The Rumpus
  • My Account
  • Essays
  • Fiction
  • Poetry
  • Comics
  • Features
    • Interviews
    • The First Book
    • Reviews
    • Themed Months
    • What to Read When
  • Columns
    • Beyond the Page
    • Close Reads
    • Collaborative Criticism
    • ENOUGH
    • Funny Women
    • Parallel Practice
    • Voices on Addiction
    • We Are More
    • Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me
    • Dear Sugar
    • Roxane Gay
    • All Columns
  • Store
  • Prize
  • Rumpus Membership
  • Merch
  • Letters in the Mail
  • Bonfire Merch
  • My Account
Become a MemberDonate
Become a Member Donate
The Rumpus
The Rumpus The Rumpus
  • My Account
  • Essays
  • Fiction
  • Poetry
  • Comics
  • Features
    • Interviews
    • The First Book
    • Reviews
    • Themed Months
    • What to Read When
  • Columns
    • Beyond the Page
    • Close Reads
    • Collaborative Criticism
    • ENOUGH
    • Funny Women
    • Parallel Practice
    • Voices on Addiction
    • We Are More
    • Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me
    • Dear Sugar
    • Roxane Gay
    • All Columns
  • Store
  • Prize
0

Essays

170 posts
Read
  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original
  • Voices on Addiction

Voice On Addiction: Another Thing to Chase

  • Tracy Morin
  • July 22, 2022
She’s still somehow always thirsty . . . At least none of these drinks will kill her, even if the hunt for mood and mind-altering, for distraction, for something out there to help, may follow her to the grave.
Read
Read
  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

Fat Ghost

  • Lu Chekowsky
  • July 19, 2022
Only now can I finally see how this had been our pact all along. We’d decided between us, somewhere along the way, and without any real discussion, that my mother would be the flower and I would be the wax paper.
Read
Read
  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

RUMPUS BOOK CLUB EXCERPT: Wonderlands by Charles Baxter

  • The Rumpus Book Club
  • July 12, 2022
This, I think, is one definition of sanity—the ability to keep things in perspective.
Read
Read
  • Essays
  • Poetry
  • Rumpus Original

The Last Book of Poems I Loved: Louise Glück’s Winter Recipes from the Collective

  • Wendy Willis
  • July 12, 2022
"I was glad at least to have heard it."
Read
Read
  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archive: Rivers of Babylon: The Story of a Third-Trimester Abortion

  • T.S. Mendola
  • July 5, 2022
. . . I desperately, beyond reason, wanted an intact body for burial. I wanted it viscerally, animally, the way your body wakes up in the night looking for a newborn, the way you feel a physical connection to your children even when you cannot see them, the way you want something when everything else has been taken from you. It is the same reason I buried him; I wanted to know where he had gone from me and how.
Read
  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archive: Explicit Violence

  • Lidia Yuknavitch
  • June 28, 2022
Afterward, there was dead silence in the kitchen. I know because I held my breath. Even air molecules seemed to still.
Read
Read
  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

Where You Want to Be

  • Dujie Tahat
  • June 21, 2022
Art is never just art, and whiteness’ vision of the world doesn’t include me in it.
Read
Read
  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archive: What Burns in the Pit

  • Ashley Ford
  • June 14, 2022
“Things can catch fire even when they let each other go. But we don’t give up. We don’t stop loving them.”
Read
Read
  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

At the Playground

  • Lucas Mann
  • June 7, 2022
We say . . .
Read
Read
  • Essays
  • Mental Health Awareness

A Disassembled Room

  • M. D. McIntyre
  • May 31, 2022
It certainly wasn’t part of my grand plan to keep an ashtray full of cigarette butts for eternity.
Read
Read
  • Essays
  • Mental Health Awareness

The Dark Mothers’ Club

  • Val Kiesig
  • May 24, 2022
I know all the hours intimately as any lover, the lucid high of four a.m. as familiar as the adrenaline drunk of noon.
Read
Read
  • Essays
  • Mental Health Awareness

Keep Pedaling

  • Kieran Dahl
  • May 17, 2022
The pain is the point.
Read

Posts pagination

Previous 1 … 9 10 11 12 13 … 15 Next
Become a Member!

BECOME A MONTHLY OR ANNUAL RUMPUS MEMBER AND RECEIVE EXCLUSIVE CONTENT, EDITORIAL INSIGHTS, MERCH DISCOUNTS, AND MORE! OUR GOAL IS TO REACH AT LEAST 600 MEMBERS BY THE END OF 2025 TO COVER OUR BASIC OPERATING COSTS.

Join today!
COMMUNITY SUPPORT KEEPS THE MAGAZINE GOING!

Founded in 2009, The Rumpus is one of the longest-running online literary magazines around. We’ve been independent from the start, which means we’re not connected with any academic institution, wealthy benefactor, or part of a larger publishing company. The vast majority of the magazine’s funding comes from reader support.

In other words, we can’t survive without YOU!

Make a Tax-Deductible Donation
Letters in the mail (from authors)

Receive letters from some of our favorite authors written just for Rumpus readers and sent straight into your (snail) mailbox 2x a month!

sign up now!

Keep in Touch

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.

We believe that literature builds community—and if reading The Rumpus makes you feel more connected, please show your support! Get your Rumpus merch in our online store. Subscribe to receive Letters in the Mail from authors or join us by becoming a monthly or yearly Member.

We support independent bookstores! 10% of sales on any titles purchased through our Bookshop.org page or affiliate links benefits the magazine.

The Rumpus in your Inbox!
The Rumpus
  • Team
  • About & Writers’ Guidelines
  • Advertise
  • TOS and Privacy Policy
© 2025, The Rumpus.

Input your search keywords and press Enter.