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Get Writing: Beautiful Sentences

by Charlotte Boulay

Whether I’m reading poetry or fiction, I’m always looking for beautiful sentences, the kinds that make the hair on my arms stand up at their deftness, their grace. Take these three examples: For a moment she stared at the darkness as though it were the surface of a pond into which someone she loved had disappeared, head to heels. — Elizabeth Knox, The Vintner’s Luck The simile in this sentence is apt enough: darkness figured as the surface of a pond, but it’s the last three little words that make it beautiful. How else would someone dive? And diving is […]


Curl Up with a Good Story: “The Old Economy Husband,” by Lesley Dormen

by Anne Stameshkin

I first read “The Old Economy Husband” in the Atlantic Monthly, back when they published fiction every month and I subscribed. But I’d been thinking about canceling; I was an editorial assistant in Manhattan, and I was in no mood for what I called “stories about rich people.” It was two months after 9/11. I didn’t sit down on the subway because I felt safer near the door. This story about rich people–which wasn’t, it turned out, about rich people–made me miss my stop and renew my subscription. Here’s an excerpt: It was that summer, the summer we were fifty […]


Participating in Short Story Month? Join the Conversation!

by Celeste Ng

Are you tweeting or posting on Facebook about Short Story Month? Here’s how to connect with others doing the same: On Twitter, use the hashtag #ssm2011 On Facebook, join the Facebook Event SSM 2011 Thanks to Matt Bell for the great idea. Let us know: what stories have you been reading? Writing? Sharing? And stay tuned to FWR in the coming weeks for more great story-related content, including a guest post by the aforementioned Matt Bell.


Stories We Love |

Stories We Love: "A View of the Woods"

by Michael Shilling

While Flannery O’Connor combined humor and sadism in ways as mysterious as they are effective, to me, the way she was able to render horrific actions in people and still somehow make me sympathetic is her greatest achievement—even more so when she breaks out of the highly symbolic framings of tales such as “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and “Good Country People.” While these are incredible stories, less-known ones, in which characters transcend her desire to make them mere chess pieces and instead achieve a full humanity, are where she truly scorches. “A View of the Woods” is […]


This Week In Shorts

by Celeste Ng

Want more Short Story Month celebration? Here’s a roundup of short (story) related news from around the interwebs: Reading: In honor of Short Story Month, Matt Bell is reviewing a story from a literary magazine every day in May. On Perpetual Folly, Clifford Garstang discusses a favorite piece by Bonnie Jo Campbell. Sarcastic Female Literary Circle is running a review of a short story each week in honor of short story month. Writing: All across the interwebs, writers are joining the Story-a-Day call to write one short story every day in May! Are you in? If you need inspiration, Story-A-Day […]


Five Ways to Celebrate Short Stories

by Erika Dreifus

Here at FWR, we’re certainly doing our collective best to honor the art and craft of the short story this month. But there are lots of ways that each fiction writer can celebrate short stories individually. Here are five possibilities: Participate in #StorySunday: Reminded each Sunday by @TaniaHershman, short-story fans are encouraged to share a link via Twitter to someone else’s short story using the hashtag #StorySunday. Quick. Painless. Free. Click here to see the latest #StorySunday tweets. Listen to Selected Shorts: As its brand-new website explains, Selected Shorts “is a weekly public radio show broadcast on over 130 stations […]


The Origins of Short Story Month: a guest post by Dan Wickett

by The Editors

Editor’s note: As part of our celebration of Short Story Month, we’re delighted to re-publish a 2011 guest post by Dan Wickett, founder and editor of the Emerging Writers Network, co-founder of Dzanc Books, and creator of Short Story Month. In early April of 2007, I was celebrating National Poetry Month at the Emerging Writers Network blog by taking a look at the poems of the day being posted by the Writers In The Schools (WITS) program of Houston, which had been written by 4th graders. It was a fun project, but readers of the EWN know that fiction is […]


Journal of the Week subscription winners: BOMB

by Celeste Ng

We’re delighted to announce the winners of our BOMB Journal of the Week giveaway, chosen at random from our Twitter followers. Congratulations to: Sonia Rumzi (@SRumzi) Fic Addict (@fic_addict) Alice Tasman (@AliceTasman) You’ll each receive a complimentary one-year subscription to BOMB! Please contact us at winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com with your contact information and we’ll coordinate the rest. If you missed the profile of BOMB and the exclusive interview with General Manager, Digital Strategy Paul Morris, you can read the whole thing in our blog archives. And remember: if you’d like to be eligible for future journal giveaways, please visit our […]


Book of the Week: Binocular Vision, by Edith Pearlman

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

This week’s featured title is Edith Pearlman’s story collection Binocular Vision. The consummate short story writer, Edith Pearlman has published more than 250 works of short fiction and non-fiction over the past four decades. Her fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, New Stories from the South, the Antioch Review, Ascent, the New England Review, and The Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses. Pearlman has written travel essays about Budapest, Tokyo and the Costwalds for the New York Times, and reflections on the allure of the roulette table, and her husband’s “mistress” – […]


"The loose change in the treasury of fiction"

by Celeste Ng

Why do we need a Short Story Month? The things we designate particular months or days to celebrate are the things we tend to overlook: mothers, ve terans, black history, flags. And indeed, the short story is often overlooked or dismissed in favor of its bigger, flashier, more prominent cousin, the novel. Think about it: how many short story collections can you name? Unless you’re a fiction writer—and maybe even if you are—the answer is probably in the single digits. How many novels can you name? You see my point. So why is the short story given such short shrift? […]


The Collection Giveaway Project 2011

by Lee Thomas

Short Story Month is off with a bang! Inspired by the Emerging Writers Network who inaugurated May as Short Story Month in 2007—and the Big Poetry Giveaway for National Poetry Month, Fiction Writers Review is excited to welcome you to our second year of The Collection Giveaway Project: a community effort by lit bloggers to raise attention for short story collections. Thanks to all who have already emailed FWR Contributing Editor Erika Dreifus, who is spearheading the CGP this year. For participating blogs, and details on how YOU can participate in The Collection Giveaway Project, please visit the CGP Home. […]


Stories We Love: "Dog Song"

by Lee Thomas

I’ve been wary of dog yarns ever since my mother sobbed through the final chapters of Where the Red Fern Grows, and I didn’t discover until years later the real fate of Old Dan. It was affecting – perhaps too much so – but I also felt cheated somehow, that an emotion so universally felt was a writer’s cheap shot. Some stories come like a revelation. Ann Pancake’s “Dog Song”—twenty-one pages of alchemical genius, pure voice, and indescribable originality—changed my mind about the dogs, and made me an evangelist. Evan Rehill has been championing this story, and gave it to […]




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