After five years, seven months, and eighteen days at The Rumpus, Ted Wilson Reviews the World is coming to an end. Then it’s immediately coming to a beginning when it begins appearing each week at Electric Literature, starting today.
My time at The Rumpus has been wonderful, and I’ll miss being a part of it. I have a lot of fond memories, like the time Isaac Fitzgerald and I got lost in the woods overnight and he cut off all his hair with a pair of nail clippers so we’d have a blanket to keep warm. (It was itchy, but it worked so well we spent an extra night in the woods just for fun.) Or the time Stephen Elliott hugged me from behind and said “I’m sorry your wife died,” even though I was in the middle of eating a sandwich and watching TV. I couldn’t finish my sandwich after remembering Rosie but I still appreciated the sentiment. The Rumpus has made me who I am; whoever I am.
My decision to make the move to Electric Literature was purely logistical. For years I’ve had to mail my reviews all the way to The Rumpus offices in San Francisco, and many of the reviews were often lost in transit. Of my 281 reviews to-date, 642 were actually written. In fairness to the USPS, a number of the ones that didn’t make it had been dropped off at what I thought was a mailbox but turned out to be a tree stump. That one’s on me.
No longer will I have to suffer through days of uncertainty and worry about my letter arriving. I’ll also be saving a ton in postage. Now I’ll be able to hand deliver my reviews to New York City. It’s only eight hours of driving time, which means I can leave home at 4am and be back in time for lunch. Email has never been a reliable option because you never know if the email upload-link will work.
It’s sad to say goodbye. As I write this I’m literally wiping away a tear. I hope it’s my own and there’s no one standing over me, crying onto me. I’m too scared to look. I’m excited to see all the wonderful pieces The Rumpus will continue to publish in my absence, and to read their new replacement column which I hope is called Why We Miss Ted Wilson.
The Rumpus will continue to be my friend, and I will continue to be yours. If you ever need me, my phone number is (617) 379-2576, my email is [email protected], and you can also be my Twitter friend at @iamtedwilson.
Your Friend Forever,
Ted
