Suspend Your Disbelief

Shop Talk

Bizarro Fiction: literature of the weird

by Lee Thomas

AWP provided a perfect opportunity to discover what has captured the imaginations of fellow writers with vastly different viewpoints. One such writer is Eric Hendrixson, who introduced me to Bizarro fiction. As Hendrixson described his novel, Bucket of Face, I realized I’d been completely unaware of this genre that Horror World calls “the literary equivalent of a David Lynch or a Tim Burton film.” Hendrixson kindly offered to answer some of my novice questions. Define Bizarro fiction. Bizarro is literature of the weird. This isn’t the same thing as experimental fiction, which is weird in its structure and sometimes unreadable. […]


Journal of the Week: Ploughshares

by Michael Rudin

Rebecca Makkai’s Professor Alex Moore is one of the most memorable characters in 2010’s Best American Short Stories. Not just because she accidentally kills an albatross while hunting ducks in Australia, or because as a teacher of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” she becomes a minor celebrity on campus due to the ironic crime, but because that one pull of the trigger sets forth a steady unraveling of her personal and professional lives—so thorough a deconstruction that the reader soon joins Moore in doubting its authenticity. The conclusion to Makkai’s “Painted Ocean, Painted Ship” does what you would expect a […]


Book of the Week Winners: The House on Salt Hay Road

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Last week we featured Carin Clevidence’s debut novel The House on Salt Hay Road as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: Stephen Long, Linda White, and Alexandra Timm. Congratulations! To claim your signed copy of this novel, please email us at the following address: winners@fictionwritersreview.com To anyone who’d like to be eligible for our future drawings, visit our Facebook Page and “like” us. No catch, no gimmicks–just a great way to promote books we love. To everyone who’s already a fan, big thanks!


Can Discovereads predict which books you'll like?

by Celeste Ng

How do you decide what books to read next? Do you judge by the cover? Do you buy what’s handy and cheap? You could get a recommendation from a friend, but that can be risky. Enter Discovereads, a startup now run by Goodreads. Rate at least 10 books, and the site uses an algorithm to “learn your personal tastes” and recommend books it thinks you’ll like. Goodreads plans to add Discovereads to its own site soon, as well. The New York Times’s “Bits” blog reports: Otis Chandler, Goodreads’s founder and chief executive, says the site [Goodreads] has been an online […]


"Journal of the Week" subscription winners: One Story

by Michael Rudin

Since launching in September, Fiction Writers Review’s “Book of the Week” promotion has shipped dozens of books to dozens of states. A few weeks back, we extended the promotion to highlight literary journals as well. Our inaugural “Journal of the Week” post featured One Story, and in addition to an exclusive interview with Associate Editor Marie-Helene Bertino, the post offered three free One Story subscriptions to our followers on Twitter. Congrats to our winners: Helen Smith (@emperorsclothes), Kenneth Jarman (@Krjarman), and Hank Nielsen (@hheerup). You’ll each receive a complimentary one-year subscription to One Story! Please contact us at winners [at] […]


Flipbook: "Becoming a Writer"

by Celeste Ng

Every few weeks, we launch a new Fiction Writers Review “Flipbook.” During the past two and a half years, we’ve featured more than 50 interviews with authors established and emerging. They’ve had such valuable insights into the writing life—from thoughts on process and craft to ideas about community and influence—that we wanted to find a way to further these conversations within our community. Each Flipbook highlights some of the very best of the conversations on our site, centered around a particular topic. Our latest Flipbook is now up on the FWR Facebook page, with an exclusive slide right here on […]


Making a book, 1947 and now

by Celeste Ng

Print book aficionados, here’s a little treat: a video on how a book was made in 1947. (My favorite part? How the author is “finished” writing his story as soon as the last page leaves the typewriter—and the book has a publisher immediately. Ah, if only…) Via. More interested in all the stuff that comes before printing—and how that works today? Mediabistro has released a four-minute video that outlines the process of finding an agent, finding a publisher, and getting publicity:


"When you have only a sentence or two, there’s nowhere to hide."

by Celeste Ng

Twitter turned five this week—an event celebrated by some and bemoaned by others. Is the (very) short form killing or helping our communication? Writer and teacher Andy Selsberg argues that learning to write short can make you a better writer: I don’t expect all my graduates to go on to Twitter-based careers, but learning how to write concisely, to express one key detail succinctly and eloquently, is an incredibly useful skill, and more in tune with most students’ daily chatter, as well as the world’s conversation. […] So a few years ago, I started slipping my classes short writing assignments […]


Feed your head—and your stomach—at La Pizzateca

by Celeste Ng

A new shop in Madrid, La Pizzateca, serves up tasty combos of books and pizza. Reports Springwise: The brainchild of Spanish publisher ES Ediciones, La Pizzateca offers a wide range of artisanal pizzas and calzones made from natural ingredients for enjoyment in-house or to go. It’s also a bookstore, however, and it even offers specials to encourage both pursuits. One, for example — dubbed the “menú de las letras” — includes a slice of pizza and a book for just EUR 5. Sounds like a clever new way to market books—and I love the idea of pairing pizzas with literature, […]


"Atlas Shrugged" + "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" 4-Ever

by Celeste Ng

Clearly there’s some connection between literature and romance. We know that fiction makes you more empathetic, and thus, possibly, more dateable. Writing and love are a lot alike. And a literary misalignment can even break a budding romance. Recently we’ve heard about how a shared love of books can act as a matchmaker. Now the San Francisco Public Library has taken that a step further, organizing a speed-dating session in the library itself: Participants were asked to bring a favorite book, so he clutched a copy of “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell and “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy. In […]


Thursday Morning Candy: Authors On Tour – Live!

by Celeste Ng

Welcome to Thursday Morning Candy, where we highlight an online journal or resource that’s a treat for writers and readers. Love author readings, but find you can’t get to them as often as you’d like? Or maybe you live in an area where author readings are infrequent. Authors on Tour – Live! is at your service. The website brings you podcasts of live author readings, including plenty of fiction, much of it by emerging writers—all for free. Recent podcasts include Siobhan Fallon reading from and discussing her debut collection You Know When the Men Are Gone, Chris Cleave on his […]


Marginalia and the e-reader

by Celeste Ng

Partway through his essay on marginalia, Sam Anderson tells the story of lending a friend his copy of Infinite Jest—complete with his own annotations—then borrowing it back partway through: The fresh one, she told me afterward, felt a little lonely by comparison: she missed the meta-conversation running in the margins, the sense of another consciousness co-filtering D.F.W.’s words, the footnotes to the footnotes to the footnotes to the footnotes. On our wedding day, my husband received a copy of Infinite Jest from his childhood friend as a wedding gift, complete with dogeared pages and scrawled marginal notes. “This book,” said […]




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