A Kind of Common Madness: A Conversation with Liz Harmer
Two huge things happened to me when I was quite young: I went mad, and I fell in love, in relatively swift succession.
Rumpus Original
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Finding Freedom in the Absurd: Jesse Ball’s Autoportrait
From Ball’s absurdist perspective, leaning into the world’s inherent purposelessness isn’t about embracing mortality. It’s about embracing complete obliteration.
From the Archives: Rumpus Original Fiction: Emergency Lifeboats: 24 (12 on Each Side)
“What’s a six-letter word for ignoring truth,” she might say, without looking up from the puzzle.
A Conversation with Daisuke Shen and Vi Khi Nao About their Collaborative Novella, Funeral
Writing started feeling interesting again, like it was worth it after all, and not just a boring thing that ate ham sandwiches on white bread for every meal and whose favorite book from last year was [Redacted] by [Famous author], which remained on the NYT Bestsellers List for what felt like forever.
Inventing the Form of Yourself: A conversation with Maggie Millner
I have great affection for writers who come into their queerness after they’ve already written books . . .
ENOUGH: Three Poems
"Not all Men" / Except for the one that followed / Me down every Publix aisle, / To the bakery, to the register, / & waited for me in the lot.
Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Janan Alexandra
2. In literary Arabic, kaph is used as a prefix to mean like or as or as though / 3. If kaph is a hand that means like or as or as though, then kaph is a simile / 4. Simile is a hand touching two places at once, a hand bringing together / two far away things, making a transfer (metaphor)
Another Oracle: Lynn Xu’s Those Ashen Heaps That Cantilevered Vase of Light
Almost ten years have passed since Lynn Xu’s debut, the luminous Debts & Lessons, introduced us to her oracle. “Let it not be for what you write, the world /…
Connecting Our Past to Our Present: An Interview With Jamila Minnicks
Within true community, we can experience our deepest vulnerabilities because we know that we are safe to fail, encouraged to thrive, and needed to be part of something greater than our little selves.
Balancing the Heart and Mind: Ryan Lee Wong’s Which Side Are You On
Which Side Are You On is a novel both of the heart and the mind: one that makes you think and question your perception of the world and your place in it, and feel deeply and fervently about what matters to you.