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Posts by tag

cliche

9 posts
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  • Features & Reviews
  • Reviews

Hell Is a Young Man: Fraternity by Benjamin Nugent

  • Sara Krolewski
  • April 28, 2021
The brutality of frat culture, Nugent suggests, is a veneer that hardly masks its devotees’ miseries and insecurities.
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  • Comics

Fresh Comics #9: Bird in a Cage

  • Monica Johnson
  • June 14, 2016
Countering our culture’s disregard for all things elderly, comics have become a medium of choice for celebrating the lives of our oldest and wisest generation. Bird in a Cage (Conundrum Press, 2016)…
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  • Other

This Week in Short Fiction

  • Claire Burgess
  • April 8, 2016
The grief story: it’s sympathetic, moving, and even cathartic when done well. It’s also a trap for clichés, overwrought metaphors, sticky sentimentality, and hyperbole. Add that to the ubiquity of…
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  • Features & Reviews
  • Rumpus Original

War Narratives #4: Meet the Civilians

  • Caleb Cage
  • November 11, 2015
Each character achieves independence in his own way, but independence winds up looking a lot like loneliness.
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  • Other

Hacking Away at Old Saws

  • Dinah Fay
  • January 14, 2015
In an interview with NPR about his new book, It’s Been Said Before: A Guide to the Use and Abuse of Cliches, Orin Hargraves acknowledges the utility of well-worn shorthand…
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  • Other

Don’t Throw the Clichés out with the Bath Water

  • P.E. Garcia
  • July 22, 2014
Most people think clichés aren’t worth a hill of beans, but over at Salon, Orin Hargraves says they just haven’t gotten a fair shake. Hargraves thinks clichés are just a…
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  • Other

On the Particular Origins of Some Literary Cliches

  • Casey Dayan
  • June 25, 2014
The phrase “little did she/he/they know” has plenty of history. The question is, when did it start being used for cheap suspense? The inversion of subject and verb sounds stilted…
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  • Other

Weekend Rumpus Roundup

  • Max Gray
  • June 2, 2014
Cliches are something every writer has to deal with at some point. This weekend, Steve Edwards acknowledges the cliché and comes to something of a reckoning. Edwards declares: That’s how…
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  • Features & Reviews

The Rumpus Sunday Book Blog Roundup

  • Seth Fischer
  • April 25, 2010
Jonathan Lethem has been hired for David Foster Wallace’s old teaching post at Pomona. (via @maudnewton) “Lots of people in Indiana Jones hats today. I approve.” From @WriterDaniel at this…
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