Columns
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Night
With these young women, I no longer slip in and out of places undetected. With them, my cloak of invisibility—my only known superpower—has been removed.
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Woman’s Best Friend
At The Establishment, Laura Bogart writes a heartwarming ode to her the special type of love that exists only between human and canine—the kind of love she says she’s always been searching for: Together, we built a life from endless…
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Stranger Than Fiction
I read the Assistant Warden’s e-mail four or five times, but I still could not grasp its implications. All I could think about was the ten copies of Toni Morrison’s Beloved I had just bought. For Lit Hub, Mikita Brottman…
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FKA twigs at Pitchfork Music Festival
Although the performance was over a month ago, a gorgeous video of FKA twigs’s set at the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago was recently released online. The artist has not performed much beyond the festival circuit this summer, meaning if you, like us,…
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This Week in Short Fiction
For a story in a different medium this week, check out Amber Sparks’s “Thirteen Ways to Destroy a Painting” from this year’s The Unfinished World—adapted to a radio play. It’s brought to your ears by NPR’s truly excellent storytelling podcast Snap Judgment…
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Rumpus Original Fiction: State Facts for the New Age
“I’m a shock absorber for tragedy,” I say, not really knowing what I mean. “Maybe I should just move to Hawaii. I hear that’s a happy place to live.”
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Stay Classy
At The New Republic, Malcolm Harris reviews Nicholson Baker’s nonfiction book about his stint as a substitute teacher in Maine: Maintaining classroom discipline is not high on his list of priorities, and Baker is surprised at the level of control…
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Don’t Miss DARK NIGHTS, BRIGHT WORDS!
Our BKBF Bookend Event, Dark Nights, Bright Words, is now only two weeks away! If you haven’t purchased your ticket, today is the day! With readings by: Molly Crabapple, Stephanie Danler, Eliah Eason, Yahdon Israel, Morgan Jerkins, and Matthew Yeager! Music, mingling, and dancing…
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Notable Chicago: 9/2–9/8
Sunday 9/4: As always, the Uptown Poetry slam is going down at The Green Mill. Open mic starts at 7 p.m. followed by the slam itself. $7, 21+. Tuesday 9/6: Head to Quenchers Saloon for Wit Rabbit 58! Readers include…
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Handling Rejection from the Other Side
I never heard editors talk about how disturbed and insecure writers might become as a result of relentless rejection, living every day with what James Salter called “the feeling of injustice.” It was more fun for editors to characterize their…
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HORN! REVIEWS: Why the Olympics Aren’t Good for Us, and How They Can Be
…like any great idea, it has the potential to be more boon than burden…
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In the Air Tonight
Over at Guernica, Jennifer Baum explores the poetics and the politics of soot, interweaving stories of her childhood growing up in a deeply polluted New York with a timeline of environmental laws and stats: The flakes of black soot, which…