Interviews
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The Rumpus Interview with Rachel Kushner
Rachel Kushner’s The Flamethrowers is full of energy. It is about people carving out their own worldviews into the established façade of the world. The artists in New York and the protesters in Italy are moving toward something different—something, if…
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The Rumpus Interview with James Vance
We talk to James Vance about the Great Depression, creeping pessimism, and the challenges of exploring these subjects in comics form in his new graphic novel On the Ropes.
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The Rumpus Interview with Thao Nguyen
“I wanted to try to be a real live person, rather than just singing songs about them,” singer-songwriter Thao Nguyen said about the turn her life took after releasing Know Better Learn Faster, her second album with backing band The…
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The Rumpus Interview with Curtis Sittenfeld
Reading Curtis Sittenfeld’s carefully-observed novels, we get the impression that family is the most common form of natural disaster.
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The Rumpus Interview with Jodi Angel
Jodi Angel talks about her new collection of short stories, You Only Get Letters From Jail, defining driving experiences, and the vulnerable sexuality of teenage boys.
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The Rumpus Interview with Frank H. Wu
Frank H. Wu, the Chancellor and Dean of UC Hastings College of the Law, talks about writing, race, assimilation, his hometown of Detroit, and the similarities between the Vincent Chin and Trayvon Martin cases.
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The Rumpus Interview with Roy Kesey
Roy Kesey’s most recent book, Any Deadly Thing, is a collection of stories as adventurous, playful, and strange, as it is profoundly moving and insightful.
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The Rumpus Interview with Peter Squires
Peter Squires describes playing in bands as his “favorite social activity,” and by that standard he is a very social fellow.
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The Rumpus Interview with John Brandon
My favorite thing about John Brandon’s writing are his sentences. They take weird left turns and are compelling for reasons you can’t quite name.
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The Rumpus Interview with Dessa
There are some important strands of humanity that I think do unite us, and I think stories are a powerful way of showcasing those universals or those commonalities.
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The Rumpus Interview with Pam Houston
Pam Houston discusses the art of travel, breaking down the barriers between fiction and memoir, biking across Canada, and continuing to write on the road—even after being bitten by a possibly-rabid dog while camping in the Gobi Desert.
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The Rumpus Interview with Jessica Mason Pieklo and Robin Marty
Writers and activists Jessica Mason Pieklo and Robin Marty discuss their book, Crow After Roe, “the ever-roiling storm that is the American clash over abortion rights.”