Coming-of-age into Fame: Ben Fama’s If I Close My Eyes
Masterful prose...a novel that takes an unflinching view of what some might do for fame and ratings.
Recent posts
Rumpus Articles
Rumpus Original Fiction: Pulmonary
If I stand in the middle of my home and wingspan my arms out, I can touch the insides of my mother’s left lung, wall-to-wall.
There’s Reality in Other Places: A Conversation with Kelsey Norris
Life’s weird. There’s reality in other places. I really like fiction and media that play with that strangeness.
January Spotlight: Letters in the Mail
Letters in the Mail from Claudia Acevedo-Quiñones and Julia Fine!
Funny Women: Creative Writing Tips for Men
Delete all instances of the word “shrill.” Search for similar words spanning all parts of speech: shriek, nag, scream, screech, and squawk, for example.
Voices on Addiction: Make Me A Channel of Your Peace
In the library at the Farm, I wondered how William’s Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions ended up at a vacation house purchased five years after his death.
Every Line Break, an Elegy: A Conversation with Leslie Sainz
I feel strongly that our personal histories are made complete by their various discrepancies, not undermined by them.
ENOUGH: The Grooming of a Nymphet
Balance returning and free to strut once more, I began landing my jumps again, just because he said I could.
The Circumstance of Expectancy: Sara Gallardo’s January
From the early pages of the novel, she laments, “It’s a different story for rich girls, they have their ways,” which is a very elegant way of throwing one’s arms up and shouting that it isn’t fair to a world that won’t hear it.
Rumpus Original Fiction: Loss
I thought about that Chupacabra at the farmhouse, ripping those goats to shreds. He was my fucking hero.
Turning a White Savior Inside Out: A Conversation with Frank Santo
. . . There is a lot of horror and horrible things about it, but there is also a lot of grace and things that show how strong people can be. It’s really the whole gamut of humanity.
What to Read When: The Most Beautiful Books of 2023
Another year of judging books by their covers <3