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The Extraordinary Ladies In My Life
Disaster has always been my most loyal muse. Whenever I glued my hands together as a child; I took to my diary. Whenever the dog I’m dog-sitting jumps out of the car I’m driving (it only happened once, and it was OK); I blog. Through bad dates, bad years, job fails, grocery-store disasters and the…
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The Rumpus Interview with Peter Orner
Writer and Rumpus columnist Peter Orner chats about compression in his work, the reappearance of characters, self-deception, and the stories we hold close.
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Icefalls
It seemed like nature might be offering up something fraught with emotion, a beautiful image that a writer could imbue with heartbreaking symbolism. But I couldn’t come up with anything. It was just fall, and so the leaves were red.
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Albums of Our Lives: Moxy Früvous’s Bargainville
What did I turn to when I needed to channel my frustration with this corporatized Republican state against which I could only kick my small angry feet? The music of Gen-Xers from another country.
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The Saturday Rumpus Interview: Matthew Specktor
Matthew Specktor spent the better part of a year writing one of the most captivating novels about Los Angeles that I’ve read. I know I’m not alone in this assessment.
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The Rumpus Interview with Mark O’Connell
Mark O’Connell, author of the first original e-book from The Millions, talks about why he is interested in and troubled by what he calls this “frictionless sharing and flattening of affect,” particularly when it comes to what Internet inside jokes have nicknamed Epic Fails.
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The Rumpus Interview with Kate Durbin
Kate Durbin’s poetry and performance art focus on female archetypes like princesses, witches, and pop stars. She dives into the cesspools of modern culture without shame, resurfacing to present us with glittering treasures from the depths.
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How to Tell a True Story
Ten years after, I sit in a psychiatrist’s office on the Upper East Side. This is my second time here. The first time, when I first met Dr. J, he asked me about my dreams: “Do you have any nightmares?”
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The Last Book of Poetry I Loved: L.A. Liminal
The week I decided to move to Los Angeles, I read a book of poetry by a woman who had lived there for four years, hated it, left it for New York, and couldn’t stop writing poems about it. It seemed fitting. Except Becca Klaver came “back East,” leaving Los Angeles, whereas I’m about to…
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Where I Write #11: A Table Meant For Dining
There is a corkboard here. On it, there is a paper doll of L., a friend from my grad school days. The doll features a pixie haircut, a polka-dot blouse, a pair of men’s pants.
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Ray Shea: The Last Book I Loved, The Sound of Building Coffins
When I first bought The Sound of Building Coffins, by Louis Maistros, I was already in the middle of another book. My girlfriend Linda was visiting me in New Orleans. Her semester at the University of Michigan had just ended, so she had a rare week where she could read for pleasure, and I told…
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The Rumpus Book Club, Where I Live #8: Kim Locke
My name is Kim Locke and I live in the suburban commuter metropolis of Brampton, Ontario, Canada.