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Rumpus Articles
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McSweeney’s Anthology and Book Trailer!
To commemorate their fifteenth anniversary, McSweeney’s is offering up an anthology featuring work from their past fifteen years. And they have a trailer for the anthology here. Fun fact: it features Isaac Fitzgerald and Sam Riley! You can preorder the anthology! The collection features…
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Why Don’t You Just Ask Me?
Dear Readers of The Rumpus, Each week you enjoy my thoughtful reviews of the world. Now I invite you to also enjoy my new advice column called Ask Ted Wilson, appearing each week at The Bold Italic. I will offer…
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With Child in Mongolia
Writer Ariel Levy offers a heart-wrenching account of adventure and coming into motherhood in her essay called “Thanksgiving in Mongolia,” featured in The New Yorker. People were alarmed when I told them where I was going, but I was pleased…
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Advice from Vonnegut
Advice my father gave me: never take liquor into the bedroom. Don’t stick anything in your ears. Be anything but an architect. To celebrate Kurt Vonnegut, Maria Popova posted on her Brain Pickings an interesting list of advices the author…
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Trapped Inside the Novel
My problem with the grand traditional novel—or rather traditional narrative in general, short stories included—is the vision of character, the constant reinforcement of a fictional selfhood that accumulates meaning through suffering and the overcoming of suffering. At once a palace…
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To Outline Or Not To Outline
Are you like John Irving, who outlines his novels to the last detail? Or are you more like Flannery O’Connor, who works the story out through multiple drafts? There are many thoughts on the internet about the pros and cons…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
The key to finding alien life is looking for purple (something something Prince joke). Atlas Obscura brings you submerged towers and abandoned Santa parks. Maybe you’d like to check out some plant and rock based interactive sound installations. Photographing Victorian…
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The Rumpus Interview with T.C. Boyle
T.C. Boyle, who has now written over twenty books, talks to The Rumpus about his most recent short story collection, four decades of cooking up high-grade literary tales, the importance of performance during readings, and life at the Iowa Writers’…
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PJ Harvey Tuesday #4: “When Under Ether”
By 2007, PJ Harvey had released six studio albums, which ran the gamut in style from explosive blues-punk to near-industrial electronica to soulful pop rock. To the surprise of all (and dismay of many), her seventh album, White Chalk, marked…
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Creative Contradictions
“My thoughts make cohesive sense to me, yet others sometimes feel that I am contradicting myself or switching positions. What is wrong with me?” On his website, Matthew Schuler writes about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book where he describes nine contradictory characteristics…
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Ted Wilson Reviews the World #207
ACORNS ★★★★★ (4 out of 5) Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing acorns.
