Are You a Trans Ally?
Often well-intentioned cis folks like myself feel kind of overwhelmed by all there is to know and, not wanting to sound ignorant or hurtful, just kind of keep to the…
Albums of Our Lives: The Mountain Goats’s The Sunset Tree
I knew if I could make it out of town, make it to college, I would survive. But I wasn't sure I would.
The Sunday Rumpus Essay: The Story of My Fear Over Time
A boy dies at exactly my age, one month past ten years old. We share a birthday, same day, same year.
The Ways We Speak
We suffer, after all, not because of the ways we speak, but because of the ways we exclude ourselves with internalized external narratives about how different we feel from others.
Seven Almonds
The first thing my parents bought when they earned money in America was a giant bag of almonds as a talisman for success.
The Rumpus Interview with David Shields and Caleb Powell
Writers David Shields and Caleb Powell can't stop fighting, even about their new book-length argument and forthcoming film, I Think You're Totally Wrong.
The Loneliest Whale In The Ocean
Somewhere in the Pacific ocean, a whale of unprecedented size is swimming around and calling out to other whales, with no response. This is the “52 Blue” whale, subject of…
Missed Connection: White Teeth
Scenario: you are on the train, you are sitting across from a man in a baseball cap reading, say, White Teeth, and in a matter of seconds you’ve visualized an…
The Last Laugh
Memoirist (and former editor-at-large of McSweeney’s) Sean Wilsey talks to The Atlantic about his essay collection, More Curious, and why humor writing resonates: I think there’s something dishonest about writing that isn’t funny. I can’t engage…
Rereading James Baldwin
Teju Cole has a long, staggeringly (good, sharp, dynamic, crushing) essay in The New Yorker about rereading James Baldwin’s Stranger In The Village: American racism has many moving parts, and has had…
Working in A Public Space (of sorts)
The CLMP blog interviews the staff of literary magazine, A Public Space, for a nice, succinct take on what it’s like to be a contemporary lit editor. Contains: public confusion on the term…
The Bookstores Will Survive
A bright spot in the midst of all the back-and-forth in the Amazon battle—Kate Brittain, at The Morning News, writes about the state of independent bookstores: I began my search in a…