adolescence
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The Eager
We were then young girls and our want was written on our skins. Between our legs and along our necks and wrists, our skin craved friction and more friction.
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Merit Badges and Adolescent Angst
Over at the Oxford American, Rosecrans Baldwin treats us to a piece on America’s Boy Scouts. Also, adolescent angst: Any cool kids in my town whose parents enrolled them in Cub Scouts were gone by the time we were old enough…
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The Prophecy
There was the butterfly knife. The idea of it, not the thing in reality—sleek, wicked-edged, the same kind of knife you once asked to borrow because you were walking home alone and you wanted to be the most dangerous thing…
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The Last Book I Loved: nineties by Lucy Ives
Our parents showed up to retrieve us. They wanted to know why we would do such a thing. My friend and I looked at each other and just shrugged our shoulders.
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I Was a Teenage Arsonist
My school was on fire. It was exhilarating. Fire trucks were whipping their sirens around, and my whole high school was out on the football field, chattering excitedly, whispering in little groups, because we were missing class, and oh my…
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Carmen Giménez Smith
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Carmen Giménez Smith about her poetry collection Goodbye, Flicker.
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Never Look Away
“Who will protect us in this town, I think. There are skinheads and KKK people and bullies. There are dogs that run snarling to the edge of their yards when you walk home and stare too long at them. There…
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My Little Brother Ruined My Life
“Are you a masochist?” It’s the first thing Bosco asks me. He’s fourteen years old now, almost my height, 5′ 8″, creamy white skin, and a small, German nose from my stepmother’s side of the family.
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Down from Cascom Mountain
Ann Joslin Williams’ first novel, Down from Cascom Mountain, follows troubled young people in an idyllic lodge in New Hampshire for one summer.
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Teenagers from Mars
Peter Bognanni’s first novel mixes punk rock and the wild creativity of Buckminster Fuller into a tender and believable chronicle of teen sorrow.
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Diary of a Young Survivor
A playwright’s first novel takes on adolescence and grief in a post-9/11 world
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The Rumpus Original Combo: Colson Whitehead
A review of Sag Harbor, followed by an interview with Colson Whitehead—or, as we like to call this literary twofer: The Rumpus Original Combo.