Posts by author
Lauren O’Neal
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Alaska Native Culture as a Game—But Not a Joke
If you liked reading about narrative video games about the trans experience, you’re sure to enjoy this Polygon piece on “the first indigenous-owned games company in the United States.” Like a heist movie, the essay introduces the players (an Alaska…
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What’s a 5-Letter Word for “Sexism”?
Months ago, we blogged about a mind-blowing New Yorker story on the crazy world of high-level crossword puzzle competitions. For crossword coverage that isn’t multiple years old, check out this Hairpin piece on the shrinking role of women in the field. A…
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What Words Used to Look Like
If Rumpus readers have one thing in common, it’s that we all love words—their meanings, their sounds, even their shapes. If you have a particular affection for the way words look, you might enjoy TypeHunting, a collection of pictures of…
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This Prince Interview Is Everything You Hoped For
In honor of Prince joining Twitter—you can follow him at @3RDEYEGIRL, where he tweets things like “PRINCE’S 3RD TWEET: DID EYE ADD 2 MUCH PEPPER? pic.twitter.com/3jfe3rb41g“—take a look at Vanessa Grigoriadis’s recent interview with His Purpleness for V Magazine. They…
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“He Smells Your Fear”
…beyond any fear is a greater circumambient fear, a terror, that one will be insufficiently able to hold that fear. That if the stimulus is present and ongoing, unchecked, one might fall apart, come to pieces, in her faculties disintegrate. Writer…
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William Vollmann: Respected Author and…Terrorism Suspect?
William Vollmann is the author of dozens of novels, short stories, essays, and articles, and the recipient of a multitude of nominations, grants, and prizes, including the National Book Award. He is also, according to a piece he wrote for…
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Junot Díaz on the Writing Life
…nothing calls for the paper shredder like a story that the writer clearly hasn’t sat on. A story that hasn’t been rewritten, or rewritten enough. So many writers that I encounter send their work in so soon. It shows, it…
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It Was a Stressful, Neurotic Ordeal to Burn
How did Rumpus contributor and noted word lover Michele Filgate become that notorious enemy of teachers, librarians, and all right-minded free-thinkers: a book burner? Well, you’ll have to read her whole explanation. But to give you a hint, it involves the following…
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Bradley Manning Receives 35-Year Prison Sentence
Bradley Manning, the whistleblower who leaked military documents to WikiLeaks, has been sentenced to 35 years in prison. As the Atlantic points out, this sentence “far exceeds any punishments related to the misconduct he revealed.” For example, the Abu Ghraib torturers…
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How Accurate Is Orange Is the New Black?
We’ve blogged a bit about Orange is the New Black from storytelling and feminist angles, but what do real-life women who have been to prison think about the show? According to the women Kat Stoeffel talked to, it’s actually pretty accurate—especially the…
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Dave Eggers Gets Google-y Eyed
Dave Eggers’s upcoming novel The Circle is about a woman whose life takes a turn for the sinister after she starts work at “the world’s most powerful internet company” with its “towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend…
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Bookshelfies: Social Media for Book Nerds
Bookshelves + selfies = bookshelfies! That’s the simple and delightful concept behind the Bookshelfies Tumblr started by our very own Isaac Fitzgerald along with Believer editor Max Fenton. Click through to see people (and dogs and skateboards) posing with their…