Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘Celeste Ng’

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eBooks? Not in this crib.

by Celeste Ng

News flash: eBooks are growing more popular by the year–wait, make that the minute. But there’s one market where paper books are still king: babies. The New York Times reports that even eBook-reading parents prefer paper books for their tots. This is the case even with parents who themselves are die-hard downloaders of books onto Kindles, iPads, laptops and phones. They freely acknowledge their digital double standard, saying they want their children to be surrounded by print books, to experience turning physical pages as they learn about shapes, colors and animals. Parents also say they like cuddling up with their […]


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"Work" writing and "really" writing

by Celeste Ng

Like many writers, I tend to think of job-related writing–like copywriting, or editing, or ghostwriting memos–as Not Really Writing. In the Huffington Post, though, Holly Robinson expresses a very different point of view: “Doesn’t it bug you to write other people’s books when you could be working on your own?” another writer asked me recently. Not a bit. In fact, I love telling other people’s stories. What other job would allow me to walk in another person’s shoes so completely that I’d feel their blisters? Working as a book doctor or ghost writer, I have the opportunity to immerse myself […]


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Stories We're Thankful For: "Pilgrims"

by Celeste Ng

I’m thankful for many things this Thansksgiving–friends, family, bits of good fortune large and small that have come my way over the past year. But in terms of stories, there’s one I’m eternally grateful for: Julie Orringer‘s “Pilgrims.” I first encountered “Pilgrims” in The Best New American Voices 2001, where it was the lead-off story. It begins simply enough: a family–father, mother, sister, brother–are headed to Thanksgiving dinner. But within paragraphs, you feel less and less at ease. The mother is gravely ill, as are many of the parents at the group dinner. Brother and sister must contend with a […]


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One book to rule them all

by Celeste Ng

A recent discussion on the community blog Metafilter asked, “Please tell me one book you think everyone should read and why. Fiction or nonfiction, doesn’t matter. I’m not so interested in hearing about your favorite book or your desert island book, but a book you think everyone would benefit from reading.” In a matter of hours, over a hundred people responded with their recommendations. Many suggested nonfiction—from Richard Dawkins to Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond to The Art of War to the Bible—but surprise! Many others felt that the one book everyone should read would be fiction. Here’s […]


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At a loss for words

by Celeste Ng

Yesterday we talked about a tool to help you analyze your writing for “flabbiness” or “fitness” based on your use of prepositions, adjective and adverbs, and so on. But could analyzing your writing tell you something about your mental fitness, too? Researchers now believe that they may be able to detect the early signs of Alzheimer’s from a writer’s language. In a recently published paper, scientists at the University of Toronto examined the output of three writers for signs of the disease. From the study (titled “Longitudinal detection of dementia through lexical and syntactic changes in writing: a case study […]


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Is your prose fit or flabby? (And–does it matter?)

by Celeste Ng

Is your writing lean and trim? Or does it need to shed some flab? Recently, user Leigh posted on FWR’s Facebook wall about an interesting writing-analysis tool, WritersDiet. Intrigued, I clicked on over. WritersDiet is a free online tool that analyzes a sample of your text. Paste in any text you want, hit “Run the test,” and the site provides an overall “fitness” report and a bar graph showing your usage of verbs, nouns, prepositions, adjectives/adverbs, and it/this/that/there. Here’s how it scored a few different samples: 1. The opening paragraphs of a front-page story from the New York Times: The […]


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Buy a book, adopt a… penguin

by Celeste Ng

In possibly the cutest book promotion campaign ever, Melville House has started an adopt-a-penguin program to—oh, I’ll just let them explain: To celebrate our publication of Andrey Kurkov‘s beloved Russian crime-fiction series starring a penguin named Misha, Melville House is announcing a new Adopt-a-Penguin program. No, really… We will adopt a penguin in the name of any bookstore who successfully sells 25 copies of either book (combined or single title) in the series, which includes Death and the Penguin or Penguin Lost. The contest will run from now until December 31st. As a reader all you need to do is […]


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"I can't go on. I'll go on": Writing when you're sure you can't

by Celeste Ng

So November is halfway over–you’re half done writing your novel for NaNaoWriMo, right? Right? Whether you’re doing NaNoWriMo or not, there are always those days–or weeks, or months, or, let’s face it, years–when you just feel like you Cannot. Write. Anything. I don’t claim these are foolproof solutions, but here are my own personal tips to get started working again. 1. A journey of a thousand pages begins with opening your document. Maybe it’s just me–but 90% of the time, just opening up the right file seems like a big step. I find a million other places to click: Facebook, […]


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User PapaHem99 gives this place 3 stars

by Celeste Ng

First, there was Ernest Hemingway, Yelper: Infusion Tea and Coffee House Category: Coffee & Tea THREE STARS I got up late and the sun was already high and I had been drunk the night before. The barista brought me a cup of coffee and asked if I wanted anything else and when I said no she left. The coffee was good and very hot. I sat at the table for a while. When I was done the barista came and cleared my mug and went back behind the counter. I ordered a muffin to go and walked out into the […]




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