This Week in Essays
A weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
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Posts Tagged: 9/11
On Collective Trauma and Resilience: Talking with S. Kirk Walsh
S. Kirk Walsh discusses her debut novel, THE ELEPHANT OF BELFAST.
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Nodding to the Unknowable: A Conversation with Theodore Wheeler
Theodore Wheeler discusses his new novel, IN OUR OTHER LIVES.
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Justice by Seeing: Of Color by Jaswinder Bolina
But perhaps it is our want for firm ground that Bolina is challenging.
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A Photographer’s Wife
It’s hard to see what isn’t there.
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Deep Wells: A Conversation with Rebecca McClanahan
Rebecca McClanahan discusses her new memoir-in-essays, IN THE KEY OF NEW YORK CITY.
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Rumpus Exclusive: “Sacred Stories”
All anyone really wants is to be seen and heard, and yet we avoid seeing and hearing others every day.
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That Little Bit of Magic: A Conversation with Ramiza Shamoun Koya
Ramiza Shamoun Koya discusses her debut novel, THE ROYAL ABDULS.
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Terror Is a Faggot with Halal Sausages Strapped to His Chest
Dishonesty became a form of protection.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #175: Mira Jacob
“I wanted it to feel like it was done with urgency because it was.”
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Both/And: Republic Café by David Biespiel
How is one to make sense of making catastrophe and making love in the same moment?
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Love, Marriage, and the Bicultural Identity: Talking with Huda Al-Marashi
Huda Al-Marashi discusses her new memoir, FIRST COMES MARRIAGE.
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Khalid Sings and I Wonder Where Home Is in the First Place
Does America like me? Do I like her? What is America actually like?
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What It Is to Be Human: Talking with Ottessa Moshfegh
Ottessa Moshfegh discusses her new novel, MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION.
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Like Juggling Knives: Talking with Rumaan Alam
Rumaan Alam discusses his new novel, That Kind of Mother, the limits of the employer-employee relationship, and the grossness of heterosexual sex.
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Tarfia Faizullah
Tarfia Faizullah discusses her new collection, Registers of Illuminated Villages, mystery stories, the nature of evil, and mourning pages.
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Power and Consent in Brown America
The rules of a more even world might call into question those of us who knew that we deserved better but could not match this knowledge with unambiguous demands.
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The Sleepwalking American Male
Less Brilliant but More Profound: Denis Johnson’s The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
[I]n Johnson’s whole protean oeuvre, more than any pair of books, Jesus’ Son and The Largesse of the Sea Maiden are like binary stars, locked in orbit, distinct but inseparable, each throwing its light upon the other.
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The Story We Have Yet to Tell: Talking with Haroon Moghul
Haroon Moghul discusses How to Be a Muslim: An American Story, his own religious journey, and the blessings that come with being an outsider.
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You Still Got It: Bar-Hopping with Burt Young
Actor and painter Burt Young talks filmmaking, art, and the years he spent living on a sixty-three-foot yacht.
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Lord Willing, and the Creek Don’t Rise
I scrolled through photos of my neighborhood—live oak trees half-buried in churning brown water, white caps licking street signs, the coffee shop, the running trails, all submerged.
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Libraries Are the Real Punk Rock
Maybe I was only in the eighth grade, but I was ready to stand up to anyone who tried to threaten the ideal of intellectual freedom.
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Home Is Here
There is no singular Muslim story, no definitive identity for the entire religion. […] Here, four women discuss what it’s like to be a minority in America in 2017, post-9/11 and post-Trump.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #76: Chris Tusa
Set in post-Katrina New Orleans, Chris Tusa’s second novel, In the City of Falling Stars (Livingston Press, September 2016), tells a tale of paranoia and intrigue. Maurice Delahoussaye witnesses dead birds falling from the sky, and becomes convinced the air is toxic. With equal parts humor and depravity, the novel chronicles a fractured family amidst a […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Erik Kennedy
Poet Erik Kennedy discusses literary community and his formative years as a young writer in New Jersey, and shares two new prose poems.
...moreThis Week in Books: I Brake for Moose and Other Stories
Welcome to This Week in Books, where we highlight books just released by small and independent presses. Books have always been a symbol for and means of spreading knowledge and wisdom, and they are an important part of our toolkit in fighting for social justice. If we’re going to move our national narrative away from […]
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Micah Perks
Micah Perks talks about her new novel, What Becomes Us, America’s cultural and mythical heritage, and why every novel is a political novel.
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The Rumpus Interview with Imbolo Mbue
Imbolo Mbue discusses her debut novel Behold the Dreamers, teaching herself how to write a novel, and the price of the American Dream.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Walk On
As writers, we must write it out. Tear off the veils and air the rotting fruits.
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