Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘indie bookstores’

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Thursday Morning Candy: Newcity Lit

Welcome to Thursday Morning Candy, where we highlight a sweet online journal or writely resource. Attention, Chicago writers! Newcity Lit is a website devoted to the Windy City’s writing scene. Says the site: We start with the core coverage found each week in Newcity magazine, Chicago’s only locally owned and operated cultural weekly, where we’ve been covering the turf for more than 22 years, and extend it with your input on this site. Please sign up and join the conversation! Recent topics include the School of the Art Institute’s second annual Small Press and Comics Symposium, a writeup of Columbia […]


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Thursday Morning Candy: Authors On Tour – Live!

Welcome to Thursday Morning Candy, where we highlight an online journal or resource that’s a treat for writers and readers. Love author readings, but find you can’t get to them as often as you’d like? Or maybe you live in an area where author readings are infrequent. Authors on Tour – Live! is at your service. The website brings you podcasts of live author readings, including plenty of fiction, much of it by emerging writers—all for free. Recent podcasts include Siobhan Fallon reading from and discussing her debut collection You Know When the Men Are Gone, Chris Cleave on his […]


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How Many Indie Bookstores Is Too Many?

Here at FWR, we’re all for indie bookstores. We love their support of authors and readings, their knowledge of the books they sell, and their ties to the community. But is there such a thing as too many indie bookstores? In Westhampton Beach, NY, the answer might be yes. Newcomer indie bookstore Books & Books, which opened in July, is giving established indie bookstore The Open Book some competition, and not everyone is happy. The New York Times reports: Terry Lucas, a librarian and the owner of the Open Book, which she founded in 1999, said Books & Books is […]


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Tin House: Buy to Submit; Dzanc: Buy to Donate

Tin House Books has a new way to encourage you to support bookstores. GalleyCat reports: Between August 1 and November 30, 2010, Tin House Books will accept unsolicited manuscripts with one special condition–the submission must include a receipt that proves the author has purchased a book at a bookstore. Any manuscript sent without a receipt will be returned unread. The new policy is part of Tin House’s “Buy a Book, Save a Bookstore” campaign. The Tin House Books website notes: Writers who cannot afford to buy a book or cannot get to an actual bookstore are encouraged to explain why […]


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Strand Tote Bag Contest

You’ve seen it a million times: that iconic tote bag with The Strand logo on it. Recently, The Strand partnered with the School of Visual Arts, TOON Books, Drawn & Quarterly, and Fantagraphics Books to host a tote bag design contest. Over 800 emerging artists submitted their representations of The Strand Bookstore, and a panel of judges, including Pulitzer Prize–winner Art Spiegelman, selected three winners. Check out a slideshow of all the entries, just the finalists, or the three winners. The image by the grand prize winner, Zak Foster, will be featured on a new tote bag, available in-store and […]


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Three Ways to Support Indie Bookstores

1. Subscribe to Poets & Writers. The magazine is continuing their special deeply discounted subscription rate for FWR readers: only $12 a year. Anyone who orders before March 15 will receive the current issue, featuring Powell’s Books in Portland. With this deal, you’ll not only get the magazine at one-third the normal price: you’ll also be showing your support for independent bookstores and Jeremiah Chamberlin’s Inside Indie Bookstores series. In each P&W issue, he profiles an important independent bookstore around the country, featuring an interview with the owner. (In the Jan/Feb issue, that bokstore was Square Books, of Oxford, Mississippi.) […]


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Powell's Puddly Awards

Powell’s wants to know: what’s the best book you read in the past decade? Voting for the 2010 Puddly Awards (and the “Golden Galoshes” trophy) is now open. Nominate your favorite read of the ’00s and you could win a $250 Powell’s gift card or one of four $50 Powell’s gift cards. Current nominees range from David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas to Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible to J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Voting ends January 31.


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REMINDER: Amazing *Poets & Writers* deal for FWR readers! Sign up by tomorrow to get the Jan/Feb Issue

As we announced earlier this month, Poets & Writers is continuing to offer a special deal to FWR readers (a description that includes anyone lucky enough to stumble across this post): only $12 for a year-long subscription! Take advantage of this hugely discounted rate by subscribing — or renewing your current subscription — via this link. Be sure to sign up by Friday, January 15 (tomorrow) if you want your subscription to include the Jan/Feb 2010 issue, which includes the first installment of FWR Associate Editor Jeremiah Chamberlin’s Inside Indie Bookstores series. Subscribing through this link will help show support […]


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NYC's first Independent Bookstore Week: Nov. 15-22

New York-based writer-readers: next week, the NYCIB is hosting the very first Independent Bookstore Week, featuring day and evening events in indie bookstores across all five boroughs! For a (still-growing) list of events–readings, signings, meals, lectures, discussions, book launch parties, a master class, a midnight costume party, and more–visit the NYCIB’s website. This double-launch party at Unnameable Books sounds particularly insane/intriguing: November 17 MIDNIGHT A never-before-seen, new publication from the posthumous Vladimir N. AND A we’ve-seen-it-all-before, new publication from the maverick Sarah P. THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA by V. Nabokov & GOING ROGUE by S. Palin Dress as your favorite […]