Features & Reviews
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The Scent of Man: Cameron MacKenzie’s River Weather
That I find these characters sympathetic, that I wish them whole while assuming they will never be: This is the beauty and frustration MacKenzie has so elegantly combined. It is easy to hate these men, but I have loved them.
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Doomscrolling in Novel Form: A Conversation with John Elizabeth Stintzi
You’ll really love this book if you have the opinion that reality is weird. And if you think, like me, that the fact that so many people believe that there’s even a steady thing that we could call reality is…
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What to Read When You Want to Be a Patch of Moss
There is pleasure in being seen and there is pleasure in disappearing. Wade in to the swamp, pull out a book, wipe off the slime and sit on the edge to become invisible.
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“Yes” as Signature and Grounding: Hannah Emerson’s The Kissing of Kissing
In this experience of oneness . . . Emerson invites comparisons to mystic poets. And like them, Emerson breaks from her singular experience to take on some of life’s biggest questions: What does it mean to be human? Why do…
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Witches, Mushrooms, Collective Voices, and Catalan: A Conversation with Irene Solà and Mara Faye Lethem
Remember the little green dolls in Toy Story that live in a vending machine, the claw is their god and they go “The Claw!” and cower away? I imagined the mushrooms in the same way, except their claw is the…
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A Guidebook for Liminal Times: Martin Shaw’s Smoke Hole
These are liminal times. You must have this book at your side.
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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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From the Archive: Sketch Book Reviews: Girlhood by Melissa Febos
An illustrated review of Melissa Febos’s new essay collection, GIRLHOOD!
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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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To Become A Kind Person Who Also Writes Books: Body Work by Melissa Febos
The ethics of Body Work are not necessarily that we writers and lovers must achieve perfect consistency between our behaviors (shopping at Sephora) and our politics (beauty standards are harmful), or between our desires (to be rewarded, both intangibly and…
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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.…
