Are you going to AWP?

Here’s something amazing we’re getting in on.

The Rumpus (and friends) present a special screening of Being Flynn Friday night at 11pm for AWP conference attendees only. You need a conference badge and you have to arrive fifteen minutes before the movie. Free. Sign up here.

Being Flynn is based on Nick Flynn’s memoir Another Bullshit Night In Suck City. I will be introducing the film. Movie trailer after the break. …more

I asked people in The Daily Rumpus email if they were subscribed to Letters In The Mail and what they had thought of the most recent letter from Lorelei Lee. Here are some of their responses.

…more

This offer is only good for the rest of the month, because then we’re switching ad servers to Litbreaker. We’re going to have to see how we sell ads after that. Maybe nothing will change. But right now you can buy 500,000 page views for $750. That’s $1.50 eCPM, for those who know the lingo (I think…). We need your ads in two formats, 728×90 and 300×250, images plus URL. The images can’t be more than 100k.

If you’re interested contact stephen AT therumpus.net.

This will enable us to get rid of these ugly Verizon ads you might currently be seeing.

Daniel Alarcon, author of War By Candlelight and Lost City Radio, is starting a radio program. From the website:

“Radio Ambulante is a monthly Spanish-language radio program showcasing compelling human stories from around Latin America and the United States. It is the first of its kind in Spanish, and will be launching soon.”

Donate to the Radio Ambulante here. A video of Daniel Alarcon explaining Radio Ambulante after the jump. …more

I’m in Berlin for the Berlin International Film Festival for the premier of Cherry and since I won’t be on email much I set up an auto-response for my email.

Sugar got one and reminded me that I had forgotten to include her in my auto-response. Here’s what it should say:

Thanks for writing. I’m going to be only intermittently available over email for the next eleven days.

If this is regarding The Rumpus please contact Isaac Fitzgerald.

If this is an enquiry about the movie Cherry please email Jordan Kessler.

If your lover just left you, your parents are dysfunctional, you worry about still being a virgin at 28, you want to cheat on your spouse even though you love him/her, you’re 21 and almost done with college and you STILL have no idea what you’re going to do with your life, you have bizarre sexual desires, you’re gay but afraid to say so, you’re freaked out that you’re 35 and single and all your friends are partnering up, you feel incredibly angry at your toddler and don’t know what to do with your rage, you wonder if it’s okay to ask your professor/therapist/neighbor on a date, please email Sugar, sugar@therumpus.net

We sent this week’s Letter In The Mail pre-sorted, which takes longer than a normal stamp. Your letter, featuring an amazing cartoon by Dean Haspeil, should arrive on Friday or early next week. For people who subscribed late, or were lost in the transition from block addresses to CSV (never mind) I had to hand stuff and stamp the envelopes, which I mailed yesterday. The upshot is 100 subscribers will receive the letter about a week earlier than the rest of the subscribers.

Anyway, we’re excited about Dean’s letter. It’s our first cartoon letter. And it’s good.

Our next letter is from Lorelei Lee. Lorelei is an adult film star, a writer, and lecturer at NYU. She is also the co-writer of my movie Cherry, which is premiering in a little over a week in Berlin (come say hi). Her letter was written by hand and is fifteen pages long. You need to subscribe this week in order to receive Lorelei’s letter. There’s a preview of Lorelei’s letter in the NYTimes ArtBeat.

Coming soon we have Dave Eggers, Emily Gould, Matthew Zapruder, and others.

The best advertisement during the Super Bowl was written by a poet.

Ben Gazzara died.

Just an update that there was a problem with our subscriber service for Letters In The Mail this morning. If you signed up for letters on the first day (about 200 of you did) you received a note saying we had been unable to process your subscription. You probably got another note after that saying we had been able to process your subscription after all. There is nothing to worry about here. It was a glitch. We are now un-glitched.

Here’s a couple of pages from The Alcoholic, written by Jonathan Ames and drawn by Dean Haspiel. Our next Letter In The Mail is by Dean Haspiel and it’s in the form of a cartoon. …more

The LA Times‘ Jacket Copy on The Rumpus’s Letters In The Mail.

Thanks Jacket Copy. We love you back!

“I give as much atten­tion to a letter as I do to anything I write.” – William S. Burroughs. (via Jesus Angel Garcia)

Two articles published here last Sunday have really active comments sections. Transformation and Transcendence: The Power of Female Friendship and Ten Reasons Not to Sleep with a Poet. Thanks to Gina Frangello, our new Sunday editor. Check them out!

Chantel Simmons is excited about her letter from Margaret Cho.

Author Mary Robinette Kowal will launch The Month of Letters Challenge. Write a letter every day that the post office is open. Here’s where the idea came from:

Last September, I took a month off from the internet. During my vacation, I told people that they could correspond with me by paper letter. Some people did. Some people still are. Every letter delights me. (more)

(via Edward Champion)

From this isn’t happiness. Image after the jump. …more

Didion in conversation with Sheila Heti.

Cherry is going to Berlin.

Some of our favorite videos are created by high school students who don’t believe in sex before marriage. Meet The Purity Bear. (via Andrew Sullivan)

The Tin House Writers Workshop.

If you’re interested in advertising on The Rumpus send an email to stephen AT therumpus.net.

Book Riot on Letters In The Mail.

Yesterday we sent out a letter from Margaret Cho. Next week we’ll be sending a letter from Marie Calloway. Letters In The Mail.

“Are you a masochist?” It’s the first thing Bosco asks me. He’s 14 years old now, almost my height, 5′ 8″, creamy white skin, and a small, German nose from my stepmother’s side of the family. …more

Where can one turn for detailed, reliable coverage of the Arab Awakening? How about American politics? …more

If you look in our Rumpus Reprint section you’ll find some fairly amazing things.

Director Ed Burns decided he’d rather shoot films on a micro-budget, like his first feature The Brothers McMullen, and go straight to video on demand.

“Any professional would tell you, “He’s full of (expletive). You can’t make a movie like that,” and anyone who tells you that doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

Letters In The Mail is having an event at the Housing Works Bookstore February 22 at 7pm in New York. Mark your calendars.

The first Letter In The Mail began arriving yesterday. We know because of twitter: Matthew Holt, Peter Knox,  Molly T, Jillian,  and Scott MacCaulay.

Sari got one with an illustration by Nic Rad.