Rumpus Original
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FUNNY WOMEN #34: An Evolution of Dear John Letters
My ten-year-old self: Dear John, Sorry but I can not be your girlfriend anymore because my Dad says that I am not supposed to date until I am 16.
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The Cleverest Man in the World
Donald Sturrock’s biography of Roald Dahl bridges the gap between the literary impresario and the troubled man.
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RECESSION SEX WORKERS #11: Angela Eve’s Bohemian Hustle
Angela Eve and I work together at a topless joint on Bourbon Street. We spoke in the locker room while she brushed her hair and I applied gloppy eyelash glue. Angela Eve’s the hardest working stripper at Rick’s. She lures…
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This Fantasy Is Most Disturbing
In Brock Clarke’s Exley, a boy tries to reunite with his father, and to sort out the difference between fact and fiction.
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Lorrie Moore at The New Yorker Festival
Notes I took on what Lorrie Moore said while in conversation with Deborah Treisman, The New Yorker‘s fiction editor, that I felt selfish keeping to myself: How to become a writer: -You can’t carve solitude out of loneliness–you need people…
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The Rumpus One-Off Book Club Interviews Jonathan Franzen
The Rumpus (One-Off) Book Club talks with Jonathan Franzen about Freedom, what’s on his nightstand to read next, how he learned to like Republicans, and his aversion to research. This is an edited transcript of the book club discussion. Every month…
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C
The hero of Tom McCarthy’s new novel moves through a broken world in which technology is both a wonder and a threat.
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On Blowing My Load: Thoughts from Inside the MFA Ponzi Scheme
“Everywhere I go, I’m asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” – Flannery O’Connor
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Why I Chose Elizabeth Alexander’s Crave Radiance for The Rumpus Poetry Book Club
Rumpus Poetry Editor Brian Spears on why he chose Elizabeth Alexander’s Crave Radiance as the third selection of the Rumpus Poetry Book Club.
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The Man Who Guarded the Bomb
Gregory Orfalea’s collection of linked stories demonstrates that conventions are there for a reason—and it’s often harder to follow the rules than to break them.