Review: ‘Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise’ by Oscar Hijuelos
Even after death Oscar Hijuelos keeps returning to Cuba in his fiction. Born in New York to Cuban parents, Hijuelos published his first novel, Our House in the Last World, in 1983, a story of Cuban...
View ArticleAmazon readers praise ‘Natural Attraction’ by Catherine Haustein
(Current fiction & past quality fiction) “Natural Attraction” (Penner Publishing) by Catherine Haustein became the 5-Star darling “summer read” novel for a number of folks who review books on...
View ArticleLittle Sister Death, by William Gay: a classy, creepy slice of Southern Gothic
The novelist Ellen Glasgow, speaking to a group of librarians at the University of Virginia in 1936, referred to a “new and disturbing” trend in southern US fiction, one she associated with writers...
View Article2015's 5 Under 35 celebration spotlights the promising writers you should be...
The book community came together Monday night in New York City to honor the literary world's best emerging writers at the National Book Foundation's annual 5 Under 35 celebration. Founded in 2006, 5...
View ArticleThe books that made us
Routinely dismissed as a ‘waste of time’, Facebook can often be surprisingly educative. Amid the incessant stream of selfies, Instagrammed dinners and ‘last night’s party pix,’ every once in a while...
View ArticleIn short fiction reviews: Rupert Thomson, Vikki Wakefield, Tess McLennan and...
PICK OF THE WEEK Katherine Carlyle Rupert Thomson Corsair, $29.99. Advertisement What a strange book this is: the tale of a teenage girl obsessed, as well she might be, with her origins. Kit spent...
View ArticleInterview with Picture Book Author Lori Alexander
Lori Alexander writes for young children and their exhausted parents. Her debut picture book, BACKHOE JOE, rolled out in 2014 from Harper Children’s, with a sequel to follow. Lori resides in Tucson,...
View Article5 Things Everyone Says to First Time Authors
I was thrilled last month to sign a contract with a publisher to publish my first romantic suspense novel under the pen name, Angela Evans. The reactions I have received from friends and family as I...
View ArticleBecca Fitzpatrick: 'As a teen, I was in love with Heathcliff. As an adult, he...
The queen of YA smoulder talks to site member Lottie is Dottie about her love of Wuthering Heights, her new book Dangerous Lies and how glad she is to have the old journals she kept in high school...
View ArticleBlack authors don’t write only for white women
There are so few ethnic minority voices in publishing and the media that when one criticises another it has come to be regarded as a form of strike-breaking. Knowing the obstacles we face (some...
View Article‘Poet of small buildings’
Where do you start with an edition of collected poems? At the end of a poet’s career? At the beginning? Do you dive in randomly and hope for the charms of stichomancy? Wherever the reader treads in...
View ArticleHas the Nobel Curse Killed Orhan Pamuk?
What’s a novelist to do after winning literature’s greatest laurel? In his new ‘A Strangeness in My Mind’ and other works, it seems the Turkish prodigy is edging into early retirement. When Orhan Pamuk...
View ArticleInterview with Florence Byham Weinberg, author of 'Dolet'
Florence Byham Weinberg was born in Alamogordo, New Mexico. She completed a Ph.D. in French literature and taught Spanish literature for four years at the U. of Rochester, then French and Spanish...
View ArticleOn Writing...
Does a writer ever know what is next? Beings writing is not my day job, I don't ever set aside writing time as some authors do. "I write from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. every single day!" I have heard. Not me! I...
View Article'Death Ship,' A Conversation with Joseph Badal
Photo: Joseph Badal Joseph Badal served for six years in the U.S. Army as a highly decorated commissioned officer in sensitive, classified positions, including tours of duty in Greece and Vietnam. He...
View ArticleWhen Greg Pardlo Won The 2015 Pulitzer Prize For Poetry, He Was A Graduate...
Greg Pardlo submitted "Digest," his slim book of poems, to the major publishers. All rejected it. He sent it to Four Way Books, which is, like the poet, literary and decidedly non-profit. In 2014, Four...
View ArticleWhen Greg Pardlo Won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, He Was a Graduate...
Greg Pardlo submitted "Digest," his slim book of poems, to the major publishers. All rejected it. He sent it to Four Way Books, which is, like the poet, literary and decidedly non-profit. In 2014, Four...
View Article2015's 5 Under 35 celebration spotlights the promising writers you should be...
The book community came together Monday night in New York City to honor the literary world's best emerging writers at the National Book Foundation's annual 5 Under 35 celebration. Founded in 2006, 5...
View ArticleHow to Write Fiction
Ireland has ever been a fount of short fiction. So many Irish writers have distinguished themselves in this form that their names make up a kind of who's-who of writing sophistication and genius: John...
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