How to Break Up with Your Girlfriend in 64 Easy Steps
How I found this video: 1. It’s late-ish Sunday night. 2. I am working on an interview for The Rumpus.
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Elissa Bassist
115 posts
Elissa Bassist edits the Funny Women column and teaches humor writing. Her next class is "How to Write a Comedic Memoir" on 3/30. She wrote Hysterical, a semi-finalist for The Thurber Prize for American humor, and is co-writing Inside Jokes: A Comedy and Creativity Guide for All Writers with Caitlin Kunkel (out in 2026). Her newsletter is Tragedy Plus Time.
I Openly Love Ayn Rand, by Elissa Bassist
[A father talking to his son]: “You’re in college now . . . I’m going to have to keep this Ayn Rand book. I’m sorry, but you’re just too old…
Verbophobia: About the Phobias in Roberto Bolaño’s 2666
“An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom,” by Charles Baudelaire, 2666's epigram
When You’ve Only Got Four Books Left
“Bathetic self-deception, and unfulfilled dreams–a lament to passing time, and life not working out quite as one had hoped–have been the defining themes of almost all Ishiguro’s work. They are,…
Role Models
Those who came before us — Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, and Flannery O’Connor — “illuminat[ed] precedents for women writers,” and became our heroines, our literary guides, our inspirations and paragons.…
Notes and Errata*: A Companion Guide to “The Unfinished”
*The Rumpus presents endnotes (and some additions and/or digressions) w/r/t “The Unfinished” by D. T. Max (The New Yorker, Mar. 9, 2009),
A Reading List as Suggested Posthumously by David Foster Wallace
Compiled from “The Unfinished” by D. T. Max.
The Rumpus Interview with David Wain
Here are a few things to know about David Wain that will help you get the most out of this interview: – David Wain is (in no hierarchical order) a…
Kindle: Definition
From Merriam-Webster: Main Entry: kin·dle Pronunciation: \ˈkin-dəl\ Function: verb Etymology: Middle English, probably modification of Old Norse kynda; akin to Old High German cuntesal fire Date: 13th century Definition (1):…