The Sunday Rumpus Essay: The Kickback
After being assaulted, Jessie Rothwell starts taking self-defense classes and enters a new relationship, gaining both physical and sexual power.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Reading Don Quijote with My Mother
“That’s the anthem I would have sung at my original graduation if the university had stayed open,” my mother said.
Aspects of Travel
I refuse to be resolvable. I wait. I wait for confusion to become a resting place for resolution to become a moving organism, an evolution foretold by my body.
The Rumpus Interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen
Author Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses his debut novel, The Sympathizer, new ways of looking at the Vietnam War, and how to blend important ideas with entertainment.
Albums of Our Lives: Matt Jones’s The Deep Enders
Matt Jones writes haunting songs. February songs. Songs that get under my skin and seep into my short stories. Songs that remind me of the rust belt and the south...
Paper Trumpets #23: Covering Covers
Sometimes you just come across magazine covers that look like finished pieces of art.
The Rumpus Interview with Jami Attenberg
Author Jami Attenberg discusses her new novel, Saint Mazie, how to write about fun, guilt-free sex, and the secret to writing productively.
The Rumpus Interview with Marge Piercy
Dara Barnat talks with Marge Piercy about growing up in Detroit, making a kind of Judaism through poetry, and living close to the natural world.
How to Make More Room
Nowadays I am amazed by my former self’s blend of optimism and delusion. I wonder how I got the idea that kindergarten was some magical threshold where children and parents smoothly separate.
Dispatch from the Carnival #4: Taking in the Sword
What is this body if you take its power over you away? In the torture arts, you are both the creator and recipient of your pain.
Conversations with Literary Ex-Cons: Jack Gantos
Jack Gantos discusses the sense of “delusional invincibility” he had in 1970s New York that led him to prison—and then on to a career as an award-winning children’s book author.
The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Jillian Lauren
Karen Halvorsen Schreck talks with Jillian Lauren, author of the new memoir Everything You Ever Wanted, about adoption, identity, and how to create new models for heroism and the family.