria Blake (Underland Press), along with programmer Jesse Pollack, is the force behind a new literary form: the online serial novel, or wovel; NPR describes it as “Choose your Own Adventure meets Wikipedia.” A self-confessed blog addict who loves reading frequently-updated online content, Blake thought it would be great to have opportunities to read literature online in a serial form, a la Dickens (and more recently Chabon), and to have that experience be interactive. Here is Underland’s official description of the wovel (from their website): Every week, the author posts an installment. Installment length hits the sweet-spot of online […]


How Fiction Works Discussion Review: Free Indirect Style

by Anne Stameshkin

I’ve been trying to read Muriel Barbery’s critically acclaimed novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and while I’m relishing many of the author’s ideas, they feel to me like just that–the author’s ideas, not ones that belong to the book’s characters; a wealthy pre-teen and middle-aged concierge spend at least the first section of Hedgehog (I’m on p. 114) hiding their gifted selves from everyone they know while sharing them, mostly in monologue/journaling style, with us. Their use of language is almost identical, as is their attitude toward (and analysis of) the world around them. So much of the book […]


can you read like a girl?

by Anne Stameshkin

On Preeta’s recommendation, here’s a great article from a mother who wishes she could still “read like a girl.” Do others (boys, too…this shouldn’t be so gendered) feel this way, that you can no longer really lose yourself in a book? I’d agree that it’s harder now, and that it depends on what you’re reading and the number of distractions in your life and whether or not you are officially enrolled in an MFA program at the time…but me, I can still read like a girl. What I can’t do, what I often long to do, is to write like […]


before the grande non-fat caramel macchiato

by Anne Stameshkin

New Yorkish writers, take note: Where Edith Wharton grew up on 23rd St., there is now a Starbucks. On the one hand, I picture a quiet afternoon writing in this shop, imagining that Wharton once shared my same view of a (much changed) street. And on the other…I’m envisioning a new walking tour for NYC: “Starbucks and the City.” In my fantasy (wherein the coffee giant would not sue), tourists would amble from identical looking shop to shop whilst a green-aproned guide lectured on what once stood there or who once lived in the building. In addition to excavating layers […]




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