I first met Peter Owen in the late 1980s, when he published some short stories that I had written about Saudi Arabia. I was invited to interesting parties at his house in Holland Park, west London, and at various embassies where he would launch the many translations of literary fiction he published. He genuinely liked writers, perhaps seeing his own single-minded obstinacy reflected in ours. My friend Francis King used to say that he had an unerring eye for quality in books, and Doris Lessing said of him: “I have admired Peter and his lone stand for years. He has published books that otherwise would not have been published. We owe a great debt to him and the few like him.”In February he and his daughter Antonia came to lunch. Peter kept staring at a carved bookcase that, he said, reminded him of the furniture in the house where he had grown up in Germany. I was afraid he didn’t know who I was, but suddenly he looked at me very sharply and asked, “Where did Nina [a character in one of my novels] come from?” Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2016-07-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
Walk into a contemporary bookstore and self-help manuals are likely to be among the first books you’ll see. In my local Barnes & Noble, a “self-improvement” section is featured in the vestibule, luring customers before they even open the store’s main doors. Inside the store, the boundary... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-01-29 09:49:07 UTC ]
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Get a fresh take on literary fiction with Book Riot's new podcast, Novel Gazing, your destination for lit fic news, book recommendations, and more. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2020-01-14 11:34:19 UTC ]
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In this episode, taped live at the Miami Book Fair, writer Jeff VanderMeer and editor Ann VanderMeer talk to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about editing The Big Book of Classic Fantasy anthology, historical understandings of fantasy, editing beyond... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-12-05 09:48:07 UTC ]
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The new Elena Ferrante is just one of the exciting novels in translation coming next year. Lara Feigel talks to the UK editors who are rediscovering classics and finding new audiencesThere are voices that speak to us across oceans and centuries with more intimacy than the people who surround us... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-11-23 08:00:49 UTC ]
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Writers of literary fiction are supposed to disdain celebrity memoirs. They’re sucking up all the big advances and lowering the bar of what’s supposed to be Literature, right? But I’ve got a dirty reading secret. I love celebrity memoirs, particularly by standup comedians (and not just because... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-11-20 12:00:00 UTC ]
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ALMOST NO CONTEMPORARY literary fiction recounts the experience of getting an abortion. Perhaps this is because it can seem politically suspect to write in a nuanced way about its difficulties; opponents of legal abortion are all too eager to turn any mention of these difficulties into evidence... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-11-07 13:30:09 UTC ]
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While you're perusing the literary fiction shelves, create a haunting atmosphere with these eerie literary fiction titles for Halloween and beyond. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-10-31 10:40:16 UTC ]
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While literary fiction often sidesteps the climate crisis, eco-horror is filling the breach. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-10-19 09:00:04 UTC ]
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SEQUELS IN LITERARY FICTION are rare. There’s a risk in returning to characters whose arcs have been resolved or purposely left in ambiguity. A second book may rob readers of the pleasure of imagination, thus undoing some of the magic of the original novel. But sometimes a character so compels... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2019-10-16 17:00:57 UTC ]
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The founder and editor of literary magazine Strong Words on his appetite for tales of financial chicanery and why he won’t be returning to Jane AustenEd Needham is the editor of Strong Words, a magazine about books that he writes and edits on his own from his flat in Camden Town, a feat that has... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2019-10-05 17:00:51 UTC ]
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Hamish Hamilton has bought a book by author Avni Doshi, billed as “a sly and searing debut from an unmissable new voice in literary fiction”. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-09-13 07:57:52 UTC ]
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When I first joined a workshop in 1994, American literary fiction was dominated by and continually lauded a “quiet” kind of writer, one often influenced by J.D. Salinger, Ernest Hemingway, or Raymond Carver. I loved literary fiction—I’d been reading, writing, and submitting it since high school.... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-08-16 11:00:22 UTC ]
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Writing literary fiction stories? Forget what you’ve learned about complex characters and earned endings. What you really need is to include the required tropes. To help you out, we’ve created this handy checklist. Literary Fiction Trope Checklist _____ 1. Starts with character waking up _____... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-26 11:00:50 UTC ]
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Literary agents are gatekeepers of the publishing industry. Find literary fiction literary agents open to submissions in this post. List will be updated regularly. The post Literary Fiction Literary Agents Open to Submissions by Robert Lee Brewer appeared first on Writer's Digest. Continue reading at Writer's Digest
[ Writer's Digest | 2019-07-26 11:00:18 UTC ]
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It’s a cliché among authors that we write the books we wish existed, but two of the many reasons I set out to write The Lager Queen of Minnesota was because I wanted to read literary fiction set in a brewery, and frankly, I also wanted a reason to bum around the country researching contemporary... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-07-19 11:00:19 UTC ]
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Literary fiction is increasingly borrowing from the horror genre to explore the fears and anxieties of modern motherhood. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-07-06 09:00:14 UTC ]
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The idea makes practically no sense at all. Full works of long-form literary fiction uploaded to ... Instagram? And specifically to Instagram Stories, a format known for its fast and fleeting posts about nights on the town and outfits of the day? But the New York Public Library pulled it off,... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2019-06-14 20:20:07 UTC ]
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Indie booksellers raved about both fall/winter fiction and nonfiction offerings at BookExpo, but literary fiction with plots inspired by today's news headlines is what they were most excited about. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-05-30 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Will Self has declared literature to be "morphing into a giant quilting exercise", suggesting that no current creative writing graduates will make a living from literary fiction. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-05-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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TV coverage of literary fiction has dwindled, but Trevor Noah and Seth Meyers are exceptions. “Who would have guessed that a 700-page novel would be on national TV?” one publishing executive said. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2018-12-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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