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The First Book

22 posts

The First Book column is an interview series where writers discuss the process of publishing their debuts.

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  • The First Book

The First Book: Emily J. Smith

  • Emily J. Smith
  • March 5, 2025
I wanted to explore how all these small indignities pile up for women over time and what an attempt at revenge might look like.
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  • The First Book

The First Book: Sophie Madeline Dess

  • Sophie Madeline Dess
  • February 12, 2025
You will never be satisfied.
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  • The First Book

The First Book: Eduardo Martínez-Leyva

  • Eduardo Martínez-Leyva
  • January 22, 2025
Without realizing it, in those years when I wasn't actively writing, I reflected, processed, grieved, and learned to be kind to myself.
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  • The First Book

The First Book: Karissa Chen

  • Karissa Chen
  • January 8, 2025
Despite the many periods of self-doubt I had, the stretches where I felt I would never write anything good again—I would always eventually return to my desk, because I wouldn’t let myself give up.
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  • The First Book

The First Book: Zahid Rafiq

  • Zahid Rafiq
  • December 18, 2024
There were feelings, images, voices, silences, and there is life, the experience of living. It came from that.
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  • The First Book

The First Book: Holiday Gift Guide

  • The Rumpus
  • November 29, 2024
This holiday season, give a gift of a debut authored book!
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  • Interviews
  • The First Book

The First Book: Del Sandeen

  • Del Sandeen
  • November 20, 2024
I’m writing to the reader who loves characters as much as plot, and who understands that horror encompasses much more than just things that go bump in the night.
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  • The First Book

The First Book: K.E. Semmel

  • K.E. Semmel
  • October 16, 2024
I wasn’t looking for answers, I was looking to tell a good story.
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  • The First Book

The First Book: Santiago Jose Sanchez

  • Santiago Jose Sanchez
  • September 18, 2024
I was repeatedly drawn to the fractures in my life—the gaps between childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and my relationships with sex, my mother, and my motherland.
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  • Rumpus Roots
  • The First Book

The First Book: Melissa Petro

  • Melissa Petro
  • September 11, 2024
In our culture, motherhood is presumably sanctified, and I thought I’d experience social acceptance beyond anything I’d ever imagined. Instead, I felt under constant surveillance and yet utterly invisible....
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  • The First Book

The First Book: Yasmin Zaher

  • Yasmin Zaher
  • August 21, 2024
If I thought too much about audience, or audiences, I think I would encounter too many opposing demands and the writing would end up average.
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  • Interviews
  • The First Book

The First Book: Marcela Fuentes

  • Marcela Fuentes
  • July 10, 2024
I’m writing for anyone who likes a messy, drama-filled story with secrets and hilarious family problems, but also for my Latinx community.
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The Rumpus publishes original fiction, poetry, literary humor writing, comics, essays, book reviews, and interviews with authors and artists of all kinds. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers our readers may already know and love. We want to bring new perspectives into the conversation that will make us all look deeper.

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