Life with a Rabbit in the Shadow of Death: A Review of Melanie Cheng’s The Burrow
Though the pandemic may now feel relatively distant, its reminder of how quickly catastrophe can become an everyday fact of life persists.
Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
Rumpus Original Fiction: Sun-Up
“You know what I mean. It really just makes you think about the shortness of life and shit.”
“I Think Everything Can Be Funny”: A Conversation with Youngmi Mayer
Word economy is, basically, the skill that you have to really hone to become a successful stand-up comedian.
Sugar Factory
Though I can’t prove Haines wrote “On the Sly” about or even in Toronto—though the timing seems to line up with her and Shaw meeting here in the late 90s—somehow everything about this city seems packed into that line about the sugar factory.
Funny Women: If Editors Rejected Me How Men Break Up with Me
“This magazine just needs to be alone right now.”
Sketch Book Reviews: What An Owl Knows
When things in the world feel particularly scary of hopeless, I find it very difficult to read books about humans.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Hayun Cho
My task is to open the small Styrofoam containers / of rice, to make sure the woman next to me / can reach what her appetite longs for.
The First Book: Del Sandeen
I’m writing to the reader who loves characters as much as plot, and who understands that horror encompasses much more than just things that go bump in the night.
Preparing for Flight: Yaccaira Salvatierra’s Sons of Salt
Salvatierra’s poems embody the spirit of reclamation, reminding us to ask the wind and water to carry us, to remember our potential for flight.
The Truth About Phantom Characters: A Conversation with Cal Louise Phoenix
... if my people can survive, I can too. Resiliency and survivalism are in my bones.
Letter to My Dad
I wonder if the adoption agency thought they were clever, or if they thought both adoptive parents and adoptee having brown hair was enough to signal we belonged to each other.