Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘events’

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Remembering 9/11

by Celeste Ng

In one of my undergraduate creative writing classes, a student turned in a poem that referred to tall buildings collapsing to the ground. His classmates interpreted this as reference to the events of September 11. Later that week, the student came to my office and confessed that he’d actually written the poem in 2000, well before the attacks on the World Trade Center, and he didn’t want to write a “9/11 poem,” because–he said–he didn’t feel personally affected by the events of that day. What he wanted to know was this: Did he have to make the poem about 9/11, […]


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Help launch The Little Bride!

by Celeste Ng

Debut novelist Anna Solomon writes us: For the past six months, I’ve been working on an unusual and exciting collaboration with singer-songwriter Clare Burson: a literary-musical performance interweaving story, song, and projected images inspired by my novel, THE LITTLE BRIDE. We call it A Little Suite for The Little Bride, and we’ll be performing it at the Tenement Museum on Wednesday, September 7 to celebrate the book’s birthday and kick off a great party. The (free) performance will start at 6:30 PM at the Tenement Museum in NYC as part of the museum’s Tenement Talks reading series. There will also […]


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THIS WEEKEND: clmp's Lit Mag Marathon Weekend (NYC)

by Celeste Ng

This weekend, CLMP (The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses) is hosting its 12th annual Lit Mag Marathon Weekend. Here’s the scoop, courtesy of CLMP’s newsletter: The Magathon: Saturday, June 11th, 4-6:30 PM New York Public Library’s DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room, 5th Ave. at 42nd St. In this “marathon” reading, editors of lit journals will present selections from their first issues. The GIANT Lit Mag Fair at Housing Works: Sunday, June 12th, 11-4PM Housing Works Used Book Café, 126 Crosby Street in Soho Lucky you, New Yorkers—you can pick up tons of lit mags for only $2 a copy! Magazines […]


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Journal of the Week: One Story

by Michael Rudin

Since launching in September, Fiction Writers Review’s “Book of the Week” promotion has shipped seventy-nine books to readers located in twenty-four states and three countries. Whether we’re giving away debut novels or acclaimed collections, the enthusiasm on Facebook has less to do with free, signed first editions than what these books do and how their authors accomplish it. It’s exactly this enthusiasm that now allows us to expand the spotlight from books deserving your attention to literary journals deserving your attention. Starting this week, Fiction Writers Review will begin profiling publications we admire right here on the blog in a […]


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Happy Read Across America Day!

by Celeste Ng

Today, March 2, is Read Across America Day, in honor of Dr. Seuss‘s birthday. (Really—here’s the official presidential proclamation.) Funded by the NEA Foundation for the Improvement of Education, the event’s goal is simple: to motivate children to read. Says the event’s website: The First Lady and NEA President Dennis Van Roekel welcome a star-studded lineup of readers and 400 local schoolchildren to the Library of Congress today for the national kickoff of NEA’s Read Across America. Who’s grabbed a hat to read with the Cat? Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Jessica Alba, Superbowl champion Donald Driver, Top Chef host […]


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Reminder: Sozopol Fiction Seminar Deadline February 15th

by The Editors

Each year the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation selects five native English speaking (NES) writers and five Bulgarian writers to participate in the Sozopol Fiction Seminar, which takes places in the tiny, historic town of Sozopol, Bulgaria, on the Black Sea. In 2009 I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the NES fellows. Joining me were Kodi Scheer, Lana Santoni, Maya Sloan, and now contributing editor Steven Wingate. For one week we lived together, shared meals together, discussed writing together, and discovered the odd similarities in our work and our lives. It was, in a word, amazing. And now […]


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The World's Most Literary Rent Party Ever

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

On Sunday, February 6th, join literary greats such as Mary Gaitskill, George Saunders, Rick Moody, Amy Hempel, Gary Shteyngart, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Hannah Tinti at PS 122 in New York’s East Village as they throw “The World’s Most Literary Rent Party Ever,” to raise money for Diana Colbert, wife of novelist Charles Bock (author of Beautiful Children). In 2009 Colbert was diagnosed with leukemia and had a bone marrow transplant. But in October of this year, the leukemia returned. So friends of the Bocks–writers Fiona Maazel, Mary-Beth Hughes, and Leigh Newman–decided to help by throwing this literary fund-raiser. As […]


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This Saturday: Biblioball 2010

by Michael Rudin

Biblioball 2010 from Desk Set on Vimeo. ‘Tis the season, and that means New York’s annual Biblioball has arrived! The event occurs on December 4th and those of you who have attended before know what to expect: not just a winter formal for the “well-read and well-attired,” but an incredible way to support Literacy for Incarcerated Teens. Starting at Brooklyn’s The Bell House at 8 pm and going into the wee hours of the morning, attendees have plenty to look forward to: In addition to these food and drink items, Happy Hour ticket holders can mingle with local literary stars, […]


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A story with that cardigan?

by Lee Thomas

In keeping with the shorter nights of winter, and later retail hours of the holiday season, throughout December Anthropologie will offer Bedtime Stories Reading Hour for kids at locations across the country. Now, I’m normally wary of attempts to lure me into stores – but this hits home. I remember an infamous visit to the department store that ended in a trip to the dentist for my brother when he careened into a clothing rack during a game of chase. Yep, we were those kind of kids. Our mother would have been so grateful for a story hour to keep […]


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LWC } NYC

by Lee Thomas

Big thanks to Anne for alerting me to what looks like a great conference in New York on November 12 – 13. The Literary Writers Conference bills itself as: A two-day conference for fiction, poetry, and creative-nonfiction writers learning how to maneuver in the marketplace. Meet writers, editors, agents, publicists and publishers from Publishers Weekly, Oxford University Press, Scribner, Hachette Book Group, Graywolf, the Poetry Society of America, Bloomsbury, Knopf, the Academy of American Poets and more. The lineup of editors, publicists, bookstores and lit mags – not to mention writers – looks stellar. The dozen programs include a Working […]




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