Suspend Your Disbelief

Shop Talk

Slaughterhouse 90210

by Celeste Ng

As you might guess from its name, Tumblr site Slaughterhouse 90210 pairs stills from TV shows with literary quotes—with both hilarious and thought-provoking results: If you think about it, My So-Called-Life and Anne of Avonlea are indeed thematic soulmates. And Mad Men and Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook make an inspired match. Still need convincing? “She felt, in every way it was possible, astonished that she had slept with him.” —Lorrie Moore, Like Life ‘Nuff said. Go check it out.


Book-of-the-Week Winners: Breaking and Entering

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Eileen Pollack’s new novel, Breaking and Entering, as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations: Nisa (@14writer) Procrastinatress (@denfemte) Jason Atkinson (@jasoncatkinson) 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!


Banned word—or best word?

by Celeste Ng

Did you know that periodically, the French comb through their language and pick out interloping words? The Academie Francaise, charged with publishing an official (if non-binding) dictionary of French, intermittently posts lists of banned English words that have wormed their way into the French language. In previous years, the Academie has suggested banning “le email,” “le blog,” and “le fast-food.” But this kind of linguistic purification isn’t just for the French. Lake Superior State University has come up with a list of banished words for 2012. Topping the list? “Amazing,” “baby bump,” and “shared sacrifice.” Other much-used words made it […]


Resolved to write more in 2012? It's not too late.

by Celeste Ng

Perhaps one of your resolutions this year was to write more. (You too?) And now January is two-thirds over, and well, you haven’t done quite as much as you’d hoped. All you need is a gentle kick in the pants prompt to get you started. This year, two great writing sites are each offering tidbits of inspiration: First up, Figment, a digital community for young fiction writers, is offering a new “Daily Themes” newsletter. Between January 2 and March 30, subscribers will receive a prompt via email—what a great way to get writing first thing in the morning! Good offers […]


Is the Times giving up on fiction?

by Charlotte Boulay

Image credit: Literary Kicks Every week for the past two months, I’ve played a game where, on Sunday mornings, before I open the New York Times Book Review, I try to guess how many more books of nonfiction than fiction it will review. Fiction is consistently outnumbered, and don’t even get me started on the Book Review’s nearly nonexistent poetry coverage. But the past week surprised even this pessimistic grouch—only TWO fictional works are reviewed in the January 8, 2012 edition, plus Marilyn Stasio’s excellent crime reviewlets, in contrast to ELEVEN nonfiction works. The two fiction reviews are both skimpy […]


Book of the Week: Breaking and Entering, by Eileen Pollack

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Eileen Pollack’s work at FWR. In fact, as our Founding and Features Editor, Anne Stameshkin, noted in an addendum to a 2009 interview with the author that we published on the site, Eileen Pollack–and her Contemporary Novel class at the University of Michigan–was one of the inspirations for the creation of Fiction Writers Review. So it’s with particular pleasure that we announce her new novel, Breaking and Entering, as our featured Book-of-the-Week title. Congratulations, Eileen! And we’re not alone in our admiration for this new book or Pollack’s work. In her laudatory […]


Book-of-the-Week Winners: The Grief of Others

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Leah Hager Cohen’s new novel, The Grief of Others, as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Jaclyn Watterson (@jaclynwatterson) Sarah Beth Hopton (@sbhopton) Anca Szilagyi (@ancawrites) 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!


Fiction from the Spam box

by Celeste Ng

Here’s my one tiny complaint about Gmail: it may be a little too good at filtering out the spam. I used to get tremendous joy (uh, no pun intended) out of the badly-phrased, ill-translated, nonsensical requests offering me “Turbines for your meat jet” or the opportunity to become a crude oil dealer. Thank goodness for the Spam Poetry Institute, which describes its mission thusly: The Spam Poetry Institute is an organization dedicated to collecting and preserving the fine literature created by the world’s spammers. Not only do these persistent individuals sell useful products like cable filters and international drivers’ licenses, […]


The Joy of Books

by Celeste Ng

Artists/designers Sean Ohlenkamp and Lisa Blonder Ohlenkamp—the same folks who brought you “Organizing the Bookshelf” —have teamed up again to create another exuberant video, “The Joy of Books”. Writes Ohlenkamp: After organizing our bookshelf almost a year ago (http://youtu.be/zhRT-PM7vpA), my wife and I decided to take it to the next level. We spent many sleepless nights moving, stacking, and animating books at Type bookstore in Toronto. Here’s the result, in which books dance their way around a bookshop after it closes for the night. Enjoy! (My favorite part? The Moleskine carefully turning the pages of the larger book. Adorable!)


The loooooong sentence

by Celeste Ng

When Twitter arrived on the scene, its proponents found themselves defending the very short. James Poniewozik put Twitter in historical context, and, in the New York Times, writer and teacher Andy Selsberg argued that writing short could make you a better writer. Now, in the L.A. Times, Pico Iyer writes a defense of the very long sentence: I’m using longer and longer sentences as a small protest against — and attempt to rescue any readers I might have from — the bombardment of the moment. […] Enter (I hope) the long sentence: the collection of clauses that is so many-chambered […]


Book of the Week: The Grief of Others, by Leah Hager Cohen

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s feature is Leah Hager Cohen’s new novel, The Grief of Others, which was published in September by Riverhead. Cohen is the author of seven previous books: Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World (1994); Glass, Paper, Beans: Revelations on the Nature and Value of Ordinary Things (1997); Heat Lightning: A Novel (1997); The Stuff of Dreams: Behind the Scenes of an American Community Theater (2001); Heart, You Bully, You Punk: A Novel (2003); Without Apology: Girls, Women, and the Desire to Fight (2005); and House Lights: A Novel (2007). This new novel of Cohen’s, set in the suburbs […]


Book-of-the-Week Winners: The Little Bride

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured The Little Bride, by Anna Solomon, as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Rebecca Jacoby (@RLJPOV) shopemills (@shopemills) e. smith sleigh (@AuthorandPoet) 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!




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