Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘publishing’

Shop Talk |

Trailer as Logical Argument

by Lee Thomas

The book trailer is a relatively new phenomenon, but innovation has quickly become the rule. Take the trailer for Gary Shteyngart’s new novel, Super Sad True Love Story, which features cameos by James Franco (a former MFA student of Shteyngart at Columbia), Jay McInerney, Edmund White, Mary Gaitskill, and Jeffrey Eugenides. It’s tongue-in-cheek, as to be expected from the author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, and contains some very funny non sequiturs – like how to blend in at a Paris Review party – and I knew virtually nothing about the book by the end. But conveying actual information is […]


Shop Talk |

1. Write novel. 2. ??? 3. PROFIT!

by Celeste Ng

For many aspiring writers, that’s the big question: How do you get from #1 to #3? No one can guarantee that you’ll actually profit, of course, but certain steps make it much much much more likely that your work will get out there and find an audience. Though I’m certainly no expert, I’ve been asked many times by students and friends-of-friends how to revise the manuscript, how to find an agent, how to find a publisher. Now Mediabistro—an expert if ever there was one—offers a new series of how-to videos, answering just those questions. Their series “I Just Wrote A […]


Shop Talk |

So, What's Really Killing Fiction?

by Celeste Ng

You may have already seen this essay by Ted Genoways, editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, blaming too many MFA programs and their “navel-gazing” writers for the sorry state of fiction these days: But the less commercially viable fiction became, the less it seemed to concern itself with its audience, which in turn made it less commercial, until, like a dying star, it seems on the verge of implosion. Indeed, most American writers seem to have forgotten how to write about big issues—as if giving two shits about the world has gotten crushed under the boot sole of postmodernism. Now, […]


Interviews |

Writing with Intuition: An Interview with Hannah Tinti

by Charlotte Boulay

Hannah Tinti was raised in Salem, Massachusetts, a place she credits with having influenced the darker side of her fiction. Charlotte Boulay talks with the much-admired author and editor about the influence of art in her work, how writers find their subject matter, her editorial approach at One Story, and trusting your gut during the drafting process, among other subjects.


Shop Talk |

Do the Write Thing for Nashville

by Celeste Ng

You may have missed it between the Times Square Car bomb and the giant uncontrolled oil spill that’s taking over the Gulf Coast. But last week, the Cumberland River flooded much of Nashville, covering the city with over 10 feet of water, closing institutions like the Grand Ole Opry House, and killing more than 25 people. A group of publishing professionals, Do the Write Thing for Nashville, is working to raise money for flood victims by auctioning off signed copies of books, manuscript critiques by agents and editors, writing retreats, and other lit-related swag. So far, the group has raised […]


Essays |

The Magical, Dreadful First Hundred Pages: From the 2010 AWP Panel "From MFA Thesis to First Novel"

“For those of you who have yet to publish your first book, I can predict with about 96% certainty how it will go: It won’t happen when you want it to, or in the way you expect. Of course it’ll take longer than you want — you know that. It’ll take so long you could grow a tree, learn forestry and paper-making, then print and bind it yourself and carry it by hand to every last remaining independent bookstore in the country. That is, if you don’t succumb first to addiction, poverty, despair, humiliation, or suicide. In short, it will take longer than you think you can stand, and yet, in the end, as you struggle to make your last-chance, oh-my-God-this-is-going-out-in-the-world? revisions, you’ll inevitably feel rushed and wonder where all that time went.”


Shop Talk |

P&W's Inside Indie Bookstores: Women & Children First

by Anne Stameshkin

In the newest installment of Poets & Writers magazine’s Inside Indie Bookstores series, FWR Associate Editor Jeremiah Chamberlin profiles Chicago’s fabulous Women & Children First bookstore, featuring an interview with the bookstore’s co-owner Linda Bubon. The online version (along with a slideshow of images from the store) is available at no cost on P&W‘s website…but if you want a print copy, Poets & Writers‘ special offer to Fiction Writers Review readers (only $12 for a year-long subscription) is still up for grabs; if you order through this page before May 15, you’ll get the current issue featuring Women & Children […]


Shop Talk |

The End of Publishing: The Video

by Celeste Ng

We’ve had book trailers and vooks and now… a video about the end of publishing. (Or is it?) DK (Dorling Kindersley) Books put this clever video together for a sales conference: The Penguin website offers some insight into the creation of the clip: We asked DK to give us a list of facts and statistics about publishing in 2010, and where they see it going in the future, and then our scriptwriter, Jason LaMotte took this information and wove the facts into the current script.


Shop Talk |

The Second Pass, and life after print

by Anne Stameshkin

Tonight I stumbled (for the first time, I’m ashamed to admit) upon The Second Pass. This fantastic lit site, edited by freelance writer and former Harper Collins editor John Williams, features a blog and an impressive range of features: essays, interviews, and reviews covering both new releases (Circulating) and backlist titles (Backlist). Another section, The Shelf, features reviewlets of recent titles, with links to and excerpts from other reviews across the bookosphere. To celebrate the site’s first year anniversary, twelve contributors (including the editor) wrote pieces on their favorite out-of-print books. Williams introduces the combined result, “Tales of the Unread,” […]




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