Suspend Your Disbelief

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Book-of-the-Week Winners: Salvage the Bones

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: stacey said, (@staceysaid) Leila N (@LeiNili) joann spears (@JoAnnSpearsRN) Brett Wilcox (@wilcoxworks) Donna Bailey (@DBailey_GirlInk) 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!


Staff Picks: Matrimony, by Joshua Henkin

by Jackie Reitzes

As a fiction writer, I have a litmus test for knowing if a book is one I love love love versus one that is merely admirable. A book that is truly fantastic for me is one that also makes me want to write. It’s not that I go into the reading experience looking to be bitten by contagious writing. But I’ve found that when I read certain writers—Jennifer Egan, Jo Ann Beard, Susan Minot, to name a few—the reverie of their prose is so intense, so real, that I find myself wanting to continue the conversation on my side of […]


"I can't stop acquiring books…"

by Celeste Ng

You think you have a problem with hoarding books? The above short film, by Sergey Stefanovich, walks you through the library of writer and critic Duncan Fallowell, which “has spilled over into every available space and become an art installation in its own right.” (Via.) Fallowell narrates, with lots of meditative insights on reading and writing: “I’m so glad I haven’t read everything–I have such a wonderful future awaiting me.” However, if you really need to clear out some space, perhaps this post by Jodi Chromey, “How I Learned to Stop Hoarding and Give Away Books,” provides the solution. Further […]


I would not, could not, write a story…

by Celeste Ng

…using only the words from The Cat in the Hat.  Or could I? That’s the challenge posed by one of the prompts at the Tumblr site Writing Prompts. (Don’t worry, they’re helpfully listed for your reference. Did you know The Cat in the Hat contains the word “shame”?) The site has a huge variety of prompts, including lots based on photos (for you visual thinkers). They’re totally different from other prompts I’ve seen–you’re sure to find something to get you started, unstuck, or turned in a new direction. I’m bookmarking this site for the next time I feel like I […]


Book of the Week: Salvage the Bones

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s feature is Jesmyn Ward’s National Book Award winning novel, Salvage the Bones, which was published last year by Bloomsbury. Ward is also the author of Where the Line Bleeds (Agate, 2008), which was an Essence Magazine Book Club selection, a Black Caucus of the ALA Honor Award recipient, and a finalist for both the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Ward received her MFA from the University of Michigan in 2005, was a Stegner Fellow from 2008-2010, and served as the 2010-2011 John and Renée Grisham Visiting Writer in Residence at the University of […]


Journal-of-the-Week Winners: Lapham's Quarterly

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Lapham’s Quarterly as our Journal-of-the-Week, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: William Walsh (@Questionstruck) tfullard (@tfullard) Ms. Understood (@MartyChev) Congrats! To claim your free issue, 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 and journals out there! Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the prizes as subscriptions, not issues.  We apologize for the error!


24 Magazine

by Celeste Ng

Running a journal—selecting content, editing, finding just the right images—takes a lot of time. (Trust us: we know!) So when I heard about Twenty-Four Magazine, I was flabbergasted. You see, Twenty-Four Magazine just put out its first issue last month, and they did it all—the concept, the writing, the publishing, the design—in just twenty-four hours. Why? Here’s what the group said on their site: Because it means that the magazine’s production will become an event that anyone can follow, and the process becomes a part of the product. Because a time-based model makes continuing the magazine more sustainable: it’s a […]


The Story Prize goes to …

by Lee Thomas

Steven Millhauser! Yes, I know that news broke last week. But Anne and I attended the event on behalf of FWR – quite the literary crowd, Hannah Tinti further down our row, spotted Paul Vidich in the aisle. Here are some highlights: Don Delillo described going back to stories he’d written in the late 1970s and early 80s and not changing anything. Oh, wait, he took out all the semicolons, colons, and commas that magazine editors had introduced. He said it best: “I was a free man.” Cormac McCarthy, eat your heart out. Steven Millhauser, white floss of hair aglow […]


The Consequence of Skating: Today's B&N Daily NOOK Find

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Most of our readers know Steven Gillis as the founder of 826michigan in Ann Arbor, or as the co-founder and publisher of the non-profit literary press Dzanc Books. Yet Steve is also a talented writer. He is the author of four novels as well as a collection of stories, his short fiction has appeared in dozens of literary journals, and he’s been nominated for six Pushcarts. Most recently, his novel The Consequence of Skating was a 2011 finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Award. And today the book is a B&N Daily NOOK Find, available for only $3.50. I happen to […]


Mommy, where do blurbs come from?

by Celeste Ng

The always-fascinating TYWKIWDBI points us to the origin of the blurb. According to Wikipedia, The word blurb originated in 1907. American humorist Gelett Burgess’s short 1906 book Are You a Bromide? was presented in a limited edition to an annual trade association dinner. The custom at such events was to have a dust jacket promoting the work and with, as Burgess’ publisher B. W. Huebsch described it, “the picture of a damsel — languishing, heroic, or coquettish — anyhow, a damsel on the jacket of every novel” In this case the jacket proclaimed “YES, this is a ‘BLURB’!” and the […]


Book-of-the-Week Winners: Fires of our Choosing

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Eugene Cross’s debut collection Fires of Our Choosing as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: Marisa Birns (@marisabirns) Amanda Persaud (@afavolosa) Colleen (@booksnyc) 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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