Here’s a quick look at some of the great books out this week. Happy pub day to all! Julian Barnes, The Only Story Knopf From Kirkus Reviews: “A May-September romance devolves into dysfunction and regret. Much like Barnes’ 2011…
May took the trolley to the new grocer’s—the one on the boulevard with shining white aisles where the exit was near the back of the store on an otherwise blank wall past the butcher’s station, which smelled of bleach and…
By Louise Marburg There is perhaps nothing more annoying to hear from an editor that they find a character too unsympathetic to be believable. Part of me wonders if the character in question might in fact be all too believable,…
Here’s a quick look at some of the great books out this week. Happy pub day to all! Therese Bohman, Eventide Other Press From Kirkus Reviews: “A perceptive novel about early-middle-age angst as an art history professor realizes the…
CRAFT: Marlena’s opening is striking on a craft level for several reasons: first, there’s no withholding. We learn right away what happens to Marlena. And second, the use of the present tense serves to put us in the moment, in…
You’ve amassed some stories. Maybe you have enough for a collection, maybe you’re still a few shy. It’s not an obvious grouping of stories: there are no common characters or recurring places or a clear theme. How do you organize…
The very first week Tara got her license, the cassette in her car jammed and no matter how hard we pushed the eject button with the flat of our palms—praying it would gag itself out like Gene Simmons’ tongue—the tape…
Obsessions lie at the heart of most of the things we do well. And figuring out what your obsessions are in writing may well be the key to figuring out that next short story or novel. Poet Natalie Diaz talks…
A note from the author accompanies each of the stories we publish. We ask the author to write something—anything—about the craft in their story. We love these Author’s Notes, as they shed an important light on each story. Every time…
Light the Dark, edited by Joe Fassler Penguin Books, 2017 A collection of craft essays from a series in The Atlantic, this is a book to treasure, one to read again and again. The online series, called “By Heart,” is curated…
