Our Lady of Perpetual Movement: Analicia Sotelo’s Virgin
These speaker(s) don’t need to offer us explanation.
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Books
Brain Soup and Making Things: A Conversation with Rita Bullwinkel
Rita Bullwinkel discusses her debut story collection, Belly Up, the foolishness of writing, and what went into the making of her first book.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview #141: Tara Isabella Burton
“I want to make a case for the serious, literary legitimacy of the female experience of self-construction.”
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The Torment of Queer Literature
Queer literature isn’t a box to unlock so that it can unlock me.
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Rumpus Exclusive: An Excerpt from Confessions of the Fox
I liked the skeptical way she looked at me. I liked the way the air in the house felt with her in it.
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The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Meghan Flaherty
Meghan Flaherty discusses her debut memoir, Tango Lessons, how the book found its current format, and writing a memoir at a young age.
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A Megaphone for a Generation: Coming of Age at the End of Nature
[T]his generation is no longer sure that the future will be better than the past.
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Moments within Days within Seasons: Talking with Alicia Mountain
Alicia Mountain discusses her debut collection, High Ground Coward, the surveillance state, and queer representation in the poetry world.
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Voices on Addiction: A Review of The Recovering
As recovering addicts, we must love ourselves back to the source, love our shameful bits and decimations and not just our reconciliations and resurrections.
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The Life of the Mind: A Conversation with Elizabeth Scanlon
Elizabeth Scanlon discusses her debut full-length collection, Lonesome Gnosis, brains and trains, and poetry as prayer.
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Blending Out: Oceanic by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Despite its title, Oceanic is much more than a love letter to the ocean.
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Something Truer Than True: Talking with Kelly O’Conner McNees
Kelly O’Connor McNees discusses her new novel, Undiscovered Country, the timeliness of its story, and the genre of historical fiction.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #140: Alicia Kopf
“We need narrative patterns to understand reality.”
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Struggling toward Truth: Porochista Khakpour’s Sick
Khakpour gathers courage, again and again, as she reaches into the most painful parts of her life, excavates them, and holds them up to the light.
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Make Your Choices: A Conversation with Chris Kraus
Chris Kraus discusses her latest book, After Kathy Acker: A Literary Biography, writing about art under patriarchy, politics, and “the truth.”
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This Future Is Here: Talking with Tom McAllister
Tom McAllister discusses his new novel, How to Be Safe, workshops, Twitter, dystopia, and narrative voice.
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The Future of Books Is Female
Support The Second Shelf today!
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What to Read When You’ve Made It Halfway Through 2018
Rumpus editors share forthcoming books they can’t wait to read!
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Taking Control and Staking a Claim: Erin Adair-Hodges’s Let’s All Die Happy
This is lovely writing, alive, thoroughly thought, and thoroughly felt.
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Winning Always Involves Sacrificing: Talking with Dickson Lam
Dickson Lam discusses his debut memoir, Paper Sons, the writing advice that transformed his approach to thee book, and the duty of a memoirist.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #139: Debra Jo Immergut
“If the door doesn’t open, it’s okay to walk away, give your poor head a rest. And try again later.”
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Worth the Chuckles and Tears: Calypso by David Sedaris
Part of the magic of David Sedaris’s work stems from the simple truth that you really can’t laugh heartily until you’re hurting deeply.
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Being Human: A Conversation with Porochista Khakpour
Porochista Khakpour discusses her new memoir, Sick, the difficulty of receiving good medical care, and the blessing of online community.
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Questions of Legacy: Talking with Adrienne Celt
Adrienne Celt discusses her forthcoming novel, Invitation to a Bonfire, how she found its characters’ voices, and what it means to build a legacy.
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What to Read When Beach Weather Arrives
Rumpus editors suggest some of their favorite summertime reads!
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Three Collections in Two Volumes by August Kleinzahler
Be stunned by Kleinzahler’s poetry in the far ports of your body.
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Entertaining and Useful: A Conversation with Aline Kominsky-Crumb
Aline Kominsky-Crumb discusses her graphic memoir, Love That Bunch, drawing cancer, inadequacies of early work, and her burial wishes.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #138: Melissa Broder
“We have what we need inside us already, it’s just a question of uncovering it, of remembering who we are again and again.”
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Lessons from a Life: Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
[T]he effect of reading Chee’s essays is to be reminded of why we write, but also, why we read, even in these times of never-ending distress.
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What Is Vibrant and Hidden: A Conversation with Jenny Boully
Jenny Boully discusses her new book, Betwixt-and-Between: Essays on the Writing Life, construction of voice, occupying liminal spaces, and editing with sincerity.
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