The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Hello
All those prank calls were partly a way of taking control of the unknown, the ambiguity of that space between “hello” and whatever comes next.
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Posts Tagged: adulthood
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #71: Kris D’Agostino
In Kris D’Agostino’s second novel, The Antiques, he returns to familiar forms: A dysfunctional family whose members are in various stages of arrested development; a generational home in upstate New York; and the absurdity of life in its most darkly comedic moments. Here, the three grown (yet hardly mature) children of the Westfall family reunite […]
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Monkey Men
Still lying on the bed in the Wausau hotel room, I started counting ceiling tiles. From above the covers. Not under. Never under. I always feel constricted, under.
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The Commune
Our house, we believed, was a microcosm of that country. Every month, we’d gather at the kitchen table for our house meeting, where we, like politicians, unveiled our big plans for change.
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In a darkly humorous new story at n+1, Jen George questions the qualifications of being “adult,” gives thirty-somethings across the world nightmares, and packs in plenty of social criticism while she’s at it. The story, “Guidance/The Party,” follows a single, childless, career-less, 33-year-old woman who is visited by a mysterious Guide. The Guide has been […]
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Albums of Our Lives: Scissor Sisters’s Night Work
Night Work is a queer sonic fantasia soaked heavy in the 1980s.
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On Playing Games, Productivity, and Right Livelihood
One week last spring I said it out loud for the first time: “Sometimes I play so long, my fingers go numb.”
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The Rumpus Interview with Kristopher Jansma
Kristopher Jansma discusses his second novel, Why We Came to the City, facing adulthood in his thirties, and working through grief and loss in writing.
...moreWhen Does a Writer Grow Up?
The Atlantic examines adulthood and how we get there, including a close look at the life of a writer: Henry published his first book…when he was 31 years old, after 12 years of changing jobs and bouncing back and forth between his parents’ home, living on his own, and crashing with a buddy, who believed in […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Wanting To Dance
It just felt so comfortable to slide back into singing, “She Loves You,” and know for that moment, everything was the same.
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The Rumpus Interview with Neil Smith
Author Neil Smith discusses his latest book, Boo, the suffering inherent in being thirteen years old, and how friendship can help pull us through traumatic events in our lives.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: To Be a Brony
Today, largely by chance, a television show that was created to empower a new generation of young girls has become a beacon of strength for a community of grown men.
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The Last City I Loved: Austin
I was new to Austin and to adulthood, and if adulthood meant dressing up in pencil skirts and suffering, well, I’d pretend that was as glamorous as it looked in old movies. I didn’t care. I loved it. I’d kiss it like the girl in the song kissed ice and dirt.
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The Empty-Nest Yard Sale
Talking to your kid can be as nerve-wracking as going in for a big job interview. And it’s also like interviewing a temperamental actor or rock star—you’re afraid if you ask the wrong thing, they’ll tear off their lapel mic and say, “This interview is over!”
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