December 2010
82 posts
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Best of Story of the Day #5: Puttanesca, by Emma... →
First, a thank you: to you, my readers, who have made this year, fwriction’s first, one that raised my literary spirits and kept me smiling. For that, and many other wonderful interactions, I am eternally grateful.
If you’ve read fwriction before, you know of my deep affection for the writing and wit of Emma Straub. In choosing this “Best of Story of the Day” list, I...
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A new short story from the fwriction : review is... →
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Best of Story of the Day #4: The Norwegians, by... →
Elliott Holt’s writing has become a favorite of mine (and featured on fwriction more than once) over the past several months. This piece, honestly, originally published in Guernica, was a no-brainer for the “Best of Story of the Day” list. Serious writing boosh.
“This will be good,” said Karoline.
The stairs were carpeted in a thick, stain-resistant dark grey that my mother...
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Coming tomorrow…
A new short story at the fwriction : review!
Stop by, say hello, enjoy a brilliant read, and for your New Year’s resolution, submit, please!
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“The true life is not reducible to words spoken or written, not by anyone, ever.”
– Don DeLillo, Point Omega
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Best of Story of the Day #3: A Certain Number of... →
It’s been incredibly enjoyable and wildly difficult to go through all the kick-ass story of the day entries and pick my favorites. I hope you go through and pick your own personal rock stars.
Today’s “Best of Story of the Day” pick comes from a fwriction fav: Matt Bell’s “A Certain Number of Bedrooms, A Certain Number of Baths.” After you read this story,...
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What Is Your Favorite Story of the Day?
This week, fwriction is picking the “Best of Story of the Day,” and I am finding it so enjoyable to go through all of the amazing pieces of writing that have passed through as stories of the day.
Now, I want to hear from you! What are your favorites?
Send me a message here and let me know. To begin the new year, I’ll post a list of the top-five pieces, as chosen by you, my...
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“He reminded her that most of the newspapers and magazines she subscribed to...”
– Ann Beattie, “A Platonic Relationship”
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Best of Story of the Day #2: Your Breakup, by... →
The second pick for fwriction’s Best of Story of the Day comes from Alison Barker. Her story, “Your Breakup,” published in Monkeybicycle, is just so damn good.
Last week, before it was final, your ex-girlfriend asked you if she should send flowers and try to woo you back. You let it slide into the smudge of words and the dinner parties for people who pretended not to see that...
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A Cheater's Top Ten Small Press Books of 2010 →
A kick-ass list from Kyle Minor. Enjoy.
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Best of Story of the Day #1: Up High in the Air,... →
During this final week of 2010, each day I will be picking a favorite from all the story of the day pieces thus far. Now, granted, since I’ve personally chosen every story of the day, they’re all my favorites. However, since I cannot showcase each one this week, I’ve had some fun in going through all of them once again to choose five that really stuck to my bones.
The first...
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Five literary treats to last all year long →
Carolyn Kellogg loves some fwriction favorites, too, including FiveChapters literary journal, Paris Review interviews, and the kick-ass Storyville.
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The 10 best Fictional hangovers →
Happy Boxing Day (and, tomorrow, too)!
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Story of the Day, Christmas Edition: Christmas... →
I love this hilarious, irreverent piece of flash fiction from Amelia Gray, published in Everyday Genius, and it’s just the perfect story for Christmas Day. Read, drink some eggnog, and have a lovely weekend. Happy Holidays!
from Amelia Gray’s “Christmas House”:
Christmas House is not responsible for injury. If a nog-drunk guest is caught by a stray bullet, he or she must...
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“And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were...”
– Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
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“Once, back then in my twenties, all I wanted to do was to throw my life away....”
– Charles Baxter, “The Cousins”
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Happy UK National Short Story Day! →
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Passport, by Deb Olin Unferth →
I keep thinking of travel this time of year, of friends, family, strangers, moving across the country and over seas to visit those they love, miss, pretend to hate.
Deb Olin Unferth’s “Passport,” taken from AGNI Online, is simple and poignant and will stay with you through your travels. Enjoy this story of the day, and keep your tray tables in the upright, locked position.
She...
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Reasons to Love New York: Because Writers Who Can... →
I’m going to pretend, as a Christmas present to myself, NYMag is including me in this list.
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Writing at night →
“Does the night absolve the day?” - The Guardian Books blog explores writers and their nighttimes.
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Take Care, by Aryn Kyle →
Today’s story of the day is one of my favorites from FiveChapters, the brilliant online literary journal and press: Aryn Kyle’s “Take Care.” Taken from her new collection, Boys and Girls Like You and Me, this story is sure to start your week off right. Kyle’s writing is brilliant, effortless, and as beautiful as the writer herself. Enjoy “Take Care,” and...
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Literary Mixtape: Holden Caulfield →
Flavorwire gave me something fun on this Monday morning. I still love The Catcher in the Rye, after all these years, and that unapologetic douchebag, Holden.
Holden Caulfield is the king of all disillusioned youth, an angst-ridden teenager slouching from dorm room to city street to dance hall with general indifference and a real lousy attitude. There are about a million songs about him, which...
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Hemingway's "In Harry's Bar in Venice" →
Ernest Hemingway reads his own work, “In Harry’s Bar in Venice.”
(via speakinginpalindromes)
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“If you have ever loved something so much that you ache when it is gone, then you...”
– Casey Lefante, “Love Letter”
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Fat, by Raymond Carver →
Today’s story of the day is an audio one, from the Guardian Books short story podcast. “Fat” is one of my favorite Carver stories—it’s the first in the collection, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, and sets the tone for the entire book. Here, Anne Enright does a wonderful reading of the piece. Enjoy it over the weekend, and stop by the fwriction : review to read...
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“One must withdraw for a time from life in order to set down that picture.”
– John Steinbeck (via theparisreview)
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Childish Things →
In Tablet Magazine, Etgar Keret writes a wonderful piece about his son, Hanukkah, and bedtime stories gone awry:
When Lev heard that he couldn’t burn the curtain, he burst into tears and claimed that in kindergarten, they said that every day you have to light a curtain and eat eight jelly doughnuts. My wife still tried to argue that the only things that gets lit are candles and the exact...
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“This terrible dependency on others, this need to love.”
– James Salter, Light Years
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5 Amazing Short Story Collections from 2010 →
from Lindsay Tigue’s wonderful blog, I Heart Short Stories, comes an exploration of five short story collections to leave their mark in 2010.
On Belle Boggs’s Mattaponi Queen:
“I read Boggs’s first collection over a weeks worth of lunch breaks. I loved her cast characters, both Indians and non-Indians on the Mattaponi reservation. Boggs renders these people so real; these...
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The fwriction : review has its home! →
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The New Yorker: Ten Great Poetry Collections of... →
Paul Farley, you rock star.
The New Yorker’s poetry editor Paul Muldoon selects ten notable poetry collections published this year.
“Nox,” by Anne Carson (New Directions)
“The Atlantic Tunnel,” by Paul Farley (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
“Human Chain,” by Seamus Heaney (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
“Canti” by…
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Disassembly, by Kathy Fish →
The delightful Guernica’s new issue has a flash-fiction slant, and I immediately enjoyed this story, from Kathy Fish (who guest edited the Best of the Web 2010 anthology, which fwriction is a big fan of). I hope you, too, enjoy this wonderful piece of flash!
“A small, male relative in a three-piece suit has been running rings around the buffet table. Now he’s changed course and seems...
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“Anyone who has no feeling for it cannot be made to understand it.”
– Franz Kafka, “The Hunger Artist” (via Storyville)
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5 Must-Read Small Press Titles From 2010 →
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fwriction : review →
If you like what happens here at fwriction, stop by the fwriction : review and say hello! Read, follow, pass it on, and submit!
Enjoy the first piece: Casey Lefante’s “Love Letter” to New Orleans.
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A Big Fat Welcome, from The Things They Read →
A generous write-up of fwriction’s new literary journal, fwriction : review, from the delightful The Things They Read. I really love them:
It’s a spin-off of sorts (think Daria to Beavis and Butthead rather than Saved by the Bell: The College Days), and we’re excited to see what sort of writing comes out of it. The first piece showcased is some nonfiction by Casey Lefante, “Love...
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Tumblr Tuesday Is Launch Day: Welcome the...
On this Tumblr Tuesday, something I’ve been working toward has finally come to fruition—the launch of the fwriction : review, fwriction’s literary journal!
I am very excited, and I hope that both fwriction and fwriction : review work together to serve all your literary needs. And, you know, rock your waffle.
The first piece, to officially launch fwr, comes from Story...
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Monday Chat with Julie Innis →
Over on the Fictionaut blog, fwriction fav Julie Innis chats with Susan Tepper. Monday Boosh!
“…I was glad to experience, if only briefly, the magic of the organically realized ending.”
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“A good writer writes from his soul. You write like you’re holding...”
– J. Michael Straczynski, Superman: Earth One
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The Monstrous Sadness of Mythical Figures, by... →
I simply love this story, by Amber Sparks, taken from matchbook. I saved it with InstaPaper on my iPhone and have been reading it over and over the past week. It’s one of those stories, the ones you’ll read again and again, finding some new nuance in the word choice or cadence each time.
Sparks’s work has been widely published and is well worth your time. In addition,...
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Working on the Ending →
Gail Godwin, writing for the NYT Sunday Book Review, looks at writing and aging and the effect each has on the other:
I have catapulted myself out of many writing setbacks and humiliations with the rallying cry of the dying novelist Dencombe, in James’s story “The Middle Years”: “We work in the dark — we do what we can — we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our...
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“I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new...”
– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
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“These years are endless, but they cannot be remembered.”
– James Salter, Light Years
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Via TrainWrite: an excerpt from my short story,... →
TrainWrite has posted an excerpt from my short story, “Forest Hills,” and I couldn’t be more honored.
You should submit to TrainWrite, too, because amazing things happen on that train ride.