A Façade of a Woman: R.O. Kwon’s The Incendiaries
It is incredible to crack open an American novel and wince upon seeing parts of yourself reflected back so strikingly.
...more
Posts Tagged: Christianity
The Torment of Queer Literature
Queer literature isn’t a box to unlock so that it can unlock me.
...more
By Accident and On Purpose: A Conversation with Leesa Cross-Smith
Leesa Cross-Smith discusses her debut novel, Whiskey & Ribbons, what it takes to return to a story after a long time away, and how her faith influences her writing.
...more
Just Doing It: A Conversation with Daniel Ortberg
Mallory Ortberg discusses their new book, The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror, what it means to be a self-taught writer, and questioning gender.
...more
ENOUGH: The Mark Thing
A Rumpus series of work by women and non-binary writers that engages with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
...more
Take the Words “Judeo-Christian” Out of Your Damn Mouth
“Everything about the term is predicated on bad faith. It needs to die.”
...more
A Spirit Born into a Human Body: Talking with Akwaeke Emezi
Akwaeke Emezi discusses her debut novel, Freshwater, her public and private identities, and deciding when to translate culture for readers.
...more
Rivers of Babylon: The Story of a Third-Trimester Abortion
She said something to me, then, that has been a great comfort. “You had a choice,” she said, “but you did not have free will.” A choice that was no choice at all.
...more
Less Brilliant but More Profound: Denis Johnson’s The Largesse of the Sea Maiden
[I]n Johnson’s whole protean oeuvre, more than any pair of books, Jesus’ Son and The Largesse of the Sea Maiden are like binary stars, locked in orbit, distinct but inseparable, each throwing its light upon the other.
...more
Dispatches from the Swamp: The Babble in the Bubble
To the extent that America—that great big word that makes us all so anxious—exists at all, it exists as a vast and noisy sheet of bubble wrap.
...more
The Story We Have Yet to Tell: Talking with Haroon Moghul
Haroon Moghul discusses How to Be a Muslim: An American Story, his own religious journey, and the blessings that come with being an outsider.
...more
Black Ops for Jesus
Ruby knew this story and what it said about Mom’s threshold for domestic abuse, perhaps better than anyone else since her driveway was practically adjoined to our own. She called anyway.
...moreThis Week in Independent Bookstores
Indie bookstore news from across the country and around the world!
...more
In a Quicksand of Language: A Conversation with Krys Lee
Krys Lee discusses her debut novel, How I Became a North Korean, having empathy for people and characters, and finding the balance between real-world facts and imagination.
...more
Voices on Addiction: The Honeybee
She never stopped, a bee buzzing from flower to flower to flower, collecting all the sweetness she could.
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Cost of Intimacy
Chasing intimacy can feel cheap—and yet intimacy we pay for can be meaningful. I find traditional therapy as awkward as sex, exposing my emotional self like I expose my body.
...more
Allowing a Female to Own Her Genius: Talking with Alana Massey
Alana Massey discusses her debut collection, All the Lives I Want, the best piece of writing advice she’s ever received, and acknowledging the work that women do.
...more
Albums of Our Lives: As Cities Burn’s Come Now Sleep
Most often, I do not speak when I am alone. That morning I sat on the couch and said Oh my God. I said it aloud, again and again, Oh my God.
...more
Breaking the Binaries: A Conversation with Lidia Yuknavitch
Lidia Yuknavitch discusses her new novel, Book of Joan, a reimagining of the Joan of Arc story set in a terrifying future where the heroine has emerged to save a world ravaged by war, violence, and greed.
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Everything We Ever Needed
I tried to forget again that I once meant to leave, that on a few occasions I had actually felt transported by love.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Jerald Walker
Jerald Walker discusses his memoir, The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult, the story of his childhood in The Worldwide Church of God, and how the act of writing delivered him from bitterness.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Salt
A flash-fire covered the horizon all around and behind her, and my mother glowed genuine blue. I saw her skeleton, or maybe her white-hot soul. Something flew up and around our heads.
...moreCrybaby College Students and Their Bogus Trophies
I’m a small blue dot living in a blood-red corner of a red state, so I’ve grown accustomed to hearing right wing talking points. I don’t like them, but they surface as regularly in my southwest Florida town as white egrets on the highway and dolphins in the Gulf. Talking points at the grocery store, […]
...more
This Week In Indie Bookstores
A New Paltz, New York bookstore with an anti-Trump sign is fighting a ban against it. An Egyptian bookstore has a “scream room” where customers can scream as loudly as they like. With the Gilmore Girls revival only a month a way, there’s a hypothesis that Jess might own a Stars Hollow Bookstore. Christian bookstore chain […]
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with J.D. Vance
J.D. Vance talks about his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, the perils of upward mobility, and never forgetting where you come from.
...more
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 4): “Roosters”
the roosters brace their cruel feet and glare // with stupid eyes / while from their beaks there rise / the uncontrolled, traditional cries.
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Opening the Hump
The trick is to pinpoint the time of the cycle, not to try to solve the mystery in the undertow. And to understand that everything needs time; you have to position yourself, warm up.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Yaa Gyasi
Yaa Gyasi discusses her debut novel Homegoing, growing up in Alabama, the multiplicity of black experiences, the legacy of slavery, and her writing process.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Garrard Conley
Garrard Conley, author of the new memoir Boy Erased, discusses growing up in the deep South, mothers, writing for change, and political delusions.
...more