Libraries Are the Real Punk Rock
Maybe I was only in the eighth grade, but I was ready to stand up to anyone who tried to threaten the ideal of intellectual freedom. ...more
Posts Tagged: nineties
I Choose My Pearls: On Feminism, Fashion, and Disneyland
Women don’t need laws to repress their fashion, comfort, identity, or preference. Our society’s deft ability to shame does all the heavy lifting. ...more
Just Chaste Me
The more first-time stories I heard, the longer I was willing to wait. ...more
The Unbearable Whiteness of Being: Claudia Cortese Discusses Wasp Queen
Poet Claudia Cortese talks about her new book Wasp Queen and Lucy, the rebellious 90s teen whose voice inspired the collection. ...more
Sound & Vision: Ken Freedman
Allyson McCabe talks with Ken Freedman, the general manager of WFMU (the longest-running freeform radio station in the US), about the relevance of radio, technological innovation, and a just-launched morning show. ...more
The Real Fidel
In a flash nearly 200,000 Cuban refugees understood that we’d lost our homeland and had better get used to life en la Yuma. We packed for six weeks, and we stayed for six decades. ...more
Wanted/Needed/Loved: Ian Svenonius’s “Principles of Modernism”
[T]he most essential thing is actually a kind of worldview, a mindset—or maybe it’s an ideology. ...more
The Rumpus Interview with Rebecca Schiff
Rebecca Schiff discusses her debut collection The Bed That Moved, choosing narrators who share similarities with each other and with herself, and whether feminism and fiction-writing conflict. ...more
The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Unrecognized Brownie, Circa 1978
I picture families lingering over albums in the faraway future, someone leaning over someone else’s shoulder, pointing at me, asking, Who was that? ...more
Southern Girl: Beyoncé, Badu, and Southern Black Womanhood
None of the imagery of Lemonade is foreign to those of us who grew up in the South or who have Southern roots. ...more
The X-Files Forever
[I]f there was ever a show that could wrestle with anxiety about aging and mortality in a new way, it’s The X-Files. ...more
(K)ink: Writing While Deviant: Dale Corvino
There’s a connection between the longings of the characters I develop in my fiction and my urge to dominate. ...more
Iowa’s Ring of Fire
...more“One day,” he said, “you’re going to have a bad time in workshop. A really bad time. Maybe Frank is in a foul mood and you’ve pissed off a few people around the table for whatever reason—your insufficient love of Richard Ford.
The Web Isn’t Nirvana (But You Can Get All Their Albums For Free)
On February 26, 1995, just about twenty years ago, Newsweek published an article by Clifford Stoll called “Why the Internet Won’t Be Nirvana.” In it, Stoll provides a litany of faults to be found in the nascent web. Although there’s a decidedly un-zen tone to the article, Stoll makes some surprisingly accurate predictions—right alongside some laughable ones.
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Catalogue Broads
Still, stories are subject to a gravity of their own, leaking out of the crevasses of a person's crafted exterior like coffee from the hairline crack of a ceramic mug. ...more
The Last Book I Loved: nineties by Lucy Ives
Our parents showed up to retrieve us. They wanted to know why we would do such a thing. My friend and I looked at each other and just shrugged our shoulders. ...more