addiction
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The Rumpus Interview with Laura van den Berg
Author Laura van den Berg talks to the Rumpus about why she thinks America is obsessed with dystopias, the intersection of surrealism and realism in her work, and choosing an ambiguous ending for her new novel, Find Me.
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The Rumpus Interview with Kenny Porpora
Kenny Porpora discusses his memoir The Autumn Balloon, addiction and alcoholism, writing truthfully about his mother, falling asleep at Burger King with his laptop while drafting, and how he finally found his personal writing style.
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“And She Went on Her Way Rejoicing”
Muriel Spark and the perennial question: “Am I a woman or an intellectual monster?”
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Masked Calling
Over at Vice, Eric Nusbaum chronicles the life of Padre Fray Tormenta, Texcoco’s resident addict turned priest turned interim luchador enmascarado: In theory, a priest wearing a lucha libre mask sounds strange. But in the case of Padre Fray Tormenta,…
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Photos that Remember Us
Mathew Daddona’s father and uncle were adopted into different families. When they reunited with each other and their biological father as adults, they uncovered connections that extend through the generations.
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The Influence of Being Under the Influence
For the Public Domain Review, Richard Millington explores the influence of cocaine on the poetry of Georg Trakl and compares it to the ways other artists’ addictions have shown up in their work.
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Weekend Rumpus Roundup
In “Hunting For The Little Prince,” Sigal Samuel invites us to tag along as she pursues the real-life inspiration for the blonde-haired protagonist of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous children’s book. No spoilers, but this particular missing person search ends happily.…
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Crazy
“We live in a culture where it can seem like everyone wants to be troubled. Nobody wants to be crazy…The story arc of mental illness does not conform to the redemption tale.”
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No One Hears the Wars in Your Head. Except You.
I worked the same way with alcohol and drugs, and my whiskey elves, my beasts, never disappointed. I mean, they didn’t always write the prettiest prose — cocaine isn’t known to instill poetry — but they usually unearthed interesting images…
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Addiction, Alcohol, and Authors
You didn’t ask directly about gender, but I’ll answer anyway: I stuck with men for a more personal reason, which is that my experience as a child was with a female alcoholic and the subject was just too painful for…
