Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘short story month 2013’

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Under the Influence: Around the Campfire of Literature with James Salter’s Opening Paragraphs

by Joshua Bodwell

“Above all, it must be compelling,” James Salter told the Paris Review in 1993 when asked about his idea of the short story. “You’re sitting around the campfire of literature, so to speak, and various voices speak up out of the dark and begin talking. With some, your mind wanders or you doze off, but with others you are held by every word. The first line, the first sentence, the first paragraph, all have to compel you.” Long before I ever read those remarks by Salter, I’d already come under the influence of his short stories and, in particular, his […]


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Book-of-the-Week Winners: The Peripatetic Coffin

by The Editors

Last week’s feature was Ethan Rutherford’s debut collection, The Peripatetic Coffin, and we’re pleased to announce the winners: Will McClure (@WillMcClure) Elizabeth Eaves (@ElisabethEaves) Trisha Ellen (@TrishaEllen1) 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!


Interviews |

The Kind of Sentences I Would Want to Read: Part I of an Interview with Jonathan Callahan

Acclaimed fiction writer Rick Moody speaks with debut author Jonathan Callahan, author of The Consummation of Dirk, which won the 8th Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction, about “conventional” writing, accomplishing something that makes one “feel worthy to be alive,” and influences, among other things. They have never met.


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Stories We Love: "Revenge," by Ellen Gilchrist

by Rebecca Scherm

“Raised on Southern manners, I thrill at the way Gilchrist foxtrots through tea-sipping customs while exposing all manner of prejudice through her narrator, ten-year-old Rhoda, who absorbs the language of the adults around her and then spits it back at them indiscriminately”: Rebecca Scherm explores the power of child narrators through Ellen Gilchrist’s story “Revenge.”


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Book of the Week: The Peripatetic Coffin, by Ethan Rutherford

by The Editors

This week’s feature is Ethan Rutherford’s debut collection, The Peripatetic Coffin, which was published earlier this month by Ecco. Ethan Rutherford was born in Seattle, and now lives in the Midwest. His stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Ploughshares, One Story, American Short Fiction, New York Tyrant, Esopus, Five Chapters, and The Best American Short Stories. He received his MFA from the University of Minnesota, and has taught creative writing at Macalester College, the University of Minnesota, and the Loft Literary Center. He is the guitarist for the band Pennyroyal. He is currently at work on a novel set […]


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Stories We Love: The Great Salt Gift of Alistair MacLeod’s “The Boat”

by Joshua Bodwell

“Slow and rich and so atmospheric that you can taste the ocean’s salt spray on your lips, ‘The Boat’ is run through with that rarest of qualities in fiction: the story feels mythic”: Joshua Bodwell on Alistair MacLeod’s short fiction.




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