Posts by author
Lauren O’Neal
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On Loving the Art of a Problematic Artist
In early 2010, I came within a hair’s breadth of securing a rare interview with Morrissey myself, but he ultimately backed out. It was disappointing, because I had planned…to ask him if there was any valid reason for a black…
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New Fiction Confab on 4/13
Texas readers, this year’s New Fiction Confab in Austin looks completely irresistible. There will be talks with writers like Sam Lipsyte, Susan Steinberg, and Rumpus Book Club author Manuel Gonzales; creative-writing workshops for writers of all ages; and a lit fair…
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No More Room for “Whom”
Via The Millions, an Atlantic blog post on the death of “America’s least favorite pronoun”: the dreaded “whom.” It always feels like society is crumbling when big linguistic changes occur, but as Megan Garber points out, even notorious grammar stickler…
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Sinful Bookmarks and Western Prejudice
What is it like, in post-Tahrir Cairo, to run a bookstore or a publishing house? What is it like to be a reader or a writer? For Poets & Writers, Stephen Morison, Jr., writes about the Egyptian revolution from a literary…
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Supreme Court Gay Marriage Roundup
You may have noticed that all your Facebook friends are now the same person, and that person is a pink equals sign on a red background. That’s because they support same-sex marriage, and the Supreme Court is hearing arguments today…
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Faulkner Goes Postal
Take a look at William Faulkner’s resignation from his postmaster job, which appears at Letters of Note: As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But…
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Happy Baby Shoutout!
A big thank you to Maud Newton for shouting out the Happy Baby movie in the New York Times Magazine. Fun fact from her blurb: “[Stephen] Elliott accidentally sent the chapters out of order to his editor, Dave Eggers, who actually preferred them…
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From “Beef-Witted” to “Zafty”
The lists of obscure vocabulary passed around among word nerds can get kind of repetitive (we all know what “schadenfreude” means by now, thanks very much), but this one from Death and Taxes is great the whole way through. It catalogs “18…
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“We Should Revere Him Better“
A fantastic essay at The New Inquiry inspects the recently deceased Chinua Achebe’s place in the Western literary canon. In an interview a few years ago, Norman Rush was talking about the ways he was influenced by African writers, and he mentioned that “No non-African…
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Can You Tell A Story Without Conflict?
Conflict: a story needs one. It’s advice you hear in every creative-writing class, and a technique you see in every book, movie, and TV show. But what if a plot can move forward and keep the reader’s interest without inter-character…
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
Some Rumpus weekend highlights to brighten up your Monday: Wendy C. Ortiz interviews Eloise Klein Healy—the first poet laureate of Los Angeles and “who I wanted to be when I grew up.”
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Cross-Culture, Cross-Century Cross-Dressing
At the intersection of Eastern and Western culture, male and female, past and present, lies a rich and bewildering confluence of identities. Chan-Hyo Bae explores that nexus in his photography series Existing in Costume, pictures from which are currently featured on Slate‘s…