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Join NOW!Feminism is dead! Long live feminism! What do Lauren Cerand, Emma Straub, and Tayari Jones have in common with Gay Talese and Joan Didion? Bow-down style, that’s what. Mellisa Chadburn’s round-up of the best 8 literary spots on the internet. Both The Rumpus and TNB make the list (thanks, Melissa!) I once spent about 20 […]
...moreThe launch of Not Your Eyes, an online and print fiction and nonfiction publishing house. To hair or not to hair? In this age of proudly organic and hemp products, Millicent Borges Accardi wonders why women still pursue shaving and waxing over au natural. A guide to tax deductions for writers, bloggers and freelance journalists. Little […]
...moreHave you heard about The Weekly Rumpus yet? Shelf Unbound‘s competition for the best indie published book. 17 personal essays that will change your life. 96 year old man wins a song contest by writing about his dead wife. Brian Lindstrom (a good deal more than Mr. Sugar, this man!) interviewed by Anisse Gross. How […]
...moreLitReactor names Other People as one of its 5 favorite podcasts. James Salter interviewed. Sean Beaudoin on Elmore Leonard. The Cost of Living by Rob Roberge called “one of the most gripping novels about the rock and roll lifestyle I have ever read” by Largehearted Boy. Check out the Book Notes. Writers, when you’re on fire […]
...morePEN 2013 Literary Winners announced. Did I link this kick-ass piece last week? I’ve been sending it to every memoirist I know and people are really responding to it. FC2’s Sukenick and Doctorow prizes open their doors to submissions.
...moreBoth The Rumpus and The Nervous Breakdown make Flavorwire’s 25 Best Sites for Literature Lovers. I’m kind of beside myself with glee. Apply for a Word Riot travel grant! Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels “everyone should read.”
...moreSunday Rumpus alum, Laura Bogart’s, Salon piece, “I Choose to Be Fat” has gone viral, with good reason. And Rumpus gal Antonia Crane in the LA Times, strip-club-consultant extraordinaire. If you read Margo Rabb’s fascinating “Fallen Idols” in the NYTimes, don’t miss this interesting response to it from Erika Dreifus.
...more12 Amazing Staircases around the world. LitReactor is rocking it on craft essays. Their most recent newsletter groups together 10 of the best. Steve Almond’s open letter to his daughter, about love. Sandie Friedman’s essay on “the unlived life” at The Nervous Breakdown is one of the most affecting pieces I’ve read in awhile. I have […]
...moreBy the time you’re reading this, I’m in Mexico, prepping for this awesome thing. Depending on my internet connection, this could be my last Round-up until after July 16, when I return to Chicago…but most likely, I’ll be checking in from there.
...moreCongrats to Sunday Rumpus alum, Tara Ison, on the selection of her novel Rockaway as a “don’t miss” summer read by O, Oprah’s magazine. It’s Father’s Day. Have an open letter. Kinda schmaltzy, but at the end of the day there’s truth here.
...moreShould women writers only have one child, if they want to produce more than offspring? You know, I think this piece means well…I really do. The writers cited within are all ones I admire and have, myself, often looked to as models for various ways to work and live. And yet…the ongoing obsession with whether […]
...moreMatt Bell’s debut novel is out from Soho. See Matt in the new “Story and Song” issue of Shelf Unbound. Also includes a great conversation between Tod Goldberg and Rob Roberge. Hannah Arendt and the New Yorker. Dzanc’s rEprint series is really hitting it out of the park, if I do say so myself. Jane […]
...moreSo all Pam Houston’s slots were taken in Other Voices Queretaro, but two have suddenly opened up. Want to study with Pam in Mexico this July 5-14? Rob Roberge and Josip Novakovich are teaching too. Check it out! Amazing yoga-lit retreat opportunity: enter the 5 Most Beautiful Things contest with Rumpus contributor Jen Pastiloff.
...moreThis is cool: The Handsome Family in the New Yorker. Allison Amend’s A Nearly Perfect Copy is called “delectable” by Alan Cheuse on NPR. Caroline Leavitt does the TNB Self-Interview.
...moreToday we have an interview with Emily Rapp. Here, too, for Mother’s Day, is Emily’s “This Mother’s Day, I Am No Longer a Mother.” Congrats to one of the most generous writers I know, Caroline Leavitt, whose novel Is This Tomorrow came out Tuesday. David Foster Wallace’s wise and moving “This Is Water” speech is […]
...moreSo I’m not sure anyone can dispute the fact that there’s no money in book review sections…if that were a genuine argument to be made, basically every book review section in every major paper but the New York Times wouldn’t have shut down. That said, there’s something I really dislike about the tone in “The […]
...moreThis Part Is About Me and My Friends So If You Don’t Give a Shit Scroll Down… So I was in Los Angeles for the Festival of Books. When I left Chicago, it was raining in this manic, endless way that had caused the sewers to back up and the streets to flood. Sinkholes were […]
...moreAs a mother of two adopted kids myself, I found Jennifer Gilmore’s HuffPo piece on whether “mothering” differs from “parenting” interesting. Mainly, this piece seems merely a jumping-off point. Biological motherhood is a fetishized thing in our culture. When I got pregnant with my third child, people shouted things like, “Thank God!” as though I […]
...moreGrub Street’s Christopher Castellani’s All This Talk of Love receives a glowing one from the NYTimes. How friendship forms writers: Emily Rapp’s “How I Became the Woman I Am Today.” Josh Mohr is one of our best, and this HTML interview is perhaps his most candid. These autocorrected texts made me laugh so hard I […]
...moreThe Weeklings is on fire: Zoe Zolbrod, with one of the most nuanced and psychologically complex analysises I’ve seen of those horrifying VIDA stats about women and publishing. Katie Arnoldi and Greg Olear with a five-part series on pot, human trafficking, border patrol and immigration, that is simply a must-read. And Point/Counterpoint, which really always […]
...moreBest weird girl lit for outsider teens, from the Guardian. Which probably means this is a mandatory reading list for Normal Girls too, and for any teen with a penis, since understanding Weird Girls is kind of a prerequisite to…everything. The ten worst sex scenes in modern literature? Well, that’s a lofty claim, but the […]
...moreBrooklyn Based offers Three Reading Lists from People Who Still Love Books. The Millions’ interview with literary powerhouse Elissa Schappell. It may not pay your mortgage, but in this day of shrinking paying markets, Barrelhouse‘s announcement that it will begin offering $50 for work, while its staff still works for free, is worth noting. This […]
...moreWho gets $20K a pop? HuffPo clues us in to authors’ outrageous speaking fees. The links between vegetarianism and oral sex? Body image and sex drive? OKCupid has that graphed. Chloe Caldwell on learning to sit still and deal with herself, post-heroin. I really like her work. Three rules for dating again (after 25 years […]
...moreI woke Friday morning to the news that Emily Rapp’s son, Ronan Louis, had died. Ronan had Tay-Sachs, but the “expected” nature of a death does nothing to soften a blow when someone is not yet even three-years-old. Emily’s dear friend, yoga teacher and writer Jennifer Pastiloff, wrote a piece for Ronan on Facebook that […]
...moreIn celebration of Valentine’s Day, I give you the most insanely romantic thing I’ve ever read. I want this adorable old Russian couple on my mantle. If I had a mantle, that is. A love affair between a lonely woman and a tortoise. The divine Caroline Leavitt in the New York Times‘ “Modern Love.” Finalists […]
...moreJennifer Egan says that Goon Squad could have been better and talks about the danger of applause, in an excerpt from Why We Write, and anthology featuring some of the most acclaimed writers of our time, including Rumpus regular Rick Moody.
...moreOh my god: Josip Novakovich is a finalist for The Booker Prize. Josip is a Sunday Rumpus alum, and an Other Voices Books and Dzanc Books author. He’s also on the faculty of Other Voices Queretaro, the ridiculously kick-ass writing program I’m launching out of Mexico this summer. That’s right, at the cheapest international writing […]
...moreThe National Book Critics Circle Award finalists. And 2013’s Creative Capital grant winners. Greg Olear of The Weeklings interviews the great Francine Prose. Wow, between this and my Atwood interview, Greg and I have had a pretty cool week. Also on The Weeklings, Sean Beaudoin and Jess Walter go head-to-head. Hooked on HBO’s Girls? Or […]
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Grand dame of literature and author of more than 50 books, Margaret Atwood talks to The Rumpus about gender, privacy, the law of improved weaponry, and the brave new world of online publishing.
...moreThe world seems to be zooming towards a beautiful George Saunders tipping point. Hard to swing a cat without hitting how freaking awesome he is. Nice to see this in the NYTimes. And this from Michael Schaub. And listen to this too. David Ulin continues Stephen Elliott’s and Jillian Lauren’s defense of the confessional memoir. Litsa Dremousis […]
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