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From Stephen Elliott
Are the days of chick lit finally over? The Atlantic seems to think so. There’s a new genre in town, and it’s called farm-lit. Novels about women who abandon their high-stress city lives to go live on farms and small, rural towns.
...moreThe Brooklyn Public Library is inviting all Brooklyn residents to participate in its Hurricane Sandy Oral History Project. News articles and statistics don’t equate to personal narratives recounting the emotional impact of the storm.
Participants will be interviewed for 20-30 minutes and their stories will be preserved in a permanent collection and many will be available online.
...moreAt The Barnes and Nobel Review, Maud Newton interviews Naomi Alderman, winner of the Orange Award for New Writers and co-writer with Margaret Atwood of The Happy Zombie Sunrise Home, a recently published e-novel only available on Watt.
...moreToday, The New Yorker Page Turner blog highlighted Abigail Welhouse’s Rumpus interview with Luis Negrón!
Thanks, The New Yorker! We love you back!
...more“Tip the waitress or barman well, ‘cause you’re going to need their toilet.”
Taxi drivers made strides this year at the PEN World Voices Festival.
For a handful of weeks, a group of long-standing New York City taxi drivers have been meeting to poetically reflect on their adventures shuttling passengers throughout the boroughs.
...moreIf you haven’t heard already, tech writer Paul Miller is back on the internet after a year of WWW celibacy. In his conclusive journal entry on The Verge, he’s not waxing ecstatic on the virtues of being wireless, but instead ruminating about how a year devoid of virtual communication burnt a hole of loneliness in his social life.
...moreDissent Magazine is celebrating International Workers Day by asking journalists to comment on their favorite labor movement victories of the year.
Highlights include the induction of paid sick leave bills in New York City, Portland, OR, and Long Beach, CA; Chicago’s fast-food and retail workers ‘Strike for 15’ – a demand to increase the hourly wage to $15; and the city’s week-long teachers union strike, which resulted in teachers receiving annual raises, a longer school, and more comprehensive evaluations.
...moreWant to leave NYC but fear too much about abandoning your beloved Red Hook/Boreum Hill/Washington Heights/Harlem/Upper West Side…? Check out The Morning News’s list of counterpart neighborhoods throughout the US and abroad.
Rumpus pal Alexander Chee recommends Portland, Maine’s Vinalhaven in place of Bushwick, and former Saturday editor Michelle Dean praises Toronto’s Leslieville as Park Slope’s sister neighborhood.
...morePulitzer Prize winner Charlie Savage is one of the few journalistic voices speaking out on Guantanamo Bay. He’s also the only one to compile a Tumblr of the prison’s library.
There are apparently 3,500 books on “pre-approved topics,” which, according to the library policy, do not include geography or ad agencies.
...moreA mother of a 7th grade student at Northville Mill Middle School in Michigan is protesting the school to send home permission slips before assigning “The Diary of Anne Frank” to its students.
The mother called the book “inappropriate material” due to the fact that there is a passage that describes the female body and Frank’s feelings about going through puberty.
...moreIt’s rare to see the “you” perspective thriving in the literary sphere, but Kjerstin Johnson’s Doug Fir Fiction Award winning “Employee Discounts: A Post College Job at Barnes and Noble” and Ashley Chamber’s “You Will Make Several Relaxing Cuts” are both recently published reader-addressing short stories that guarantee to entertain.
...moreAre male and female writers interviewed equally? Loraine Berry at Talking Writing thinks not.
It’s gone to show that interviewers are often more interested in a female writer’s dietary habits and marital problems than their literary processes and work. Jodi Picoult says that she has been asked how she lost weight many, many times.
...moreLet’s help the Poetry Foundation celebrate National Poetry Month by recording our favorite poems!
Check out their SoundCloud page where, in just a few clicks, you can record yourself reading any poem of your choosing. It’s free, easy, and bound to spread internet poetry love near and far.
...moreIf you’re looking for a token of solace after the Boston marathon bombings, please check out Roxane Gay’s words if you haven’t already. And Thomas Page McBee reflects on ways to help when feeling helpless.
At the Guardian, Rumpus columnist Steve Almond comments on the histrionic attitude the media has taken on in the wake of the explosions, and wonders if “events such as Monday’s bombing can somehow morally enlarge us as a nation, can help us imagine the suffering of other people and our own duty to those people – wherever they happen to live.”
Boston.com’s Metro Desk eulogizes Martin William Richard, the 8-year old who was killed.
...moreExciting news! Recent Rumpus interviewee Karen Russell is shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for her novel Swamplandia!
Nominations for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award are submitted by public libraries worldwide, and any book can be nominated as long as it has an English translation.
...moreThe next Letter in the Mail, going out this Monday, is from poet Dobby Gibson!
Gibson is the author of It Becomes You and two Minnesota Book Award winners, Polar and Skirmish, which Rumpus reviewer Sean Singer calls “a smart, clever, pyrotechnical book that will hold your attention.
...moreTechnology might have made studying and homework faster and easier, but thanks to CourseSmart, a new digital textbook system that tracks students’ reading progress, teachers will now have a way to see who is skimming and who is skipping chapters in their textbooks.
...moreJim Behrle has a satirical and biting take on the practicality of creative writing programs at The Awl this week.
Not only does he urge students to refrain from digging themselves into a hole of student loan debt, but he also recommends that there be fewer workshops and more classes on sharpening charisma, grant writing and accounting.
...moreIn honor of National Poetry Month, please check out poet Ali Liebegott’s wonderfully conducted interview with the eminent Dorianne Laux, where Laux sheds light on Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay for helping her hone her poetic craft.
...moreIf I hadn’t been able to talk with myself, with respect, as a whole human being, who had a mind and heart and desires, a goodness, a desire to be good—you know, all of those things, I think, are the original impulse when we sit down and write. I’m not the only person in the world who is suffering.
Hey San Francisco! This Monday, April 8th is the premiere of The Nato Sessions: Live Conversating & Podcastery with Famous Smart People, hosted by comedian and Rumpus contributor Nato Green, and featuring literary and comedic figures such as Gerard Jones, Ayelet Waldman, Mort Sahl and Helene Wecker.
...moreIf the depressing VIDA count has got you down, Colorlines has some news that could lift your spirits.
According to the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) the number of Latino and Asian-American television writers has doubled since the year 2000.
...moreAt The Morning News, check out head Rumpus illustrator Jason Novak and Mike Duncan’s “She Nukes Me, She Nukes Me Not” ironically comical visual guide to the history of the US relationship with North Korea.
It’s definitely worth the read, if only for Novak’s amazing interpretation of North Korea’s uranium enrichment program.
...moreThe Poetry Foundation has featured The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Camille Guthrie on their blog this week!
Thanks, Poetry Foundation, we love you back!
...moreSan Francisco! Come out this weekend to Art Explosion Spring Open Studios.
The opening reception will be held this Friday night at two locations, 2425 17th St and 744 Alabama St, from 7pm-11pm. There will be open studios on Saturday and Sunday from 12pm-5pm.
...more...moreBut for those of us who didn’t have a choice, those of us who survived the choices of men who violated our bodies, those of us who defend ourselves everyday, those of us who are still trying to figure out what does and doesn’t make us a real victim, tears aren’t enough to make us wish you didn’t have to pay.
Bob Holman, one of the few living poets of the NYC beat poetry era, former co-director of the Nuyorican Poets Café and founder of the Bowery Poetry Club, has curated a list of NYC’s most “poetic” places for the New York Post.
...moreThe disparity of women writers in the publishing world has been an increasingly hot topic of late.
Flavorwire has compiled a list entitled “10 Women Who Should be Writing for ‘Harper’s,” and we’re excited that three of the women are our own essays editor Roxane Gay, Dear Sugar’s Cheryl Strayed, and Funny Women editor Elissa Bassist!
...moreAt The Morning News, Rumpus contributor Sue Sanders has written about her marriage to an Alger Hiss advocate and researcher, and what kind of effect a person’s passion has upon a relationship.
...moreJeff and I married in 2005. During our vows Jeff clasped my hands in his, smiled, and said, “When you’re in love, the air smells sweeter, the colors are brighter, and even the Mets play better.
Marketplace has an interesting write-up on the current state of PEN, the ninety-year-old organization that makes sure writers are guaranteed their right of free speech.
The segment also features an excerpt from Rumpus Saturday Editor Zoë Ruiz, who read her Rumpus essay “Donna” at a recent PEN reading.
...more