Features & Reviews
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“My Worst Mistake? Getting Sick of My Work”
Fiction writer Michelle Wittle got so tired of going over her short story that she just sent the damn thing out, assuming it had no typos. Oops. Of course, this is why you have friends read your stuff just to…
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview with Shya Scanlon
We’re catching up with Shya Scanlon halfway through the serialization of his novel, Forecast, across 42 web journals and blogs. The Rumpus: How is the serialization going? How are people responding to it? Are they following the novel across its…
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Re-Commencement: Notes on an English Professor’s Retirement
My father knew he had a jealous daughter, and I knew he was impervious: the books—and the inner life he cultivated with tremendous discipline—would always win.
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Notable New York, This Week 9/21-9/27
As the New York Bureau Chief, I thought it might be a good idea to round up some notable literary and cultural events going on around New York that I think readers of The Rumpus would be interested in. So,…
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Van Booy Wins Frank O’Connor Award for Short Story Collection
British writer Simon Van Booy has won “the world’s richest short story prize”, the Frank O’Connor award, for his collection Love Begins in Winter. Van Booy, who lives in New York and is also the author of The Secret Lives…
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Reprinting the Public Domain, One Book at a Time
As you may already know, Google has been spending the last seven years scanning their hearts out, digitizing more than two million books that are old enough to be part of the public domain. They turn them into searchable documents,…
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Things to Think About: Publishing Links
The Department of Justice says nay to Google’s proposed Book Search deal. Joni Evans discusses the essential tools of publishing over the decades in The New York Times‘ “When Publishing had Scents and Sounds.” The publishing business might get a…
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The Rumpus Sunday Book Review Supplement
This week, Rumpus books has published reviews of a novel and two short story collections.
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The Surreal Makes You Smarter
Allison Flood at the Guardian has dug up an article from the journal Psychological Science showing that reading surrealism may actually make people smarter. In the study, some subjects were given Kafka’s “A Country Doctor,” and others were given a…
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Thurston Moore’s Audience: A Subjective Account of the Brooklyn Book Festival
September 13, 2009 10:37am – Walking by Book Stands Tao Lin T-shirts were dangling on hangers at the Melville House booth at the Brooklyn Book Festival. The T-shirts said “Tao Lin: 1983- ????” Across from Melville House was the Ugly…
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If Charles Bukowski Wrote Peanuts
For some reason, I’m in Santa Rosa at the moment, and it seems that Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts, was from here. I’ve figured this out because everything is named after him and I can’t go three feet without…
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The Rumpus Sunday Book Blog Roundup
After reviewing the book blogs this week, I’ve decided that if I see the words “Dan Brown” ever again I’m going to punch myself in the eyes with a Da Vinci Code decoder ring. To save you some time, here’s…