Our Jump-Off contest was enthusiastically received. We’re happy about that. We’d like to thank all who put in the time and thought to enter.

We had asked entrants to submit a short work using as a jump-off point one sentence or sentence fragment from Sam Lipsyte’s novel The Ask.  We got many compelling and varied stories that gave the words of Sam Lipsyte good and virgin context. From this fruitful lot four stories have been selected to be read on stage at A Night Together (our amazing event tomorrow night!) the same stage on which Sam Lipsyte himself will be reading.

And the four winning writers are: …more

This week in New York The Rumpus throws an A Night Together with Sam Lipsyte, Michael Showalter, Lorelei Lee, Jeff Lewis, Jump-Off winners and more, Jamaica Kincaid and Rick Moody help collect Books for NY Schools, Richard Nash and Jim Hanas debate fiction and technology, Gary Shteyngart and Amy Sohn host a Shabbat dinner, Robert Coover reads, Etgar Keret talks to Ira Glass and Frederick Wiseman’s film Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind screens.

MONDAY 4/5: Joyland presents “The Fiction Feed 2.” The Fiction Feed 2 is a follow up to last fall’s reading and raucous debate about fiction and technology organized by Toronto-based literary website Joyland. This installment features author and Joyland co-founder Brian Joseph Davis, Cursor’s Richard Nash, and blogger and author Jim Hanas. McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince St. …more

New York writers, win a chance to read your work alongside Sam Lipsyte at our NYC event on April 6. Lipsyte is one of our featured guests at A Night Together, an event The Rumpus is co-hosting with Tin House and Flavorpill, which will also feature, among others, Michael Showalter, Lorelei Lee, Dave Hill, Colson Whitehead, Alina Simone and Jeffrey Lewis.

In honor of Sam Lipsyte, and in an effort to bring some new writers into the mix, we’re offering four writers an opportunity to read your work on stage along with Sam Lipsyte, Colson Whitehead and Lorelei Lee. We ask only that you spin your short fictional prose piece from one line of Lipsyte’s new novel The Ask. …more

The Tribeca Film Festival is one of the most glamorous film events to happen this side of Park City.

From April 22 – May 2, the festival will pitch its tents downtown and offer a wide array of independent films including documentaries, narrative features and shorts, not to mention the requisite parties, talks and swagbags.

With single tickets sales beginning April 13 (for AmEx cardholders), April 18 (for downtown residents), and April 19 for the hoi polloi, it’s about time you started scoping out the offerings before you see the red tents and tell yourself yet again how you meant to get tickets this time around. And while getting swagbags is something you’ll have to manage on your own, at least we can help you get an idea for what’s playing. And if you’re a couch potato film buff, you can still keep up with the movers and shakers with a Virtual Pass that lets you access the festival without leaving your home. …more

This week in New York Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood holds a reading series, Threepenny Review celebrates its thirtieth birthday, A Public Space throws a launch party for Issue 10, Paris Review holds a Fiction Salon, Meghan O’Rourke reads, Ryan McGinley shows some new photographs of more young naked people and the Guggenheim opens its “Haunted” show of mostly old but still good stuff.

MONDAY 3/29: A Celebration of The Threepenny Review. In celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of Threepenny, started by Wendy Lesser in 1980, writers, including among others Mary Gaitskill, James Lasdun, Richard Locke and C.K. Williams, will gather to read fiction, essay and poetry. Wendy Lesser will introduce. McNally Jackson. 52 Prince St. 7:00pm. …more

Leave it to literary magazine n+1 to get interesting people together to talk about interesting things that are of interest right now. For example, in December they had Malcolm Gladwell and Christine Smallwood discussing Evangelicalism and the Contemporary Intellectual. A discussion on gentrification was held in January at the radical bookstore Bluestockings. And “post-isms” in the contemporary art world was the subject of a talk during the Armory Show earlier this month. In keeping with their taste for the expedient, n+1 is holding a panel on healthcare this Sunday 3/28, “Free Healthcare Now!: What Just Happened, and What We Need.” …more

This Thursday, New York’s New Media set, including Natasha Hafez, Rachel Sklar, Brooke Moreland, Soraya Darabi and Amanda Rose, will gather for what promises to be one of the largest philanthropy events organized through social media: Twestival 2010, which is part of the second annual Twestival Global – one day one cause all around the world. …more

This week in New York a tribute to George Carlin, James Wood reads a book he’s never read before, Shya Scanlon gets other people to read his poems, NYC Twestival 2010, Huggabroomstik, Jeff Lewis and others cover songs by Major Matt Mason USA, Victor Lavalle and Maud Newton talk, and Lapham’s Quarterly holds a panel discussion on creativity.

MONDAY 3/22: The Critic’s Voice: First Reads with James Wood. James Wood takes on a special assignment this season—to read a book he’s never read before, then return to the Poetry Center and discuss it. He’s chosen Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, a collection of short stories by David Foster Wallace. 92 Y. Lexington Ave. at 92nd St. 8:15pm. …more

Two pieces of writing that caught my eye today were Bridget Potter’s essay “Lucky Girl” in Guernica, and Joshua Cohen’s “Thirty-Six Shades of Prussian Blue” in Triple Canopy.

Potter’s startling essay relays her experience getting an illegal abortion as a nineteen-year-old in 1962 America, and the bevy of options and predicaments that came along with it–the social stigma of being an unwed mother, her humorous if stygian attempts to self-abort, and her final lone and costly trip by which she saved face. The title is sincere and ironic, revealing both Potter’s precarious position and her fortune at having survived a procedure by which, around that time, seventeen percent of women reportedly died yearly in the U.S. …more

This week in New York Keith Gessen and Elif Batuman talk, Guernica has a reading, Joanna Newsom sings and plays harp, Marcel Dzama appears, talks and signs books, The Moth has a Story Slam, Christopher Walken loses a hand and Zoe Kazan gives him one, and Atlas Obscura presents an international celebration of curious and obscure things.

MONDAY 3/15: Elif Batuman and Keith Gessen in conversation. Batuman’s pieces—for n+1, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and the London Review of Books— have made her one of the most sought-after and admired writers of her generation. In The Possessed, her latest work of non-fiction, Batuman investigates a possible murder at Tolstoy’s ancestral estate, retraces Pushkin’s wanderings in the Caucasus, and shows us why Old Uzbek has one hundred different words for crying. McNally Jackson. 7:00pm. …more

The South by Southwest Conferences and Festivals begin this Friday, 3/12, in Austin, Texas, and continue through 3/21. If you happen to be attending the festival, be sure to make it out to some of the presentations by Monofonus, the Austin-based multimedia organization, which has a full-schedule of film and video screenings, concerts and parties.

The schedule includes a screening of Lovers of Hate, a 2010 Sundance Film Festival Selection, which Monofonus helped produce. (Monofonus also provided the video installation for One Year Later: The Rumpus Anniversary Party).

Following SXSW, on 3/30, Monofonus will host the third installment of its Teleportal series, Teleportal 3: McSweeney’s, featuring Bill Cotter and Annie La Ganga, a Teleportal reading by Dean Young, video from Wholphin, and a special musical guest.

This week in New York Sam Lipsyte reads from The Ask, David Shields reads from Reality Hunger, the Magnetic Fields perform, playwright Suzan-Lori Parks reads, Lore Segal and Tao Lin engage in a panel discussion about the novella, Stephen Elliott holds a writing class, Philip Gourevitch, Francine Prose and Lewis Lapham explore natural and man-made calamities and Light Industry presents the films of Jon Moritsugu.

MONDAY: Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, Topdog/Underdog, will be in conversation at 92Y. Her new play, The Book of Grace, premiers at the Public Theater this March. 92Y. Lexington Ave. @92nd St. 8:00pm. …more

This week in New York, it’s Armory Arts Week, Justin Taylor and Porochista Khakpour tell your literary fortune at Canteen Magazine’s Second Annual Benefit Gala, The PooL Art Fair opens, Old Hat performs, Happy Ending Reading Series presents Extreme Situations with Benjamin Anastas, Liev Schreiber talks to Jordan Roth, and Krista Tippett and Andrew Solomon talk science at NYPL.

MONDAY 3/1: Opening reception for Empire State of Mind: A Group Exhibition At The Chelsea Hotel. The Chelsea Hotel, in collaboration with Beez and Honey, presents Exhibitions, Performances, Video Art and Films. Building on the Chelsea Hotel’s historical and artistic significance in NYC, Beez and Honey will create an experience of art that combines all art forms for the entire week. Chelsea Hotel. 222 West 23rd Street. 6:00pm – 9:00pm. …more

The March/April Poets & Writers has a couple of great pieces on some New Yorkers to make note of.

An article on writer Sam Lipsyte, whose third novel, The Ask, is being published this month by FSG; and a conversation between novelists Porochista Khakpour and Danzy Senna on first novels, race, and the East-Coast West-Coast rap. Also in its pages is a fascinating interview with Michael Powell of–one of our favorite bookstores–Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon by Jeremiah Chamberlin as part of Chamberlin’s “Inside Indie Bookstores” series, the full article of which is available online. …more

Gigantic Issue 2: Gigantic America is hitting stands this week across the country, and the pond.

Issue 2 features dialogues with Lydia Millet, Adrian Tomine and Sam Lipsyte, fiction from Robert Coover, Leni Zumas and Clancy Martin, and artwork by Thomas Doyle and Thomas Allen, among many other great writers and artists. The issue also comes with an insert–a set of collectible cards with biographies of famous Americans written by Deb Olin Unferth and Ken Sparling among others and original artwork by Andre da Loba (who’s been doing a lot of great work for the Rumpus, including his Notable New York illustrations). …more

For one night next week, March 4,  in support of literature, the arts and Canteen’s writing program for Harlem youth, Arnold Lehman and his wife Pam Lehman will open their Brooklyn Heights home for an intimate evening: Canteen Magazine’s Second Annual Benefit Gala.

Lehman, the risk-taking Director of the Brooklyn Museum who famously battled former mayor Rudolph Giuliani in defense of the First Amendment, joins the editors of Canteen and its host committee to invite you to do some or all of the following: …more

This week in New York 2010: Whitney Biennial opens, Gigantic holds a launch party for Issue 2: Gigantic America, Anderbo Reading at KGB, Mary Karr talks with Philip Gourevitch, MOMA premieres documentary about Mikhail Khodorkovsky–Russia’s wealthiest man and one if its most controversial figures, Ted Conover reads, André Aciman talks to Paul Leclerc, and Sam Mendes directs The Tempest at BAM.

MONDAY 2/22: Author Mary Karr talks with Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch about her process as part of the magazine’s Art of Memoir interview series. Mary Karr is the author of several books, including The Liars’ Club, Cherry and, most recently, Lit, which made The New York Times best books of 2009. Joe’s Pub. 425 Lafayette St. $20. 7:00pm. …more

While it is now one month later, we’d like to thank everyone who came out for ONE YEAR LATER, the Rumpus anniversary party co-presented by The Rumpus and sister-mag HTMLGIANT at Broadway East, a charming place where Chinatown meets the Lower East Side. The party featured readings by Justin Taylor, Tao Lin, Stephen Elliott, Rivka Galchen and Deb Olin Unferth, musical guests Diane Louvel, Alina Simone and Jeffrey Lewis, DJ author Lincoln Michel and Special Guest DJ Khaela Maricich. While this celebration was not an all-out concert like the Rumpus is accustomed to having, it had an intimate, engaging and artful vibe, which I rarely experience. Following is a photographic exhibit of the night. …more

Fashion Week in New York has come to a close. And so therefore must our week-long run of literary fashionables.

We end our series with The Performing Artist and The Humanitarian. Miranda July and Dave Eggers are both noted for being torchbearers of their generation, a generation for the members of which one career, along one well-defined path, is not enough. While both July and Eggers have made strong contributions to the literary community, their talents continuously reach out  into other disciplines and areas of interest. For these reasons, we find them particularly fascinating as literary specimens and a good pair on which to end this series. We hope you’ve enjoyed. …more

This week in New York Howard Bloom interviewed by Richard Foreman, Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Gopnik discuss mankind, John Cale reflects on music and art, Ed Park and Lynne Tillman read at Triple Canopy and Light Industry’s celebration of their new venue, a tribute to Gilbert Sorrentino, Kevin Sampsell and Justin Taylor read, and exhibitions of artwork by Kiki Smith and Dinh Q. Lê.

MONDAY 2/15: In Conversation: An Evening with John Cale. John Cale (Welsh, b. 1942), artist, musician, sonic innovator, and a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground, reflects upon the liaison between music and art. MOMA. 11 W. 53rd St. 7-9pm. …more

This week in New York, white tents are set up behind the New York Public Library in Bryant Park. It is called Fashion Week because it is a celebration of fashion of the sartorial kind. While that is happening in the park, we’ll be devoting space in the blog each day this week to two of our best-loved literary fashionables.

The term “fashionable,” here used as a collective noun that seemingly suggests something like “of or pertaining to persons of fashion,” will mean something slightly different this week. This week we’ll explore writers who were not necessarily fashionable in the sense commonly understood, but internally fashionable for having developed distinct literary personas.

We begin our series with two writers with very unique literary personas: Samuel Beckett and Gertrude Stein. …more

Mallards with human heads are not what I expect to see on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. But that’s what I saw. Yesterday. And I wasn’t scared, because I was at the Metropolitan Mausoleum of Art in which chamber I can rely on a warm and fuzzy fear-free look into the past, in this case back into the drawing rooms of aristocratic Victorian women.

Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage is a dazzling exhibit of over fifty images that artfully mix photography with watercolor drawings including Mixed Pickles by the Countess of Yarborough, and other surreal montages by the Princess of Wales and, the apropos, Lady Filmer. But never mind the often irreverent, subversive and intelligent quality of these images. These women were only “playing.” …more

Over the past couple of weeks, Gelitin, a collective of four Austrian artists—Wolfgang Gantner, Ali Janka, Florian Reither and Tobias Urban—have occupied Chelsea’s Greene Naftali gallery in New York in a happening called “Blind Sculpture.”

Their productions are inspired by the work of Sigmund Freud, the sculpture and performance work of Franz West, and in response to the exhibition methods known generally as Relational Aesthetics, which is an art practice that questions the boundaries of art, is inspired by a desire to conflate life and art and is situation-based. Art that involves people, doing things. My friends Hanne and Jochem had taken me to see it. I asked if there was a common thread to their work. “Usually someone shows his penis,” Hanne said and laughed. It was late January–the first Saturday it had been open. Over the course of ten afternoons in total, Gelitin would use the space to complete their “sculpture.” As of last Saturday, February 6, the sculpture is complete and on view. …more

This week in New York, Harper’s presents “Love: A Rebuke” with Colson Whitehead, Heidi Julavits and Sam Lipsyte, Simon Critchley in bed with Cabinet’s Brian Dillon chatting about hypochondria, Vol. 1 Brooklyn and Gignatic present the Greatest 3-Minute Rock ‘n Roll Story Ever, Adam Haslett reads from his debut novel, The Magnetic Fields perform, Zachary German and Tao Lin celebrate the release of German’s new book, and BOMB Magazine hosts its Winter Issue Launch Party.

MONDAY 2/8: Susan Sontag. PROMISED LANDS (1974). Susan Sontag’s third directorial effort and her only documentary, PROMISED LANDS scrutinizes the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and the growing divisions within Jewish thought over the question of Palestinian sovereignty. Shot in Israel during the final days and immediate aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, it is undoubtedly one of Sontag’s most incisive examinations of contemporary Jewish consciousness, and she considered it her most personal film.With and introduction by artist Paul Chan. Anthology Film Archives. 32 Second Ave. …more

While the second print issue of Gigantic, a magazine of short prose and art, is only days away from its anticipated release, Gigantic has just published new and noteworthy work online.

There’s short fiction and poetry by Saša Stanišić (click here to read the recent Rumpus interview with Stanišić), including “Let’s Go Sleep Japan Soon,” about a couple who “have a soft spot for sleeping where famous people once slept.” Like fellow Bosnian-born writer Aleksandar Hemon, Stanišić emigrated from Bosnia during the Yugoslav Wars. And though Eastern European, his writing feels inspired more by Barthelme and Beckett than by Dostoevsky. …more

This week in New York Unsound, the avant-garde culture festival that began in Eastern Europe, debuts in the city, historian Garry Wills discusses the atomic bomb, a night with filmmaker Ross McElwee at IFC, Jamaica Kincaid and Gary Shteyngart on Becoming Americans, Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen speaks, Hot Chip performs, Projection: A Reading Series presents a multimedia show with David Levithan and Meghan O-Rourke, and Opium Magazine celebrates its 9-year anniversary.

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MONDAY 2/1: Bomb Power: Garry Wills in Conversation with Paul Holdengraber. In BOMB POWER: The Modern Presidency and the National Security State, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills reveals how the atomic bomb transformed or nation down to its deepest constitutional roots by dramatically increasing the power of the modern presidency and redefining the government as a national security state. South Court Auditorium of the New York Public Library. 42nd St. @Fifth Ave. 7:00pm. …more

This week in New York Lydia Davis and Richard Howard read, John Wray, Heidi Julavits and Sarah Manguso discuss ebooks at Melville House, Of Montreal and Damon & Naomi perform, Lapham’s Quarterly celebrates the launch of its Religion Issue, artists recreate the filmography of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest character James Incandenza, and Selected Shorts presents actors acting out stories from Best European Fiction 2010.

MONDAY 1/25: Nick Flynn reads from The Ticking is the Bomb. Strand Bookstore. 828 Broadway. 7:00pm. …more

The Rumpus and HTMLGIANT present ONE YEAR LATER, a celebration of the first anniversary of The Rumpus, tonight, January 21, 2010.

The night will feature readings by Rivka Galchen, Tao Lin, Deb Olin Unferth, Justin Taylor and Stephen Elliott, musical guests Alina Simone, Diane Louvel, and Jeffrey Lewis. With special guest DJ Khaela Maricich of The Blow and video art installation by Monofonus. …more

In the greatest city in the world there are many ways to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the greatest civil rights leaders. In New York today, a day established as a federal holiday in 1986, and this week, choose your celebration:

Soundtrack for a Revolution:  Soundtrack for a Revolution, executive produced by Danny Glover, tells the story of the American civil rights movement through its powerful music: freedom songs sung on picket lines, in mass meetings, in paddy wagons, and in jail cells by black and white Americans all over the country. Featuring performances by John Legend, Joss Stone, Wyclef Jean, The Roots, Ritchie Havens, and others, along with riveting archival footage, and interviews with civil rights foot soldiers and leaders, including Congressman John Lewis, Harry Belafonte, Julian Bond, and Ambassador Andrew Young, Soundtrack for a Revolution celebrates the vitality of the music of the era. 1:00pm. BAM Rose Cinemas. …more

This week in New York, the Rumpus and HTMLGIANT present ONE YEAR LATER a multimedia event with an allstar lineup of readers and musicians including Rivka Galchen, Tao Lin, Jeffrey Lewis and more in celebration of the Rumpus’s First Anniversary, the Frederick Wiseman retrospective begins at MOMA, the Rumpus’s own Stephen Elliott gives talk “On Creating the Adderall Diaries,” Obediance–a film documenting the infamous “Milgram experiments,” screens, Patti Smith and Sam Shepard reunite to read at 92Y, and Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge opens.

MONDAY 1/18: New York Voices of the Civil Rights Movement – In celebration of Martin Luther King Day, NYC Media and the Commission on Human Rights will present a special screening at the Apollo Theater on Thursday, January 14th. The agencies will present a special, advanced screening of FIGHTING FOR JUSTICE: NEW YORK VOICES OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, followed by a panel discussion featuring activists and scholars. The Apollo Theater. 253 W. 125th St. (bet. 7&8 Ave.). Free.
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