2014
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Great American Novels and Wars
In his newly published The Novel: a Biography, Michael Schmidt takes some time to study how the wars of the 20th century shaped the great American novel, citing Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, and Joseph Heller among those that best dealt…
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Remembering the Blue and the Gray
Memorial Day is a time of both national reflection and diverse local tradition. In a piece connecting poetry and community storytelling, The Atlantic offers some literary history in observance of this past weekend’s holiday. Two years after the end of…
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Racists Are Less Creative
Comparing cognitive tests like the Duncker Candle Problem against views of racial essentialism reveals that racists lack certain problem solving skills, reports Hazlitt: Creativity is fundamentally the ability to recombine old ideas, moving beyond preexisting categories in order to create…
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Young God by Katherine Faw Morris
Benjamin Rybeck reviews Young God by Katherine Faw Morris today in The Rumpus Books.
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The Payton James Freeman Essay Prize
We at The Rumpus are proud to be a part of this essay contest. Please take a look at the submission requirements (note the lack of an entry fee!) and let us take a look at your work. The Freeman…
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The Life Behind the Stories
Step inside Neil Gaiman’s surreal artistic world with Hayley Campbell’s recently released book examining his personal archives. Drawings, notes, and letters in The Art of Neil Gaiman give cult fans and curious newcomers an intimate insight into the fantasy novelist’s…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
Welcome back to the work week, let’s all take a field trip to the British Tarantula Society’s big show. Huh: now you can buy an official 9/11 cheese plate. 1960s Japanese futurism sure is cool. It’s exciting to remember how…
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Swinging Modern Sounds #54: Jam Band Apotheosis
Back in the seventies, in circles I travelled in, you could not escape the Grateful Dead, even if you wanted to—and I was someone who wanted to.
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In Defense of Twitter Poetry
Twitter is like a digital notebook for collecting observations, Rhys Nixon describes over at Entropy, making it an ideal platform for poetry and expression. Twitter also combines humor and absurdism, two elements often overlooked in more conventional literature. But perhaps…
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Eulogy for the Love Letter
Paper notes and postcards have all but joined rotary phones and singing telegrams in the history books of communication. Email and text messages might have the advantage of speed (and sometimes playful naughtiness), but neither can compensate for the tangible…
