Posts by author
The Rumpus
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Pitching from A to Z
The second installment of Nicole Dieker’s series on life as a full-time freelance writer is up at The Billfold, and this time she’s talking about pitching essays (and getting paid for them). The post includes useful tips on how to pitch,…
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Slow Down, Speed Reading Enthusiasts
Last week, we talked about the new speed reading app Spritz, which promises to have us reading faster than we ever thought possible. As it turns out, it may not be possible after all—or so argues this article up at…
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It’s All Context
The Internet offers us near-limitless amounts of information, often for free, at the touch of our fingertips. But it’s also a tool, and like all tools, is subject to the ways in which it is (or isn’t) put to use. Rumpus…
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Weekly Rumpus Fiction: Valerie Geary
The next Weekly Rumpus features flash fiction from Valerie Geary. Here’s an excerpt: We left our mark in a square of wet cement outside your garage. Your parents were putting in a new step after the old one cracked during…
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The Academic Writing Debate
At the end of last month, Nicholas Kristof published a piece in the New York Times calling for academics to come out from their insular bubble and participate in the mainstream conversation—especially with respect to writing. Joshua Rothman responded in the New Yorker that academic writing…
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“The reality of the page and the reality outside it”
Think about the books you’ve come back to again and again. Now, think about how many of those were reread during your childhood and teenage years. Come to think of it, when was the last time you had time to…
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How Women Write About Sex
Do women have more trouble writing about sex than men? Claire Dederer, writing in the Atlantic, thinks so. As a writer, I find myself compelled to reconcile the blithe sexual picaresque of my youth with the contrasting Sturm und Drang in…
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Tell Me a Story
Over at The Millions, Sam Allingham writes about his longstanding love of books on tape (or in modern parlance, audiobooks). At its best, the book on tape leads the listener into a kind of reverie. By shifting the locus of…
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You’ve Got (Chain) Mail
What do Amish Friendship Bread, poetry and chain letters have in common? Sadie Stein opened her inbox the other day to find an email about a poetry chain, she writes at the Paris Review. Although participating in the chain left…
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“It’s a woman’s world”
Laura van den Berg talks about being weird, her latest collection The Isle of Youth, and writing tough female characters over at Guernica. I think some people are surprised at how violent these women are, in both their action and their…
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What’s the Point of a Ph.D.?
For those of us who have our hearts set on becoming professors, a Ph.D. is a necessary step toward landing a coveted tenure-track position. But if we aren’t planning to spend our lives at the blackboard, is a doctoral degree worth…
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“Great and shadowy and strange was the world”
Take an awe-inspiring five minute journey through your computer screen into H.G. Wells’s imagination. From filmmaker James W. Griffiths and PBS Digital Studios, A Solitary World pits text adapted from five of the legendary writer’s most celebrated works against stunning landscapes.…