Columns
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The Messy Life of Jonathan Safran Foer
It’s not easy being a literary star. From the existential crises that comes from fame to the struggle to follow up a critically acclaimed first novel, becoming “a writer” for life involves a lot more than publishing a bestseller. Read Lev Grossman’s…
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What Poets and Writers Want
The staff at Poets & Writers put out a call to writers—“some of our most thoughtful and articulate citizens”—to share their perspectives on important issues for the next US president. Fifty writers weigh in, including Javier Zamora, Mira Ptacin, and Ocean…
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How to Survive as a Villain in Literature
On NPR’s All Things Considered, Petra Mayer offers advice to those who she describes as the “unpunished” villains of literature (O’Brien from Orwell’s 1984, X-Men’s Magneto, Milton’s Satan): win over the audience with your cause and relatable personal faults, and you’ll…
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Celebrating Footwork
When thinking about the importance of house music, the dance that it created—and that inspired the genre’s evolution—is less often discussed. Chicago’s footwork crew The Era is doing what it can to call attention to the significance of its style as…
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The Rumpus Mini-Review of The Lost Arcade
In the past couple of years it has become nearly impossible to avoid a certain genre of New York documentary that can best be described as urban eulogy. But The Lost Arcade, directed by Kurt Vincent and written by Irene…
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Choosing Stories: On Partisanship, the Media, & American Ideology in 2016
What kind of change do I want, and what does fighting for it look like, today?
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“A Hologram of Self”
Kristin Dombek’s The Selfishness of Others: An Essay on the Fear of Narcissism is just out from FSG, and over at n+1 she writes beguilingly, with humor and aplomb, about narcissists as hollow selves who become genius-tricksters at copying and…
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Song of the Day: “Bugs Don’t Buzz”
“I feel like [music] can serve functions that used to be served by things that were religious,” says electronic musician Devon Welsh. Compelling words from one half of the art pop duo Magical Cloudz, whose 2013 record Impersonator communicates a pious respect for the…
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Notable Portland: 8/25–8/31
Thursday 8/25: Poetry is a Beautiful Object presents local readers with the chance to listen to poetry while browsing unique vintage finds. This month’s reading will feature Timmy Straw, Hajara Quinn, Dao Strom, and Nathan Wade Carter. Workshop Vintage, 7…
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How to Write about the Disabled
Do not assume that empathy equals experience. Writing outside your personal experience is always a tricky thing, and writing about disabled people when you yourself are not disabled is an especially difficult thing to do. At Lit Hub, Nicola Griffith has…
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Everything as Disposable
I feel like everything shouldn’t exist. I think the way I manage is that I try to think of everything as disposable. I have no interest in posterity. Chris Randle interviews author and artist Hannah Black for Hazlitt in the…
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The Large Glass by Mario Bellatin
Nina Sparling reviews The Large Glass by Mario Bellatin today in Rumpus Books.