Join me this Saturday, June 13, at 3 PM on Central Park’s Great Lawn. I’ll be taking advantage of free cupcakes and the chance (also free) to hear Bridget McNulty read from her debut novel, Strange Nervous Laughter. (Check out Bridget’s blog tour post here on FWR.)
Fiction super-hero Ron Hogan (editor of Beatrice and senior editor of GalleyCat) and the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction have been in cahoots, and I am thrilled to announce that in just a few weeks, they will launch an exciting event: the first ever Center for Fiction Writers’ Conference. This day-long symposium is specifically intended for writers who already have a finished book and an agent, but who want to learn more about how the publishing world works–and how best to navigate it. In this post on Buzz, Balls, and Hype, Ron Hogan blogs about why this conference is important […]
After a hermitish week and weekend of work, I finally had the chance to sit down with my New Yorker this morning and read Louis Menand’s essayistic review of Mark McGurl’s The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing (Harvard UP, Apr. 2009). It inspired me to order a copy of the book, which I think might be a great one to discuss via a group review on FWR. Who would be interested in joining this group review, which we’d aim to do in early August? Celeste, I know you’re in (and thanks to both you and […]
In her impressive debut collection, Forgetting English, Midge Raymond sets her stories in a variety of locations outside the continental United States. How many other collections can you think of that contain eight stories spanning four continents: Africa, Asia, Antarctica, and North America (mainly Hawaii)? Alongside personal, human histories, Raymond incorporates larger traditions. Marriage rites. Fertility symbols. The meaning of jade. The natural history of the penguin.
If there’s such a thing as an ordinary reading series, Gist Street is not it. For starters, the monthly readings–the hub of the Pittsburgh literary scene for over eight years now–are held as potlucks in the warehouse of sculptor and tai chi master James Simon, so readers and attendees spend the evening surrounded by Simon’s quirky sculptures (plant people, dogs with human heads…) and, in the summer, when the series sometimes moves outdoors, his chickens and his cats. Novelist Sherrie Flick‘s homemade vegan pastries can be found at no other reading series, and the clawfoot bathtub full of ice and […]
FWR just posted the first installment of Quotes and Notes, a monthly craft essay series by Steven Wingate. Each essay responds to a (famous or obscure) dictum on writing from a prominent fiction writer. This month’s quotation comes from Raymond Carver: “You are not your characters, but your characters are you.” From Steven’s response: Let’s face it: fiction writers do not have a reputation for being carefree, untroubled souls. Even our fellow artists consider us broody navel-gazers who are overly introspective and perhaps even in love with our own problems. (We do, after all, tend to keep writing about characters […]
Via Literary Kicks: Check out these amazing cakes, inspired by rage at Kanye West’s stoooopid hate for books.
On June 11th, Pam Ehrenberg will make FWR a stop on the blog tour for her second YA novel, Tillmon County Fire (Eerdmans). Here’s an excerpt from School Library Journal‘s review (by Melissa Moore, Union University Library, Jackson, TN) of Tillmon County Fire: This cleverly plotted and well-crafted story of abuse and vengeance is told in pieces from the varying perspectives of a half-dozen teens, and Ehrenberg uses intertwining chapters to explore their motives and desires. Particularly compelling are the voices of Rob, a gay teen transplanted from Manhattan, and Albert, a developmentally challenged 16-year-old whose twin is befriended by […]
Andrew’s Book Club recommends Josh Weil‘s debut collection, The New Valley (Grove), as June’s Big House pick and Midge Raymond‘s Forgetting English (Eastern Washington UP), winner of the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, as its University Press pick. Also new on the ABC site is Andrew’s interview with Bonnie Jo Campbell, whose story collection American Salvage was a pick last month. **This week, FWR will publish Erika Dreifus‘ review of Forgetting English, so check back to read more about it.**
FWR writer (and often behind-the-scenes editor) Celeste Ng has been invited to attend the “oldest writing conference in America,” the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, this August as a Scholar. She’s promised to send us dispatches from the beautiful Green Mountains. Two other FWR contributors, Steven Wingate and Preeta Samarasan, were both Bread Loaf Fellows in 2008, and Steven was awarded the Bread Loaf-sponsored Bakeless Literary Prize in Fiction for stories from his debut collection, Wifeshopping. (Steven even talked a little about the conference in an essay for FWR last month.) Here are links to more about this year’s conference and […]
