The Thinking Man’s Filter
Smoking again sounds like a good idea. I quit one November – twelve dry months following five years of intense puffing. The break was insightful, curative even, which was why…
Rumpus Original
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Letters for Kids
Since launching Letters for Kids in July, we’ve sent some wonderful letters through the mail. To give everyone a better sense of what the subscription is all about, we’ve released two…
The Rumpus Interview with Molly Ringwald
Molly Ringwald, once a Brat Pack member and now a novelist, chats about the writing life, avoiding clichéd similes, and the influence of Raymond Carver on her process.
FUNNY WOMEN #92: How to Almost Probably Not Die of Rabies
Probably you will not get rabies if your dog licks your face, and you remember afterwards that the previous morning he may or may not have bitten a shrew.
The Rumpus Interview With M. Bartley Seigel
M. Bartley Seigel has a presence that fills a room. It is no surprise, then, that the prose poems in his debut collection, This Is What They Say, fill the…
Round Trip
Thinking my grandfather was from here deepened my experience of Plovdiv. I felt closer to the city, to the people, and to my own family.
Ted Wilson Reviews the World #163
TUMMIES ★★★★★ (4 out of 5) Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing tummies.
The Rumpus Interview with Thaisa Frank
The place was called the Library Bar, but there weren't many books and there were no drinks at that hour. So we had to sit there bookless and drinkless. It was awkward in a fabulous way. The whole thing felt like a Thaisa Frank story—the event seemed to float above reality as we talked about things like the insanity of writing a book...
Dirty or Clean?
I felt like an arrow of sheer desire, flying through the air in a small town and emblazoned with this unfortunate tag line: “Newly single mother of a dying baby.”
THE WEEK IN GREED #19: The Pressure of the Real
I was in a Starbuck’s in central Connecticut trying to think about the election
The Rumpus Interview with Russ Kick
Russ Kick, editor of The Graphic Canon and certified information hoarder, gives the lowdown on combining classic literature with comics, cruising for dates with Lord Byron, and masturbating fetuses.
Eleven
We don’t know how to talk about children anymore. We get so wrapped up in these shallow narratives about children being preternaturally advanced, about little girls wearing make up and dressing provocatively and seducing the camera, about little girls maturing faster, developing sooner. We forget.