Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘debut novel’

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Book of the Week: A Working Theory of Love, by Scott Hutchins

by The Editors

Our new feature is Scott Hutchins’s debut novel, A Working Theory of Love, published this month by Penguin. Hutchins is a former fellow in the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University. He received his M.F.A. from the University of Michigan, and his work has appeared in StoryQuarterly, Five Chapters, The Owls, The Rumpus, the New York Times, San Francisco Magazine, and Esquire. He is the recipient of two Hopwood Awards and the Andrea Beauchamp Prize in Short Fiction. In 2006 and 2010, he was an artist-in-residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. He lives in San Francisco with […]


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On debut novels and debut "grownup" novels…

by Celeste Ng

It is probably ridiculous to even put “J.K. Rowling” and the word “emerging” in the same thought. (Excerpts from the Wikipedia article about her: “best-selling book series in history,” “net worth US$1 billion,” “forty-eighth most powerful celebrity of 2007,” and “Most Influential Woman in Britain”—and that’s only in the introduction.) But I’m tempted to look at Rowling’s first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, in the same light as a more traditional debut novel. I know, it’s NOT not her first novel. But even “debut” authors usually have a few books under their belts, even if those novels have never […]


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Book-of-the-Week Winners: We Sinners

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Our most recent feature was Hanna Pylväinen’s We Sinners, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: Tanya Egan Gibson(@tanyaegangibson) Lisa Hechesky (@_creativelisa) Auden Johnson (@audendj) Congrats! To claim your free copy, please email us at the following address: winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us! Thanks to all of you who are fans. We appreciate your support. Let us know your favorite new books out there!


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Book of the Week: We Sinners, by Hanna Pylväinen

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Our new feature is Hanna Pylväinen‘s debut novel, We Sinners (Henry Holt & Co). Pylväinen is from suburban Detroit. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College and received her MFA from the University of Michigan, where she was also a postgraduate Zell Fellow. She is the recipient of residencies at The MacDowell Colony and Yaddo, and a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachussetts. Currently, she lives in Brooklyn, where she is completing her second novel, The End of Drum Time. In the introduction to Jennifer Tomscha’s recent interview with Pylväinen, she writes: Hanna Pylväinen’s debut novel, We […]


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First Looks, August 2012: Fobbit and Hold It 'Til It Hurts

by Erika Dreifus

Hello again, FWR friends. Welcome to the latest installment of our “First Looks” series, which highlights soon-to-be released books that have piqued my interest as a reader-who-writes. We publish “First Looks” here on the FWR blog around the 15th of each month, and as always, I’d love to hear your comments and your recommendations of forthcoming titles. Please drop me a line anytime: erika(at)fictionwritersreview(dot)com, and thanks in advance. Within the next few weeks, two debut novels with military connections will be published, one set within the context of the Iraq War and the other bonded to Afghanistan. Another commonality: Both […]


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Book-of-the-Week Winners: The Boiling Season

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Our most recent feature was The Boiling Season, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: SamanthaBayarr (@SamanthaBayarr ) Carolyn West (@temysmom) Alexis Apfelbaum (@AlexisRachel ) Congrats! To claim your free copy, please email us at the following address: winners [at] fictionwritersreview.com If you’d like to be eligible for future giveaways, please visit our Twitter Page and “follow” us! Thanks to all of you who are fans. We appreciate your support. Let us know your favorite new books out there!


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Book of the Week: The Boiling Season, by Christopher Hebert

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Our new feature is Christopher Hebert‘s debut novel, The Boiling Season (Harper). Hebert graduated from Antioch College, where he also worked at the Antioch Review. He has spent time in Guatemala and taught in Mexico, and he worked as a research assistant to the author Susan Cheever. He earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, and was awarded its prestigious Hopwood Award for fiction. He is Jack E. Reese Writer-in-Residence at the University of Tennessee Libraries, and lives in Knoxville with his son and his wife, the novelist Margaret Lazarus Dean. In Michael Shilling’s introduction to […]




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