A Very Precarious Moment: Talking with Karen Russell
Karen Russell discusses her newest collection, ORANGE WORLD AND OTHER STORIES.
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Posts Tagged: birth
Body Fluids: An Exploration of Motherhood
I think fresh semen smells like aspirin, which is made from a mold that grows on birch trees, which of course are phallic.
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Making a Narrative in the Darkness: A Conversation with Samantha Hunt
Samantha Hunt discusses her new collection, The Dark Dark, why she became a writer, and the freeing quiet of darkness.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #85: Elizabeth Metzger
I have known the poet Elizabeth Metzger since kindergarten—and ever since I have known her, she has been a poet. When we played the The Game of Life, a board game, she wrote small lyrics about the futures we ended the game with; when I had a crush, she wrote light verse about the boys […]
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Mila Jaroniec
Mila Jaroniec talks about her debut novel Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover,” writing autofiction, the surprising similarity between selling sex toys and selling books, and the impact of having a baby on editing.
...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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Hard to Kill
Now everything finally made sense. I had practically died and woken up, resurrected. That’s why everyone was looking at me funny. Like its cousin Death, Near-Death leaves a stench that makes people uncomfortable.
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The Rumpus Review of Bridget Jones’s Baby
Perhaps Bridget fans who watched the movies but never read the books might not find this movie to be such a hard blow… But those who read the books—and those who loved the pilgrim soul in Bridget—will feel the loss more keenly.
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Past the Break
Past the break lies motherhood as I understand it: the rawest life that lifts and falls and crashes against beauty, and the eternal potential for heartbreak.
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The Read Along: Megha Majumdar
Megha Majumdar on Russian spies, child-sized newspapers, and why reading difficult fiction can invigorate, rather than depress.
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The Last Book I Loved: Abbott Awaits
Summer works like this. Every day small moments cycle like waves within tides, eroding our opportunities on a geological scale invisible from our point of immersion.
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This Is Not a Story About a Ghost
This is a story about memory. About neurons misfiring, about the strange space between dream and awake, that feeling, when I’m falling asleep, of falling backwards, swinging my arms up to catch myself.
...moreLost Labor
Certain ways of avoiding a childbirth scene in contemporary fiction have become almost predictable, as clichéd as the clothes scattered on the floor in a movie rated PG-13: the frantic car ride to the hospital, followed by a jump cut to the new baby; or the played-for-laughs episode of the laboring woman screaming at her […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: On Madness and Mad Men
In my eight years as a Mad Men fan, the series has repeatedly prompted me to reflect on parenting.
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The Rumpus Interview with Maggie Nelson
Author Maggie Nelson talks about matrophobia, “sodomitical maternity,” breaking down categories between genres of writing, and her new book, The Argonauts.
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Build-A-Bear
Other kids were just the grab-bag prize their parents were stuck with when they unwrapped it, whereas mine had gone shopping and picked me.
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The Rumpus Interview with Elisa Albert
Elisa Albert discusses her new novel, After Birth, postpartum depression, childbearing, and the misogyny of modern medicine in pathologizing the normal processes of birth and the female body.
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Don’t Dream It’s Over
One of the surest indicators of change on the horizon (per the standard tropes of dream interpretation) is being pregnant in a dream.
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Cynthia Marie Hoffman
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Cynthia Marie Hoffman about her new book, Paper Doll Fetus, twilight sleep, and the importance of giving voice to the voiceless.
...moreOn Giving Birth and Making Sense of it All
Before giving birth to her first child, Hannah Gersen had hoped to find an anthology of birth stories. At The Millions, Gersen writes that Labor Day is just what she was seeking, though she didn’t discover it until after she had given birth. But she found that reading this anthology after giving birth may have been even “more helpful” than it […]
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The Post-Pregnancy Body
Belly: There was extra room there for a while, in case he wanted to come back, I suppose.
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Birth Story
This is the part of the birth story when the woman is supposed to tap into the primal strength of her ancestors, a pool with a hundred thousand years of depth…
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