Chicago
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Boyz n the Hood, Chi-Raq, and America 2016
And while the faces and nomenclature between these historically discrete agents of change differ, the one governing commonality remains the same: unfettered gun ownership and correlative violence play a pivotal role.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: What’s in a Name? A Tale of Two Alis and Three Muhammads
Few things are as important to me as my name.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Cole Lavalais
Cole Lavalais discusses her debut novel, Summer of the Cicadas, why she’s a huge fan of outlining, and the importance of dedicated communities for black writers.
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Keep Kids Learning, All Summer Long
Chicago libraries have an ambitious plan to give away more than a million children’s books this summer in an effort to combat intellectual regression that occurs in summer months when children aren’t in school. Every branch of the Chicago library…
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Unstaged Violence
Aimee Levitt has written a harrowing investigative exposè of Darrell Cox’s decades of abuse at Profiles Theatre in Chicago. Actors in the Chicago theatre community are raising awareness of the resources performers have to fight harassment.
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Harlem Is Nowhere
A new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago takes visitors through the collaborative efforts of writer Ralph Ellison and photographer Gordon Parks: In some ways, their collaboration is akin to a great songwriting duo… One handles the music, the…
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This Week in Indie Bookstores
Dan Dalton over at BuzzFeed sleeps in the Airbnb bookshop. Britain’s Waterstones is giving up on ebooks and outsourcing digital titles to the Japanese service Kobo. A store in Mumbai Central Station in India has been going strong for more…
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Through the Vitrine
It has been fifteen years, but I can still remember every moment of that year. It is cased in a vitrine, and the things I see through the wavy plexiglass are indistinct and as odd as that car going the…
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The Rumpus Interview with Kim Brooks
Kim Brooks discusses her debut novel, The Houseguest, her approach to character and historical narrative, and the value of engaging readers with larger social issues through literature.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Used to Be Schwartz
When I told my friend Aharon that my family name used to be Schwartz, he said, “Used to be Schwartz—sounds like a Borscht Belt act.”
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The Conversation: José Olivarez and Nate Marshall
There are so many spaces in this country where I feel unsafe particularly because of my body.
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Gotta Go Gotta Flow by Patricia Smith and Michael Abramson
Alicia Swiz reviews Gotta Go Gotta Flow by Patricia Smith and Michael Abramson.