Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘short stories’

Shop Talk |

The Library of America's Story of the Week

by Celeste Ng

Each week, The nonprofit Library of America offers a free short story, readable online in PDF form. The current “Story of the Week” is “The Charmed Life”< by Katherine Anne Porter. Other recent features include “Charles” by Shirley Jackson (who—yes!—wrote more than just “The Lottery”), the early story “The Cut-Glass Bowl” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Wives of the Dead” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Each story is also accompanied by some commentary that helps set the story in context. This seems like a great—and free—way to discover some lesser-known pieces by well-known American writers. See the current story and all […]


Reviews |

Best European Fiction 2010 (Aleksandar Hemon, ed.)

What is it about the European cultures, tucked like bats into their tiny cubbies, that seems so much more specific than our own? How do Belgium or Luxembourg achieve “culture” in little more space we might use to construct a Wal-Mart megastore? What is it about confinement that breeds a more tribal than national identity? What are we doing when we sit down to read a collection of fiction culled from a continent?


Interviews |

Writing with Intuition: An Interview with Hannah Tinti

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 |

The Envelopes Please…

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Congratulations to this year’s winners of The Collection Giveaway Project! Earlier today we held four separate drawings to determine the recipients of our free story collections, and here are the results: Shannon for Laura van den Berg’s collection What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us Pete for Joshua Furst’s collection Short People Barrett Shipp for Skip Horack’s collection The Southern Cross Melanie Yarbrough for Robin Black’s collection If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This Thanks also to Erika Dreifus of The Practicing Writer (who first suggested the giveaway), the editors of The Replacement […]


Shop Talk |

Last Call: Win One of Eight Free Short Story Collections!

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

As the month winds to a close over Memorial Day weekend and summer officially begins, we’ll also be wrapping up our celebration of May as Short Story Month. Inspired by The Emerging Writers Network and their unparalleled coverage off all things story-related each May, as well as The Poetry Book Giveaway For National Poetry Month, we decided to launch The Collection Giveaway Project (warm thanks to Erika Dreifus of The Practicing Writer for suggesting our site as a home for this promotion). The goal is a simple one: to get readers talking about their favorite stories and story collections. So […]


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Short Stories Out Loud

by Lee Thomas

I frequently happen upon Selected Shorts on NPR midway through a story and go through a predictable course of thinking: I’ve missed the first part of the story. I should just download the podcast and hear it from the top. Wow, that sentence was brilliant. What the heck is going on here? And then I end up listening to the conclusion of the story and enjoying it immensely. Now that I’m in New York, I hope to make it to one of the live stage performances of Selected Shorts. If you’re lucky enough to already have a ticket, on May […]


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FWR's Own in Glimmer Train

by Celeste Ng

At Fiction Writers Review, a key part of our mission is to support emerging writers—and hey, we’re emerging writers, too. So I’m especially pleased to report that the current issue of Glimmer Train (Issue 75) contains stories by not one, but TWO of the FWR staff: our Associate Editor, Jeremiah Chamberlin, and our site’s designer/graphic design goddess, Marissa Perry. Both are amazing writers, and we’re not just saying that because we know them. It’s especially appropriate to highlight Glimmer Train this month—Short Story Month—as it’s one of just a handful of journals that publish only short fiction. Moreover, Glimmer Train […]


Reviews |

Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, by Kevin Wilson

by Brian Short

If Tunneling to the Center of the Earth (HarperPerennial, 2009) were a child, it would be the kind who held your hand until you reached the road and then insisted—slapping at your grasping fingers without taking his eyes off the road—on crossing the street without help. If Kevin Wilson’s debut collection were a car, it would be the kind of bubble-topped, shark-finned future-car that you see on footage of old World’s Fairs, but you would see it out in the world, cruising the miracle mile. If this book were a friend, it would be the kind who goes with you […]


Shop Talk |

NPR's Three-Minute Fiction Contest, Round 4

by Celeste Ng

May is Short Story Month, and what better way to celebrate than by reading some short fiction by emerging writers? But I don’t have time, you say. National Public Radio has the answer: three-minute fiction. These stories can all be read aloud in under three minutes—little gems to surprise and delight you in less time than it takes to microwave a bag of popcorn. The deadline for the current round NPR’sThree-Minute Fiction Contest has passed, but while judge Ann Patchett decides on the winner, check out some of the entries. All stories for this round include the words “plant,” “trick,” […]


Shop Talk |

ESPN Short Fiction Contest

by Celeste Ng

The Millions alerted us to this contest for sports-themed short fiction, sponsored by—of all people—ESPN. Now, I love my Red Sox and my Cavaliers, but I would never call myself a sports girl. So I was skeptical of the whole idea of “sports fiction.” But I recently served on the admissions board for the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, reading applications for waitership positions, and I was surprised to see a number of well-written, compelling, and honestly interesting sports-related stories. The key? They weren’t about sports per se; they were about interesting people who happened to be involved in sports, and […]




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