Essays
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The Real Reason We’re Shocked About Paula Deen
When the transcript of Food Network host Paula Deen’s trial for workplace harassment was leaked, the reaction was nearly universal: “Hoo boy, is that woman unbelievably racist!” Or was there something else that bothered us about Deen’s behavior? In an…
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Celebrating the Essay
The topic of essayism—one especially relevant to the Rumpus—is granted the meticulous attention it deserves in this opinion piece Christy Wampole wrote for the New York Times. Wampole artfully weaves the essay’s deep history through a narrative about the development…
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Step Aside, Dashiell Hammett
If you like your detectives hardboiled and your femmes fatale, you’ll dig Flavorwire’s list of ten essential neo-noir authors. From Dennis Lehane (author of Shutter Island and Mystic River) to Lindsay Hunter (the heir apparent to Mary Gaitskill’s throne), these writers…
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“so I took a deep breath and I jumped”
Roxane Gay isn’t just for adults. Rookie Mag’s online issue, currently themed “Age of Innocence,” just posted the new(ish — the original was published in Prairie Schooner) beautiful story on teenage love and two different “first” times. So far the…
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Boston Marathon Roundup
If you’re looking for a token of solace after the Boston marathon bombings, please check out Roxane Gay’s words if you haven’t already. And Thomas Page McBee reflects on ways to help when feeling helpless. At the Guardian, Rumpus columnist Steve…
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Stunned Silence
What wearies me is how often I have found myself stunned and silent in recent years. What especially wearies me is having such a finely honed vocabulary for tragedy.
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The Rumpus Interview with Elizabeth Scarboro and Lidia Yuknavitch
Both Yuknavitch and Scarboro, whose books echo each other in interesting ways, were willing to talk with me about this question of what to do with memoir, and much more.
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The Rumpus Interview with Jim Gavin
Jim Gavin is a talented writer who allows his stories the room they need to be told. These are stories that are intelligent and quiet and moving, stories that take up time and space in satisfying ways.
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Lectures I Will Never Give
My take on it is, we should be suspicious of everything that IS called a masterpiece.
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Rumpus Women Should Be Writing for Harper’s!
The disparity of women writers in the publishing world has been an increasingly hot topic of late. Flavorwire has compiled a list entitled “10 Women Who Should be Writing for ‘Harper’s,” and we’re excited that three of the women are our…
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What It Was Like at AWP
If you weren’t lucky enough to make it to AWP this year, never fear. Rumpus essays editor Roxane Gay has a summary of her time in Boston that will make you feel like you were really there. A preview: This…
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Roxane Gay on Selected Shorts
Rumpus essays editor Roxane Gay has a short story up on WNYC’s Selected Shorts! The episode summary describes it thusly: The heroine of Roxane Gay’s “North Country” is a young woman from Florida adjusting to the harsh winter in Michigan’s Upper…