Interviews
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Solace in Writing About the End of the World: An Interview with Mike Meginnis
The most beautiful thing I can think of to do with one’s life is to write a novel, even as I feel really ambivalent about the utility of doing it, about the value to myself and to society and to…
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Make the Story Work, and the Politics Will Look After Itself: The Rumpus Interview with Tony Birch
It is easy to be awed by Tony Birch’s prolific body of work—his dynamic career ranging from firefighter to professor—his deep love of family and heritage, and his humility. He is a historian and climate change activist who outwardly observes…
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I Write to Make Myself Unrecognized: A Conversation with Shangyang Fang
In Buddhism, there is always an expression on this and that, and the yes and no of this and that. For example, the other side of the river is a metaphor of death, in contrast to this life, this side.…
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The Community Aspect of Poetry: A Conversation with H. Melt
I think poetry lends itself to community and getting to know people intimately. Poetry requires vulnerability.
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Reading Fiction As an Act of Resistance: A Conversation with Azar Nafisi
We need fiction because fiction does not polarize. Fiction is based on understanding over judgment.
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Catalyst Events and a Time for Poetry: An Interview with Charles Flowers
Consider: My coming out story has been told, but coming out is constantly changing and shifting and needs retelling, and each telling has value for a particular audience.
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How Wonderful It Is to Be So Moved: A Conversation with Sarah Krasnostein
The most truthful we can be in a factual genre is to doubt the attainability of fact at all.
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Cigarettes and Wittgenstein: The Rumpus Interview with Sean Thor Conroe
The [novel’s] main question would be, How does a man stuck in resentment and anger at others and the world, who lacks a sense of belonging and sense of his usefulness in the world, find his way out of that?
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Joy in Persistence: Siri Hustvedt on Writing and the Need for Adaptive Grandiosity
Everyone, even the most tell-all writer, withholds something in the interests of protecting herself or others, but my interest in my own stories has always been to use them to illustrate larger stories about the culture . . .
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A Devotee of the Interconnectedness of Time: A Conversation with Ariel Delgado Dixon
“When I teach, my biggest hobby horse is specificity . . . Even boring people are specifically boring.”
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Revelation is Absurd: A Conversation with Adrian Nathan West
…we live in a culture that’s at once euphemistic and profoundly hyperbolic, where people try as hard as possible to not actually be saying anything so that they can never be accused of holding any position. Whereas it’s important to…
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The Woman in My Head: A Conversation with Emily Maloney
There’s a lot of rules or feelings about how writing a book should be, but very little of that actually corresponds with reality.