Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘Blog’

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In Praise of Brevity, Part I: a "balm for those who fear brusqueness"

by Anne Stameshkin

For The Smart Set, Ryan Bigge offers this thoughtful history of concision in writing, from Zen koans and poetry to the telegram, to Twitter. (Thanks, Kathryn, for the link.) Through a series of wide-ranging examples (including a four-minute/one-word-in-variations scene from HBO’s The Wire and a single-character telegraph from Oscar Wilde to his publisher), he suggests that Twitter, far from symbolizing the end of thoughtful communication, evolves from an age-old writerly value: economy. Positing that “constraints generate creativity and that the utility of concision depends on context,” Bigge also acknowledges that “being laconic can […] belittle,” and that working in a […]


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since it's National Poetry Month…

by Anne Stameshkin

I’m going to waive the whole “all fiction, all the time” rule and devote some space to poetry on FWR. Fiction writers benefit enormously from reading poetry, and many of us (yours truly included) tried our hand at–or continue to secretly aspire to–being poets. At FWR, a number of our contributors and readers are poets (the out kind!), and I’m wondering if you’d take a few minutes to tell us: What poets or new, recent, or classic books of poetry are you reading? Poets (and fiction writers, too, if you’re game), please send any and all recommendations to either annestameshkin@gmail.com […]


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Travis Holland on Impac Shortlist!

by Anne Stameshkin

Even if you haven’t read his interview with Tobias Wolff or Jeremy’s interview with him on FWR, I hope you’ve all read Travis Holland’s astoundingly good, non-debutish debut novel The Archivist’s Story–which is now on the Impac Dublin shortlist, chosen over the works of literary heavyweights like Coetzee and Roth. Courtesy of the Guardian, here’s the full shortlist; the winner (who wins an award of €100,000) will be announced on June 11, 2009. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz Ravel by Jean Echenoz The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid The Archivist’s Story by Travis Holland The […]


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recommended Book Tour podcast: Daniyal Mueenuddin and Justin Torres

by Anne Stameshkin

When Alan Cheuse spoke with FWR last month, he highly recommended Daniyal Mueenuddin’s story collection, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, a book now teetering at the top of my “must-read” pile. In the meantime, we can all hear Mueenuddin read from his work via this NPR podcast from a recent Granta-sponsored event at McNally Jackson. Also on the bill is emerging writer Justin Torres (currently a student at the Iowa Writers Workshop, formerly a McNally Jackson employee), whose fiction has appeared in Tin House, Granta, and other magazines; here, he reads “Lessons,” a three-part story published in Granta 104: Fathers.


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Andrew's Book Club: April Picks

by Anne Stameshkin

Here they are, the April collections Andrew urges us to buy, read, and recommend. This month, all three books are debuts. Viva la short story–and the emerging writer! University Press Pick: Tracy Winn’s Mrs. Somebody Somebody (Southern Methodist UP) Indie Pick: Paul Yoon’s Once the Shore (Sarabande) Big House Pick: Kevin Wilson’s Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (Harper Perennial)


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Sunday browsing

by Anne Stameshkin

Take a tour of The Most Interesting Bookstores of the World. And visit Zoomii.com, which offers a “real bookstore” browsing experience but links to Amazon for actual checkout. I wish (1) that you could look inside this book during this part of the process and (2) that you could use such a service to shop at indie stores.


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Jeremiah Chamberlin wins Glimmer Train's Family Matters Fiction Prize!

by Anne Stameshkin

Huzzah and huge congrats to Jeremy, FWR’s Associate Editor, whose story “What We Can” has captured the $1200 first prize in Glimmer Train‘s Family Matters contest. Runners-up were, for second place, Yuval Zalkow for “God and Buses,” and for third place, Adam Theron-Lee Rensch for “Everything in Its Right Place.” The full list of finalists is available as a PDF here. Be sure to check out Glimmer Train‘s Summer 2010 issue, where “What We Can” will appear, or get a jump on it and subscribe now to one of FWR’s favorite literary magazines.


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Henry Sene Yee on designing a cover

by Anne Stameshkin

I love hearing about other writers’ processes, how they perceive of and describe them. There’s always the hope that this will yield some magical secret–or at least a scrap of empathy. And I think it serves writers well to read about how artists in other mediums work through a piece. This post on Henry Sene Yee’s book design blog walks us through his process — including many drafts — in creating the cover design for Columbine by Dave Cullen.


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Jane Smiley vs New York writing scene

by Anne Stameshkin

This may be last week’s news, but the issues it raises are still worth a jaw. From The Daily Beast (via some friends who were at this event: a reception and Q&A with the Man Booker International Prize judges, who met to discuss the finalists for this prestigious biannual award): The book world is generally so polite and civilized, that it’s sort of fun when a kerfuffle breaks open as it did last night at the New York Public Library. […] Up on stage were The Daily Beast’s Tina Brown, acting as moderator, and the three judges: novelists Amit Chaudhuri, […]




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