The Daily Rumpus
Get Overly Personal Emails
From Stephen Elliott
I met Eric Larson (a pseudonym) in a Bay Area writing workshop around ten years ago. He’s had the most intriguing job of anyone I’ve met in that often-myopic fiction-writing world—he’s a Death Row attorney, primarily for clients at San Quentin State Prison, paid separately on contract for each case.
...moreDave “The Fugitive” Jansen, 30, is a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter with Oregon’s Team Quest Fight Club. Our talks took place prior to his World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) bout in Las Vegas against Ricardo Lamas on August 18, 2010.
...moreThe last time I saw Lucinda was around July 4, 2003. Marching around with sparklers in her back yard, drinking beer and laughing, she showed no ill-effects of being a California parole officer. Lucinda, 41, is now a California state investigator of lifers, and an aspiring roller derby vixen.
...moreJohn grew up in Hong Kong, the son of a missionary. Before becoming a commercial photographer he was a radio disc jockey, oil field roustabout, pizza delivery guy and funeral home attendant. Now he’s selling everything he owns and is leaving the country for a couple of years at least.
...moreAlex Smith lives in New York City, where he works as a homepage editor at MSN and as a freelance contributor for the New Yorker. During the interview, Alex drank a Kingfisher, and Rombes an Oberon. Some of Alex’s writing can be found at Flaming Pablum.
...moreRonnie Lucero and I work together at Nelson’s Meats, a small, independently owned meat market in Albuquerque’s South Valley. He is what used to be called a ‘butcher.’ Nowadays they call them ‘meat cutters.’ I sell his handiwork to the public, as well as a few other mammal-flesh goodies.
...moreLaura Stevens has great hair. The best hair in the room, 94.3% of the time. It makes me jealous.
She is the only non-adopted of her parents’ six children.
...morePaula: Tim Guthrie is an internationally exhibited and award-winning multimedia artist. He is also the best movie-dialogue-reciter I have ever met, which endeared him to me immediately. We met at an artist colony and bonded over late-night poker and blackjack and good-natured mocking. Tim is a card shark. Did I ever win, Tim?
...moreJoseph Sullivan works as a user experience designer for a large trade association in Chicago.
...moreElissa 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.
...moreLorraine 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.
...moreThis 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?
...moreIn 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.
...moreThis is an interview with my mom. I was hyper-critical of her when she was alive and never gave her enough credit.
...moreI used this project as an opportunity to send some questions to one of my favorite people, Josh Madden. Josh lives in New York City and besides DJing, styling, writing, and hosting a weekly internet radio show, he’s a positive, inspiring, and all around sarcastic fellow.
...moreHannah 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?
...moreMy 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?
...moreThis 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.
...morePete 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.
...moreI 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.
...moreOn 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.
...moreJoshua 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.
...moreShannon 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?
...more