2015
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Vanessa Blakeslee
I don’t want to waste readers’ time with a several hundred-page novel that’s not relevant to the wicked problems we’re facing today.
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Notable NYC: 12/12–12/18
Saturday 12/12: Diana Hamilton and Steve McCaffery join the Segue series. Zinc Bar, 4:30 p.m., $5. Many people read Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol. Housing Works, 1 p.m., free. Brian Matthew Kim, Ann Podracky, Jolie Hale, and Jason N. Fischedick…
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The Saturday Rumpus Interview: Jennifer Baker
The more variation we see in life, the more it becomes less about seeing one type of book by marginalized people.
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Iceland, Nation of Readers
Holland isn’t the only Northern European country with unusual Christmas traditions. Icelanders pride themselves on being a nation of readers—93% of residents read at least one book a year, and one in ten publishes one in his or her lifetime.…
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Art as a Tool for Action
Over at NPR, Molly Crabapple discusses her new memoir Drawing Blood, her involvement in Occupy Wall Street, and how she became a political artist: …for a long time I felt like going to protests was the same as—you know, when people…
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Jamming at the The Jazz Loft
A new documentary explores the New York jazz scene circa 1959 through the lens of W. Eugene Smith, the LIFE Magazine photojournalist, and the shows that sprang up in a squat in Chelsea’s Flower District. Read more about The Jazz Loft According…
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This Week in Short Fiction
What do you get when you combine a missing sister, an attic door that won’t close, a biohazard cleaning team, and a cameo from two blind tabby cats named Dr. No and Mr. Goldfinger? A new Laura van den Berg…
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The Residue of Memory
At Vela Magazine, Leslie Kendall Dye discusses living with her mother who has dementia, and the connection between her mother and her own daughter: After dinner, I watch my mother and child play in my daughter’s shoe-box room. My daughter is…
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George Saunders and Donald Trump
George Saunders! America’s greatest satirist! The heir to Mark Twain’s estate! And I thought, Oh, what I wouldn’t give to hear Saunders weigh in on Trump. And then I remembered that, in a way, he already had. At the Kenyon…
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Notable Chicago: 12/11–12/17
Friday 12/11: Volatile! opens at the Poetry Foundation Gallery. Curator Debra Riley Parr discusses the exhibition with scent designers, artists, and poets at 6:30 p.m. Saturday 12/12: Unabridged Bookstore celebrates their 35th anniversary! Stop by from 6 p.m.–9 p.m. for…
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2015, Year of the Badass Woman?
As it’s most commonly used, badass implies both toughness and disaffectedness. It’s rare to look at someone whose chief qualities are measured thoughtfulness and open emotionality and declare her a total badass. Ijeoma Oluo, Naomi Yang, Eudora Welty—these women are…
