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This Week at Fiction Week
New this week at FictionWeek: Talk about your usual suspects. This week's NYT best-seller list is dominated
by authors that are as familiar as your tired old artificial Christmas tree (did you ever think about getting rid of that
ratty old thing?). In first place (ta da) is yet another
of Sue Grafton's alphabet
soup mysteries (U is for under something). Twenty-five years has passed, but in Kinsey Millhone’s world it will always be 1988 and she
will always be thrity-something. Next comes
a Dan Brown book,
something about a lost symbol of the Masons (what a surprise!). Then it's a mystery from the ever-flowing pen
of James Patterson with
a book that, as usual, includes hundreds and hundreds of really-short chapters. It stars who else but Alex Cross. (Doesn’t that guy ever
get any older? Does he know Kinsey Millhone?) In fourth place is good
old Stephen King with
something about a town trapped by an invisible force field (didn’t I read that one twenty years
ago?). Even Michael Crichton still
continues to haunt the best-seller list (they found one of his old manuscripts; something about pirates). And what would a best-seller list be
without John Grisham , hanging in there in seventh
place. Dean Koontz is next,
having made the not-so-tough decision to join the current fantasy fad (mysterious animals in the Colorado Rockies). But where are the romance
writers? Barbara Kingsolver is on
the list, but she’s written a historical novel about the McCarthyism era. Nicholas Sparks and David Baldacci and Clive Cussler all make appearances on the list too. So there you have it. End of the year reading from authors you know and love. All familiar, all nice and predictable. Happy holiday reading to one and all. Click here to see the whole list Big news for Sci-fi fans: the Hugo Award for best sci-fi novel of the year has just been announced. Given out for the best in sci-fi since 1955, the Hugo is one of the two highest awards in the sci-fi genre (the other being the Nebula Award). This year, the award goes to Neil Gaiman for his novel The Graveyard Book. Anybody notice the 2009 Agatha award winner for best crime novel was a Canadian who hasn't been writing novels all that long? The award went to Montreal writer Louise Penny for her novel The Cruelest Month . She got started writing novels only in 2004. Before that, she worked for the CBC radio. Her novels feature Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, head of the homicide department of the Sûreté du Québec. Not surprising she won the Agatha award. Of all modern mystery writers, her writing may be the most like Agatha's. Her novels feature unusual types of murders in backwater towns with large numbers of potential suspects. Of course, the murderer is always revealed in a dramatic scene at the end with all the suspects present. From the other side of the pond, Marilynne Robinson just won Britain's top award for Women's Writing, the 2009 Orange Prize. She won for her novel Home. As you may recall, she is no newcomer to writing awards, having won the Pulitzer back in '05 for her novel Gilead. In her new novel, she revisits the setting and characters from her previous work. As was announced earlier, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction went to Elizabeth Strout for a collection of her short stories titled Olive Kitteridge. She beat out Louise Erdrich for her novel The Plague of Doves and Christine Schutt for her novel All Souls. The winner of this year's Man Booker International Prize has been announced. The award went to Canadian Alice Munro. Worth 60,000 pounds to the winner, the prize is awarded every two years. She beat out some top writers, including Australian Peter Carey, American Evan S. Connell, Indian Mahasweta Devi, American E.L. Doctorow, Brit James Kelman, Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, Czech Arnost Lustig, Indian V S Naipaul, American Joyce Carol Oates, Italian Antonio Tabucchi, Kenyan Ngugi Wa Thiong'O, Croatian Dubravka Ugresic, and Russian Ludmila Ulitskaya. In addition, the short list for the 2009 Man Booker award for fiction has been announced. The nominees are: The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt, Summertime by J.M. Coetzee, The Quickening Maze by Adam Fould, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, The Glass Room by Simon Mawer, The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. This week's best selling fiction 
The New York Times bestsellers lists, plus the current best selling science fiction. The FictionWeek Literary Review 
The FictionWeek Literary Review publishes innovative fiction and poetry, plus book reviews and essays about the writing craft. Submissions are now being accepted for the Fall 2009 issue. On-Line Writing Workshop: Stories and Discussions 
Fiction Week sponsors writer's groups and fiction-writing discussions, both in person and virtually (on-line and by email). This section summarizes some recent writer's group discussions, along with the stories that were discussed. Writer's Block? - Try Walking the Character 
What do you do when you can think of anything to write? Is there a solution to writer's block? These authors say yes: create a character and walk that character into a story-building situation. It works! A Fiction Week Exclusive Where is E-Publishing Going? 
Where is e-publishing going and what does it mean for writers? This news report describes the current status of e-publishing and discusses techniques for producing e-books and opportunities for writers. A Fiction Week Exclusive Fiction at the University
What is the current condition of our nation's fiction writing programs at colleges and universities? Believe it or not, it is as healthy as ever. This author lists some of the top creative writing programs and discusses the programs. A Fiction Week Exclusive How to Organize Your Own Writing Group
This author describes a few of the many methods of organizing writing groups and/or book discussion groups. He describes not only how to begin a writing group but also how to keep it going. A Fiction Week Exclusive Want to do a book review? CLICK HERE to tell us about it. Want to write an article for Fictionweek? CLICK HERE to tell us about it. Copyright (c) 1995-2009 All rights reserved. |