Wanted/Needed/Loved: Grey Gersten’s Musical Keepsake
A friend of my parents, who was the girlfriend of a roadie for the Grateful Dead, gave me this hologram skull and roses bolo tie when I was around five years old.
Rumpus Original
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The Election and the Ash Borer
Does it matter what words a sign says when a symbol says so much more? A white X. A carved swastika. Things get torn down from less.
Conversations with Writers Braver Than Me: Jessica Berger Gross
Jessica Berger Gross discusses her new memoir, Estranged: Leaving Family and Finding Home, walking away from her parents age of twenty-eight, and the importance of boundaries.
The Hawk in Me
I continue to adapt. I do all of this because I cannot run away, not really. There is nowhere to go. The hawk is the thing within me.
Rumpus Original Fiction: Grace
After the anger came a deep, resigned sadness, as if her cruise were canceled at the last minute. She’s stuck on the shore of her life, watching everyone she loves sail into the distance.
Finding Comfort in the Discomfort: Talking with Juan Martinez
Juan Martinez discusses his debut collection Best Worst American, his relationship to the English language, and why Nabokov ruined his writing for years.
What to Read When You Are a Girl in This Garbage-Fire World
Our voices are our weapons, and in these books, young women speak, shout, and scream the truths that you are not alone, you are not forgotten, and you are not done fighting.
A Specific Kind of Loneliness: In Conversation with Geeta Kothari
Geeta Kothari discusses her debut collection, American xenophobia, and the immigrant narrative.
#SuicideGirls: Why I Teach Sylvia Plath
But let’s not forget: feminism is, at least in part, about choice, and portions of life are play, not politics. Play and relationships and creativity and whatever we want.
TORCH: My Father’s Mansion
I love the United States, too. Like a house I was raised in, though, I know it up close and can spot its many fissures.
Rumpus Original Poetry: “Mewl” by Sarah Lyn Rogers
Still, something tells me God’s chosen // weren’t hate-mongering gropers (or worse). Just a hunch. A woman’s / intuition.
Language Is All Convention: Talking with Elif Batuman
Elif Batuman discusses her new novel The Idiot, what it means to be a writer, and the artifice of language.