From the Archives: “I think characters resist being known in the way real people do. When I start to construct a character, I never begin with their deep dark secrets or biggest fears or hidden shame. I usually start with the surface details—physical features, occupation, interests—and over time, I learn the things the character secretly wants or hates or tries to hide.”
“The collection takes on more and more weight as subsequent stories shift into different gears”: Ayşe Papatya Bucak reviews Lauren Groff’s new collection, Florida, out June 5 from Riverhead.
“Indeed, the Keatings’ struggles take on a historical and even mythic dimension that gives them significance beyond the merely personal”: Mary Stewart Atwell on Ausbel’s latest novel, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty.
“The writer’s first tool—even more important than language—is empathy”: Michael Byers on ZZ Packer’s “Brownies” as a story about becoming a writer.
Last week’s feature was Amy Brill’s debut novel, The Movement of Stars, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: Susan Paige (@SusanPWrites) Susan Campbell (@weatherscreek) Tania James (@taniajam) 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!
This week’s feature is Amy Brill’s debut novel, The Movement of Stars, which was recently published by Riverhead. Brill is a writer and producer. Her articles, essays, and short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in such places as One Story, The Common, Redbook, Real Simple, Salon, Guernica, and Time Out New York. She has been awarded fellowships in fiction by the Edward Albee Foundation, Jentel, the Millay Colony, Fundacion Valparaiso, and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation. In 2005, she was the Robert and Charlotte Baron Visiting Artist Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, MA. As a broadcast journalist, […]
This week’s feature is Leah Hager Cohen’s new novel, The Grief of Others, which was published in September by Riverhead. Cohen is the author of seven previous books: Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World (1994); Glass, Paper, Beans: Revelations on the Nature and Value of Ordinary Things (1997); Heat Lightning: A Novel (1997); The Stuff of Dreams: Behind the Scenes of an American Community Theater (2001); Heart, You Bully, You Punk: A Novel (2003); Without Apology: Girls, Women, and the Desire to Fight (2005); and House Lights: A Novel (2007). This new novel of Cohen’s, set in the suburbs […]
Last week we featured The Little Bride, by Anna Solomon, as our Book-of-the-Week title, and we’re pleased to announce the winners. Congratulations to: Rebecca Jacoby (@RLJPOV) shopemills (@shopemills) e. smith sleigh (@AuthorandPoet) 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!
A bookish fifteen-year-old breaches taboos in the small New England town of Wick. Poet Rebecca Wolff’s masterful first novel is an Appalachian folk ballad rendered gothic–full of sex and ghosts, mixing caution and temptation, obsessed with origins but somehow timeless.
After its publication in 2000, the first edition of Betsy Lerner’s The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers became one of my students’ favorite writing books, and over time it became my go-to gift to graduating seniors with whom I’d formed a special bond, and whose persistence I hoped to bolster in those daunting years ahead. I even kept a small stash of copies in my office. So it was with great anticipation that I looked forward to this second edition, published in October 2010.
