A ten minute documentary by Jay Cheel shot over the course of a month of playing Settlers of Catan with friends. A fascinating short film that stays true to its title. …more

Have you heard about CeCe McDonald? The trans woman was attacked outside a bar in Minneapolis. There were racial and sexual slurs. She pulled a pair of scissors on her attackers and one of them was fatally stabbed.

Here’s an interview with Dean Spade, a legal scholar and founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, about the CeCe McDonald case.

Here is the less favorable writeup in the local paper.

There is a letter writing campaign for people who want to write CeCe while she is in jail.

Did you know you can purchase a print straight from the author of this week’s All Over Coffee?

Tax me for fuck’s sake! Stephen King scolds the superrich, including himself, for not giving back.

What charitable 1 percenters can’t do is assume responsibility—America’s national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts. Charity from the rich can’t fix global warming or lower the price of gasoline by one single red penny.

Mr. King, keeping it real.

This week’s Letter In The Mail is from Claire Bidwell Smith.

Claire is an experienced therapist, specializing in grief counseling, and the author of the  memoir The Rules of Inheritance (Penguin/Hudson St., February 2012).

Gina Frangello interviewed Claire for The Rumpus earlier this year. Here’s a review of Claire’s memoir in The Faster Times.

More about Letters In The Mail here.

Our next Letter In The Mail is from Janet Fitch.

Janet Fitch is the author of White Oleander and Paint It Black. In college she studied Russian history and was an exchange student at age twenty-one when she decided she wanted to write fiction.

Here are Janet’s ten rules for writers from the Los Angeles Times. Here she reads a section from Paint It Black for KQED Arts. And here’s Oprah interviewing Janet in 2006.

More about Letters In The Mail.

We can’t wait to see this movie. …more

Once a week the Pen Poetry Series publishes work by new and established writers. This week they’re featuring Jenny Zhang: Dear Jenny, We Are All Find.

This week’s Letter In The Mail is from Tao Lin.

Tao is the author of six books including the novel Richard Yates, the novella Shoplifting From American Apparel. He is the founder of the literary press Muumuu house. …more

Charles Bukowski, then seventy years old, discusses the art of writing in a letter to his friend William Packard.

We’ve been really enjoying Letters In The Mail. The letter writers have been enjoying it too, as you can see from this essay by Matthew Specktor, and this one by Sari Botton. We decided to get everybody more involved, so we’re launching Letters To Each Other. …more

Here is an interesting blog about Paris. She writes he takes the pictures.

This week’s Letter In The Mail is from Sari Botton.

Sari authors a column on The Rumpus called Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me and recently wrote an essay about her experiences as a ghostwriter. …more

Ta-Nehisi Coates on the difficulty of prosecuting George Zimmerman and how Florida laws inspire violence.

A few people asked recently how many letters have gone out so far for Letters In The Mail. Here’s a list, but remember we send them pre-sorted, which the post office prefers. The result is they can take up to ten business days to arrive.

Aimee Bender — 3/28/12

Rick Moody — 3/20/12

Padma Viswanatahn — 3/12/12

Matthew Specktor — 3/2/12 …more

This week’s Letter In The Mail is by Aimee Bender. Her letter is written by hand and begins, Dear Reader, writing a letter is reminding me of other letters. …more

A school in Minnesota is barring a teen with special needs from bringing porn performer Megan Piper to the prom. The teen’s mom said, “I support him and I don’t understand what her profession has to do with anything.”

The Eye gets all up in The Rumpus Letters In The Mail.

Thanks, The Eye! We love you back!

A reader of The Daily Rumpus emails asked how you could donate money regularly to The Rumpus. She said she already got Letters In The Mail but didn’t have time to read them. She did, however, read the emails.

So we created this button, for people who want to make an ongoing donation the health of The Rumpus.
…more

As part of Rick Moody week here on The Rumpus we’re giving away two copies of Rick Moody’s new essay collection On Celestial Music. Tell us why you should get one? Maybe via a playlist? …more

This week’s Letter In The Mail is from Rick Moody. Rick was actually the first columnist on The Rumpus. …more

A Goldman Sachs employee resigns and writes an op-ed in the New York Times deriding a culture that looks to make money from, not for, its clients. He talks about Goldman Sachs ripping off their clients and referring to them as muppets.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s read Michael Lewis. The Awl has a great post on the reaction and what to expect next.

Dean Haspiel was our fourth letter writer for Letters In The Mail, but his letter was different, it was a cartoon. And it elicited an interesting response which he has posted over at Trip City.

I don’t usually publish Daily Rumpus emails online but today I’m making an exception. This email was sent to subscribers on November 2, 2010. …more

This week’s Letter In The Mail is from Padma Viswanathan. Her letter is written by hand (in cursive!) and begins, I’m sorry, I must start out by recounting a dream.

Padma’s website is here. She’s written for The Rumpus before here and here and actually a bunch of times.

Padma is the author of The Toss Of A Lemon, which India Today called “A brilliant tour de force” and Library Journal, in a starred review, called “Dazzling” and “an important  work of historical fiction.”

More about Letters In The Mail.

The Rumpus store is back in business! If you’ve been waiting all week to get your Write Like A Motherfucker mug, the time has come.

RADAR Productions hosts its first East Coast fundraiser to benefit the 4^th annual RADAR Lab. The fundraiser takes place from 7pm – 9:30pm at The Strand Bookstore (828 Broadway) in Greenwich Village March 24.

The lineup features Mary Gaitskill, Tao Lin, Lorelei Lee, Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott, and Michael Cunningham.

More on the participants and the 11 day queer centric retreat for writers and artists after the jump: …more

If you were referred by USA Today, and want more information on Letters In The Mail, click here. And thank you for stopping by; let’s have a relationship.

WTF? …more

We had the idea for Letters In The Mail on January 2, 2012, and announced it on January 3. Since then we’ve sent out letters from these writers in this order: …more