Rumpus Exclusive: An Excerpt from Jessie Chaffee’s Florence in Ecstasy
He is a bird, he and that silver scull, a bird. Would I ever have that grace?
Features & Reviews
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All of the Facts and None of the Truth: Fox Frazier-Foley’s Like Ash in the Air after Something Has Burned
While these women are physically gone, they gain agency after their deaths through Frazier-Foley’s poems.
Blur, Cross, Pulverize, Confront, Remember: Talking with James Allen Hall
James Allen Hall on I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well, unmaking boundaries, and book titles.
What to Read When You Need More Anne Shirley in Your Life
Today, the new series Anne with an E premieres on Netflix. Here's a list of books for times when you need a strong female protagonist like Anne Shirley.
Pressing Back against the Pressure: A Woman of Property by Robyn Schiff
It’s about pressure. The pressure of one being enveloping another being, of one mother hugging her child, of a greater force subsuming and defining a lesser.
The Eternal Hunt for Relevance: Doree Shafrir Discusses Startup
Doree Shafrir discusses her debut novel, Startup, the differences between journalism and fiction, and why she chose to tell this particular story.
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #83: Lauren Grodstein
After writing several books (A Friend of the Family, The Explanation for Everything) from a male point of view, Lauren Grodstein’s new novel, Our Short History, is an intimate glimpse into…
Science Fiction Can Change the World: Borne by Jeff VanderMeer
With Borne VanderMeer presents a parable about modern life, in these shaky days of roughshod industrialism, civilizational collapse, and looming planetary catastrophe.
The Queer Valentine of the Century: Jenny Johnson’s In Full Velvet
In Full Velvet offers the truth of a woman’s life—the queer truth, the queer rose, the queer valentine. And everything is different after that moment of initiation, instantiation.
Where You Put It on the Line: A Conversation with Mychal Denzel Smith
Mychal Denzel Smith discusses his debut nonfiction book Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching, how the activist space has changed in recent years, and who he is writing for.
The Otherworldly Intrigue of Daisy Johnson’s Fen
As a reader, the world of Fen won’t leave you. That is Johnson’s power as a writer—she creates a dark, self-aware world that feels heavy and gray and covered in mist.