Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
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Knott’s Berry Farm, 1996
At thirteen, we were not afraid to speak aloud what we already knew—we would rather die than let them see the secrets of our bodies exposed. They had taught us enough about hiya, that we feared the weight of its…
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On Drowning
I learned from my mother, passed down from her mother, how to hold inside me a great ocean of sadness because the world is a cruel and inhospitable place. At the age of fifteen, I first told her I didn’t…
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One Catastrophe Away from Losing Everything: A Conversation with Kim Samek
I like stories because you can take a big swing, you can do anything you can;, you can be experimental. If it doesn’t work out, it really doesn’t matter. When you work in the long form, if you take a…
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Eurotrash as Nonfiction
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that much of the music I enjoyed incorporated some component of nonfiction. Emboldened by a breakneck beat, Eurotrash reserves space for societal commentary through the lens of the speaker’s experiences. Translations by fans on…
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Poetics of Space: A Conversation with D.S. Waldman
“I was always, across these various modes of expression, chasing or trying to harness this underlying current of poetry—that thing in paintings or buildings or concertos or in (some) really good prose that makes me, even if temporarily, wholeheartedly invested…
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Rich Text and the Tunnel Vision of Love: An Interview with Seán Hewitt
“It’s not a book in which plot is the central driver. What I was most interested in is how falling in love spurs James into increasing levels of hope or longing, or agony in some cases. It was a very…
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Neighborly
I met Leeanner and Ed six years prior when I bought my house in east Austin. I had saved up the down payment working tech jobs I hated, and I was excited to nest. I told myself it was a…
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We Never Needed Each Other
“I have wondered if my mother’s unhappiness is rooted in having three daughters, which in a traditional Chinese family meant my parents tried unsuccessfully three times for a son. I have also wondered if my mother’s unhappiness, evidenced by her…
