Letting Go of What We Love: Talking with Rachel Heng
Rachel Heng discusses her debut novel, Suicide Club, the book’s genesis, her writing and reading life, and her thoughts on “wellness.”
...more
Posts Tagged: memory
Rumpus Original Fiction: RememberYou
They had begun studying memory hoping to find a cure for Alzheimer’s, the doctor explains. But instead, they found other results.
...more
Notes from a Former Ghost
Once there was a little parrot and she carried one drop of water at a time in a leaf she held in her beak. I forget who she was carrying the water to.
...more
It’s All about Positionality: Talking with Kayleb Rae Candrilli
Kayleb Rae Candrilli discusses their debut collection, What Runs Over, reclaiming memory through poetry, and the political act of being happy.
...more
Which Flame Is Mine?: A Conversation with Rajiv Mohabir
Rajiv Mohabir discusses his second collection, The Cowherd’s Son, his work as a translator, and resisting erasure in a racist America.
...more
On Lingerings
The U-Haul’s gone now. It made me sad earlier to look up and find its door locked. Maybe because I know how much ends when everything’s loaded.
...more
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #121: CLS Ferguson
“Because that’s how memories are, right? Little flashes.”
...more
VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Morgan Jerkins
Morgan Jerkins discusses This Will Be My Undoing, getting her start on the Internet, and why her collection of linked personal essays isn’t just another Millennial read.
...more
The Narrator-Guide: A Conversation with Sharon Harrigan
Sharon Harrigan discusses her memoir, Playing with Dynamite, writing through the gaps in memory, and how the book has changed real-life relationships.
...more
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #117: Paula Carter
“One of my core beliefs is that, by sharing our stories, we come to understand each other more and build empathy.”
...more
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #116: David Lazar
“Becoming an essayist has always seemed to me as a bit of a pratfall.”
...more
As a Matter of Fact
Why show the mundanity of your life when you can make it glitter?
...more
VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Aurvi Sharma
Aurvi Sharma discusses her memoir-in-progress, finding inspiration in ancient women’s voices, and writing against erasure.
...more
Kundiman for a Ghost
I can’t unlock the unlockable. I can’t understand the whispers of the dead no matter how loud they scream in the scatter
...more
It’s All Finger-Pointing at the Moon: A Conversation with Carolyn Zaikowski
Carolyn Zaikowski discusses her most recent book, In a Dream, I Dance by Myself, and I Collapse, the psychology of repetition, and honoring the power of language.
...more
The Woman Behind the Curtain Pulling the Levers: Talking with Zinzi Clemmons
Zinzi Clemmons on What We Lose, representations of blackness, and life’s influences on writing.
...more
I Will Not Die for You
Each bug in the water is one less bug on my fruit, I tell myself, ignoring the truth: under the soil, another is born.
...more
It’s Never Too Late to Be Found: A Conversation with Rene Denfeld
Rene Denfeld discusses her latest book, The Child Finder, the ways in which trauma traps us, and the important role of imagination in finding resilience and escape.
...more
Multitudes: (Re) Writing Mother
I like to listen to my mother’s voice; the sounds she makes in an English-Korean mashup; we are each the other’s dictionary.
...more
The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Gabrielle Bell
Gabrielle Bell discusses her forthcoming graphic memoir, Everything Is Flammable, what it was like to mine her own life for subject matter, and how anxiety affects her work.
...more
Lone Star Cinema
In clinging to a set of memories that fade more every day, maybe I’m also clinging to an idyllic version of my own past.
...more
Mothers of My Diaspora
It paralyzes me to think about the sacrifices my family made before I was in my mother’s womb. When they came here they knew they would lose a part of their language, their memories, their sanctity of self.
...more
The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Pandora and the Naked Dead Woman
Bite that apple, open that jar at your own risk and see how your garden grows, how hopeful you remain. Paradise is, after all, blissful self-ignorance.
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Fluids
To me, my mother’s body has always been the safest place—a place for me to return and to transform.
...more
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #68: David Kukoff
“To read,” wrote E.M. Cioran, “is to let someone else do the work for you.” Indeed, David Kukoff has done extensive footwork collecting an array of varied experiences to give us an idea of what it was to live in LA during what might arguably be one of its most pivotal decades. His new anthology, […]
...more
The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Jon Raymond
The Rumpus Book Club chats with Jon Raymond about his new novel Freebird, intergenerational trauma, and the unshakeable love of family.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Dawn Lundy Martin
Dawn Lundy Martin discusses her most recent collection, Life in a Box is a Pretty Life, the intersections between poetry and social justice, her wide variety of inspirations, and bathroom gender binaries.
...more
The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #13: Such Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
Do you keep a dream journal? I started as a teenager, and continue on-and-off. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between a dream and a memory. Does this happen to you? Or am I confessing to something strange and pathological? Where is the line between pathology and creativity?
...moreThis Week in Essays
Bookbinding may be a dying art, but at Lit Hub, Dwyer Murphy tells the story of a man who keeps his business going strong on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. For Hazlitt, Suzannah Showler takes a measured look at the prepper community and at the idea of preparation itself.
...more