Posts Tagged: MFA

Truth and Beauty: Talking with Joshua Wolf Shenk

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The new Editor-in-Chief of The Believer dismantles stereotypes of Las Vegas, discusses the magazine's acquisition, and makes a case for bringing journalism into the academy. ...more

What Is Being Charted Here?: Talking with Jennifer S. Cheng

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Poet and essayist Jennifer S. Cheng discusses her collection House A, working "in the dark," and the idea of home. ...more

VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Lisa Factora-Borchers

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Lisa Factora-Borchers talks about being a Catholic feminist, writing across genres, and pushing back against a singular narrative about New York. ...more

Saying What Shouldn’t Be Said: A Conversation with Julie Buntin

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Julie Buntin discusses her debut novel, Marlena, why writing about teenage girls is the most serious thing in the world, and finding truths in fiction. ...more

VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Tamiko Nimura

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Tamiko Nimura talks about the influence of history, memory, and silence on her work; creating a private MFA for herself; and writing a generational memoir. ...more

The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Chen Chen

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Chen Chen discusses his new collection When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, playing the game white supremacy has set up, and if God is trying and failing to be a cool dad. ...more

The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #24: Must I Be an Angry April Fool?

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When I attended professional acting school back in 1986 (the MFA program at UC Irvine, I proudly remark), I had a teacher ask me once, “Charles, are you able to feel any authentic emotion other than anger?” I paused for a bit and considered the question, before answering, truthfully, “No.

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Vincent Toro: Challenging Whiteness and Refusing to Be Colonized

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Poet Vincent Toro on his debut collection, Stereo.Island.Mosaic, his writing process, and searching for identity. ...more

The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #72: Laurie Sheck

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Laurie Sheck is the author, most recently, of Island of the Mad, and A Monster’s Notes, a re-imagining of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in poetry for The Willow Grove, she has been a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. 

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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Abeer Hoque

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Abeer Hoque talks about coming of age in the predominantly white suburbs of Pittsburgh, rewriting her memoir manuscript ten times, and looking for poetry in prose. ...more

The Rumpus Interview with Mila Jaroniec

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Mila Jaroniec talks about her debut novel Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover,” writing autofiction, the surprising similarity between selling sex toys and selling books, and the impact of having a baby on editing. ...more

The Rumpus Interview with Erik Kennedy

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Poet Erik Kennedy discusses literary community and his formative years as a young writer in New Jersey, and shares two new prose poems. ...more

The Rumpus Interview with Melissa Yancy

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Melissa Yancy discusses her debut story collection Dog Years, using her day job for inspiration, and being “an old curmudgeon at heart.” ...more

The Rumpus Interview with Jerald Walker

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Jerald Walker discusses his memoir, The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult, the story of his childhood in The Worldwide Church of God, and how the act of writing delivered him from bitterness. ...more

The Rumpus Interview with Rion Amilcar Scott

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Rion Amilcar Scott discusses his story collection Insurrections, father relationships, hip-hop, knowing when to abandon a project, and choosing not to workshop certain stories. ...more

The Rumpus Interview with Jennifer Martelli

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Jennifer Martelli discusses her debut collection of poetry, The Uncanny Valley, growing up saturated with images of the Madonna, and her experience of motherhood first as a daughter and now as a mother. ...more

The Rumpus interview with Jeremy P. Bushnell

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Jeremy P. Bushnell discusses his new novel, The Insides, themes of consent, and designing a post-apocalyptic board game. ...more

The Rumpus Interview with Vi Khi Nao

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Vi Khi Nao on her new novel Fish in Exile, why women shouldn't apologize (even when they're wrong), moving between genres, and why humor is vital in a novel full of darkness and grief. ...more

The Rumpus Interview with Alice Mattison

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Alice Mattison discusses her newest book, The Kite and the String, a meditation on her lifelong journey through the craft of writing, the joys of teaching writing, and the importance of community. ...more

The America We Live in Now

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I don’t consider myself a political person. To me, there are no “wrong” political beliefs. I believe that democracy means respecting everyone’s right to her opinion. And if I were forced to declare my own political views, I would have to reluctantly admit that, out of cynicism and self-interest, I find myself increasingly leaning towards the right.

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The Rumpus Interview with Esmé Weijun Wang

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Esmé Weijun Wang discusses her first novel, The Border of Paradise, about a multi-generational new American family, creative expression through writing and photography, and interracial relationships. ...more

The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #56: Patricia Engel

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I met one of my favorite writers before she ever published a single story. We were classmates vying for our MFAs in Creative Writing from Florida International University and would smile at each other from across the room. She was shy, but never defensive, in workshop and always strove, really made the effort, to answer questions about her work and decisions on the page as fully as she could.

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The Rumpus Interview with Brian Booker

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Brian Booker discusses his debut collection Are You Here For What I’m Here For?, giving characters strange and unusual names, and sleeping sickness. ...more

The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Fairy Tales, Trauma, Writing into Dissociation

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Our bodies are incredible and intelligent things. ...more

The Rumpus Interview with Russell Banks

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Russell Banks discusses his new book, Voyager: Travel Writings, why we are never free from our history, and how writing saved his life. ...more

The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #53: Meet WTAW Press

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Peg Alford Pursell is the author of the forthcoming book of flash and hybrid prose, Show Her a Flower, A Bird, A Shadow (ELJ Publications). Her work has been published in VOLT, the Journal of Compressed Arts, and RHINO, among others, and shortlisted for the Flannery O’Connor Award.

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(K)ink: Writing While Deviant: Amber Dawn

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What do we as writers tell each other about the intersections of trauma and desire? How do we encourage (or discourage) each other to reveal the power and tensions in those margins? ...more

The Rumpus Interview with Blair Braverman

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Blair Braverman discusses her latest book, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North, gendered travel narratives, and the pressure to write about personal trauma. ...more

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