coming out
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The Rumpus Interview with Joe Okonkwo
Joe Okonkwo discusses his debut novel Jazz Moon, the quest for self-discovery, creative inspiration, and what it means to build a family when home is so very far away.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Nádleehí: One Who Changes
I am scared. I will continue to be scared. I am scared that, one day, I will not be able to run as fast as my dad who eluded rocks and a tire iron.
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Scarecrow
My future grew dimmer. Just moments after computing in my head that I was gay, my mom stomped down the stairs.
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Sound over Water
We tell the stories to fit the narrative we need. But within each story we must maintain the grain of truth that will provide the urgency.
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The Rumpus Interview with Vanessa Hua
Vanessa Hua discusses her debut collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, writing fiction in order to understand life as an American-born child of immigrants, and the importance of literary community.
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Fitting Characters and Scripts
Unwittingly, my mother teaches me in this conversation her generation’s word for gay: 同性恋. I look it up in an online dictionary, three characters in my mother’s tongue. Same, sex, and love.
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What We Lost: Undoing the Fairy Tale Narrative of Adoption
The singular, unavoidable truth about adoption is that it requires the undoing of one family so that another one can come into being.
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Farewell, Professor Wiesel
Faith is about action, Professor Wiesel said that day. Faith is about what you do with that faith. Belief in God is to do, not to accept. So always the question: what can we do?
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The Rumpus Interview with Jonathan Corcoran
Jonathan Corcoran discusses his debut collection The Rope Swing, Appalachian writing communities, getting disowned by his family for coming out, and his father’s death.
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(K)ink: Writing While Deviant: Simon Copland
Writing is not just about expressing myself creatively, or even about having my voice heard: it is about releasing some part of myself.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Jaquira Díaz
Jaquira Díaz discusses the challenge of writing about family members, her greatest joy as a writer, and her literary role models.
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Boy of My Youth
In my desperate attempts to keep my secret I learned to shut everyone out, to become as closed as a fist.