Tortured

“I fallen in love with u from just talking 2 u. What do u think justine. My wife has already left me.”

The text message above was sent to author Justine Sharrock by one of the ex-soldiers she interviewed for her book, Tortured: When Good Soldiers Do Bad Things.

Today Sharrock has published an excellent essay about her reaction to the text, her relationship with the ex-National Guardsman who sent it, and being a female journalist. We highly recommend you give it a read.

Also, be sure to check out our interview with Sharrock and, if you live in the Bay Area, come see her read at July’s Monthly Rumpus.

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Isaac Fitzgerald has been a firefighter, worked on a boat, and was once given a sword by a king, thereby accomplishing three out of five of his childhood goals. Formerly of The Rumpus and McSweeney’s and most recently the founding editor of BuzzFeed Books, Isaac is now the co-host of BuzzFeed News’ Twitter Morning Show, #AMtoDM. He also appears frequently on The Today Show to talk books, and is co-author of Pen & Ink: Tattoos and the Stories Behind Them and Knives & Ink: Chefs and the Stories Behind Their Tattoos (with Recipes) (winner of an IACP award), and the author of a YA novel and picture book forthcoming from Bloomsbury. He uses Twitter.

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The Rumpus publishes original fiction, poetry, literary humor writing, comics, essays, book reviews, and interviews with authors and artists of all kinds. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers our readers may already know and love. We want to bring new perspectives into the conversation that will make us all look deeper.

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