Joseph Sullivan works as a user experience designer for a large trade association in Chicago. …more

Elissa Nelson interviewed her mother, Margaret Nelson Brinkhaus, who has been a freelance journalist since before Elissa was born, working for a variety of magazines and newspapers including People, Newsweek, and USA Today. …more

Lorraine Adams is a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and critic whose work centers on the encounter between the American enterprise and those caught in violent conflict in the Islamic world. Her most recent novel is The Room and the Chair.

Ru Freeman: How hard was it to move from the 24/7 news cycle to truth in fiction? …more

This interview with Jessica (Jeska) Dzwigalski was conducted at 11:00am PST via GMail chat on June 19.

Nicholas Rombes: Where do you work now, and where did you work previously? …more

In Rochester, New York, my best friend Brian returns from a mission to fix an errant Xerox brand copier, the company that employs him as a technician. I sit in the offices of the L Magazine in DUMBO, as an unpaid intern. A spontaneous interview/conversation.

Robert Tumas: Did you fix it? …more

This is an interview with my mom. I was hyper-critical of her when she was alive and never gave her enough credit.

…more

Hannah Miet: So we’ve never spoken directly about the fact that you were recently dual diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and Schizoaffective Disorder. I’ve been wanting to know how you feel about that. What do those things mean to you? …more

My friend and I interviewed each other. We’re students and have never done anything special. We like to talk, though.

Dan Wang: Are you happier now than when you were 12? …more

This is an interview with Bruce, 59-years old, a former shipping department employee and general music enthusiast.  Bruce is usually quiet, but always up to talk about his first love.

He is also my dad. …more

Pete Schwartz lives in Downington, Pennsylvania. He works for IKON Office Solutions. This interview was conducted via gmail chat at 2:00 EST on June 10. …more

I was sitting in a hospital chair by the mechanical bed of Muhammad Ali’s ex-bodyguard, Alexander Pridgen. After years of lavishing in limelight as well as dealing with the dark, violent flipside to fame, Pridgen was a patient at Rivington House, a residence on New York’s Lower East Side for people with AIDS and HIV. It was pouring outside. There were lines of Buddha statues on his windowsill, a Fez and cafeteria trays holding plastic applesauce containers on his nightstand.

Royal: What was it like working with Muhammad Ali? …more

On February 20, 2007, April Somdahl’s brother Sgt. Brian Rand shot himself near Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He had just returned from Iraq and was about to become a father.

Nearly everyday while Brian was deployed, April spoke with him over Yahoo chat. …more

Joshua Cohen just wrote a book called Witz. Or rather, Witz was just published—its writing took nine years, and the inimitable Jewish culture with which it symbiotically exists has been gestating way longer than that. For a day, Joshua and I exchanged e-mails. He loves Saul Bellow, and he likes Philip Roth. I love Philip Roth, and I also love knowing that today still sees writers like Joshua, and books as magnificent as Witz. …more

Shannon Neale lives in Ypsilanti, MI. Tao Lin lives in Brooklyn, NY. This interview was done on Gmail chat then edited a little by Shannon and Tao. /’s indicate line breaks. …more

Kellesimone Waits – on the heels of her new show ‘Venus Fly Trap,’ sat down with me to discuss political S&M, strippers in doll houses, and the process behind her genius paintings.

The Rumpus: When did you first get interested in painting?

Kellesimone Waits: I remember having strategies and caring about how I was painting as young as five or six. I focused on painting women even then. I had this strategy for painting the female form. I’d make a triangle for the bottom dress, a heart for the top, and a circle for the head. I felt I’d discovered something and was really possessive about my discovery and worried other children would take it from me. That’s when I became excited about problem solving in art. …more

The Gregory Brothers, a Brooklyn-based quartet, remix speeches and news clips using an audio processor called Auto-Tune to create catchy musical news mash-ups that Rachel Maddow dubs “newsicals.” By auto-tuning the voices of politicians, pundits, and TV journalists like Katie Couric, the Gregory Brothers have produced a YouTube phenomenon that makes history accessible and entertaining to people who might not ordinarily tune in to news shows or the History Channel.

The Gregory Brothers’ Auto-Tune the News #3 was featured in The Rumpus Video Interruption section this weekend.

I spoke with the Gregory Brothers (Michael, Andrew, Evan, and Evan’s wife Sarah) via email to find out more about the process of making an Auto-Tune segment. …more