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Patrick deWitt's follow-up to The Sisters Brothers (Ecco, 2011) is described as "a love story, an adventure story, a fable without a moral, and an ink-black comedy of manners," and will be released by Ecco next month.
Best-selling author Erica Jong's newest novel follows an aging actress in her sixties. Fear of Dying is forthcoming from St. Martin's Press in September.
When the weather turns warm and the pace of life relaxes, it’s a natural time to think about traveling. Whether you set off on a rambling road trip across the country, or catch a plane to a distant land, being away from home always feels like an adventure. But what happens if the person you planned to take a trip with can’t go at the last minute? Write a story about this scenario, and have your main character decide to take the trip alone. How does this person handle traveling solo? What obstacles does she encounter? Maybe she decides to document the trip for the person who couldn’t make it by writing diary entries, or perhaps she sends a postcard home every day. Write about the effect of this experience on the traveler’s self-confidence and sense of independence.
Sierra Nevada Review
"Filling the blank page is agony." Daniel Kehlmann, author of Measuring the World (Pantheon, 2006), shares his feellings on first drafts and the joyful satisfaction of writing in longhand.
"I think the short story is fast, that it can say things that other forms can't say because it's not going to say them for long." Anne Enright, whose novel The Green Road (Norton, 2015) is longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, talks to Vincent Woods about her interest in the short story form.
"The material for a novel is very often like tinder in your mind and in your heart, waiting for a spark to be thrown onto it." Andrew O'Hagan recounts the inspiration behind his newest novel, The Illuminations (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), which is longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize.
Steph Cha speaks about the noir works that influenced her writing and her choice to feature a female protagonist. Cha's novel Dead Soon Enough, the third installment in the Juniper Song series, was published yesterday by Minotaur Books.
In modern storytelling, a deus ex machina is a plot device in which a dramatic and oftentimes contrived occurrence suddenly saves the day or solves a seemingly impossible problem. This week, write a short story using this device in the form of a character, object, or newfound ability. How will you manipulate the pacing to create the most effective sense of surprise? Consider the tone of the story, perhaps incorporating tragedy and comedy, as you lead up to the unexpected turn of events.
“There is a particular contract that gets established between reader and writer.” Laila Lalami, whose novel The Moor’s Account (Pantheon, 2014) is longlisted for the 2015 Man Booker Prize, discusses the intricacies and differences in writing fiction and nonfiction.
