Rumpus Original Fiction: Red Cedar
A living tree is a dare.
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The Fragile Ecology of Teenage Boyhood in Shy: A Conversation with Max Porter
We have to be urgent and radical in our belief that some solutions exist . . .
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Voices On Addiction: Speaking Ill of the Dead
I have always felt stuck in the quicksand of Wanting-Things-To-Be-Different.
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Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by E. Hughes
I want to fashion my black mouth to speak this / journey of our bodies into utterance: What / does one call this road between us?
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Against a Singular Story: A Conversation with Jane Wong
In many ways, community is that which allows the heart to heal, and to heal that heart together.
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Memory Among Landscape: Alissa Hattman’s Sift
. . . in a barren world with little protection and corners to hide, it’s also impossible to hide from our thoughts . . .
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From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: Prescriptions
I wore sobriety like a shirt that was too tight in the shoulders, and everyone around me knew it.
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The Poem as an Archive of Your Life and the World Around You: The Rumpus Interview with Clint Smith
. . . intellectual rigor or artistic integrity don’t have to come at the expense of legibility . . .
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Sketch Book Reviews: Night Vision
I love it when a book forces me to reassess my thinking on a particular subject.
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Humans Don’t Live Long Enough
if we are lucky / if we work very hard
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We Are More: Two Poems
I’ll keep at it until something in me leaks
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Very Little of This Book Is Made-up: Talking with R.F. Kuang about her Novel
I don’t think there are easy answers. Should we make judgments about rudeness when we talk about artistic freedom?
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A Perfect Sketch of a Moment: Janet Malcolm’s Still Pictures
“Memory is not a journalist’s tool. Memory glimmers and hints, but shows nothing sharply or clear.”
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Three Flash Fictions by Nathan Xie
“Sprezzatura,” “An Attempt to Explain Myself,” & “The Last Norwegian Wolf”
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Inheritance, Family, and Beauty: A Conversation with Olivia Wolfgang-Smith
Olivia Wolfgang-Smith’s debut novel Glassworks (Bloomsbury Publishing, May 2023) follows one family through four generations. The story begins in 1910 with the wealthy young philanthropist Agnes Carter, and then follows her descendants, both in blood and in spirit, up until the present time. Each person’s story builds on those that came before it, creating a […]
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June Spotlight: Letters in the Mail
Our next Letters in the Mail come from authors Paul Ceballos and James Allen Hall
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Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Winshen Liu
Grief is the Easter Moon lily that blooms in / an empty room. It is not the canyon / glowing, like the inside of a persimmon torn / open by thumbs, but all of the hours, and / only ever those hours, waiting for that glow.
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Our Own Messy, Imperfect Reactions and Feelings: Talking with Hannah Matthews
I’m working on a piece right now for the New York Times where I knew the last sentence before I knew the argument I was making.
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Female Trouble: Cookie Mueller’s Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black
If you want to evoke the idea of who someone really is, start by showing us what they see.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Slime
The slime problem had hatched when her daughter’s first grade class learned how to make putty they took home in plastic eggs.
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They Are The Bones: A Conversation with Kelly Link
Going around the world because you can’t go through it
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The Work We Can Do Only As We Age: A Conversation with Priscilla Long
I approach research dutifully and compulsively.
...moreFrom the Archives: “After the Plantation Fire,” a Rumpus Original Poem by Traci Brimhall
I’ve made the choice // between brushing flies from a child’s eyes or digging / a grave deeper. It’s easier than you’d think.
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RUMPUS POETRY BOOK CLUB EXCERPT: SAGITTARIUS by Megan Fernandes
The June 2023 Rumpus Poetry Book Club selection is Megan Fernandes’ I DO EVERYTHING I’M TOLD. Subscribe by May 15 to the Poetry Book Club to receive this title and an invitation to an exclusive conversation with the author via Crowdcast.
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The No-Man’s Land Between Art and Self: Seth Rogoff’s The Kirschbaum Lectures
We look for ourselves in literature—for comfort or for guidance—but the page rarely provides a clean mirror.
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From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: Lera
You keep the edge of your love sharp, a knife, so that those close to you know to handle it carefully. You think you’ve done it and then you discover that you’ve been endangering yourself to everybody you meet all this time.
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Broadening the Scope of the Environmental Canon: An Interview with Camille T. Dungy
Some books defy categories. Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (Simon & Schuster, 2023) by poet Camille T. Dungy pushes the limits of what readers might expect from any genre. Is it memoir or environmental literature?The book covers so much terrain: Black history, gardening in the West, motherhood, and the care and cultivation […]
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National Poetry Month Day 30: Joshua Aiken
Celebrate National Poetry Month with new poems daily, featuring a variety of voices and perspectives in contemporary poetry.
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National Poetry Month Day 29: Nicole Sealey
Celebrate National Poetry Month with new poems daily, featuring a variety of voices and perspectives in contemporary poetry.
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Voices on Addiction: Want to Believe
Tell the Rapture Shelf story!
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