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Essays

176 posts
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  • Voices on Addiction

Voices on Addiction: Want to Believe

  • Shelley Mann Hite
  • April 28, 2023
Tell the Rapture Shelf story!
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

Terra Incognita

  • Alexandra Middleton
  • April 11, 2023
At 30, I am about to bisect the difference in age between my mother and mother’s mother when they gave birth.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

Psychic Cartographies

  • Elda María Román
  • March 28, 2023
I’m trying to develop ways to not be at war.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

From the Archives: The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Bad Blood

  • Edgar Gomez
  • March 21, 2023
To give blood in the United States today is like joining an elite, profoundly uncool, hyper-exclusive club.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original
  • Voices on Addiction

Voices on Addiction: Washed Clean

  • Brad Wetzler
  • March 17, 2023
That’s when I noticed John the Baptist standing chest-high in the middle of the narrow, easy-moving river.
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  • Essays
  • Rumpus Original

Bruce

  • Clinton Crockett Peters
  • March 14, 2023
Perhaps when we recognize the monsters alive in our brains, we’re less likely to kill the shadows cleaning up after us.
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The Last Book I Loved: Took House

  • Kasey Jueds
  • March 7, 2023
Wildness both compels and repels.
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  • Voices on Addiction

Voices on Addiction: The Churn

  • L.L. Kirchner
  • February 24, 2023
Nothing mattered but the churn.
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The Night of Little Big Man

  • Charlotte Gullick
  • February 21, 2023
I was a watcher: Sometimes my father called me a hawk, taking in everything. Most especially him. I knew when he was angry by the clench of his fists and his jaw. When he relaxed at the piano, his shoulders rode lower on his body.
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meyer lemon cut in half
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  • Essays
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The Muralist 

  • Ilana Bean
  • February 14, 2023
The thing about living with my ex’s mural of his own ex about two hundred feet from my apartment was that I loved it.
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An Apparent Lowering of Moral Standards in the Lepidoptera

  • Morgan Thomas
  • February 7, 2023
“Is this sex?” “No.” “Is this sex?” “No.” “How about now?” “Maybe.” “I think so.” “Probably.”
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A pink cowboy hat
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  • Essays
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Stripped: The Novel Didn’t Work

  • Elissa Lash
  • January 17, 2023
The year my baby turned sixteen was the year my novel died.
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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.

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