The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #144: Cathy Linh Che
“I think a safe space is one of deep listening and deep caring.”
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Posts Tagged: community
A Community of the People: Tommy Orange’s There There
THERE THERE does not settle, it unsettles.
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Moments within Days within Seasons: Talking with Alicia Mountain
Alicia Mountain discusses her debut collection, High Ground Coward, the surveillance state, and queer representation in the poetry world.
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How Do You Want to Be Wrong?: Talking with Madhu H. Kaza
Madhu H. Kaza discusses the anthology, Kitchen Table Translation, ways to engage with history, and seeing translation as a continual crossover.
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In the Wake of His Damage
To be named, and yet not named. Something broke in me when I read his synopsis of us, as if I had been summarily dismissed after twenty long years.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Renee Simms
Renee Simms discusses her debut collection, Meet Behind Mars, leaving law to become a writer, and writing through major life changes.
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Kaveh Akbar
Kaveh Akbar discusses his new collection Calling a Wolf a Wolf, finding community in poetry, books on craft, and mining the supernatural for poems.
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The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #29: Poetry Is an Affliction
On Thursday night, May 25, an amazing event will take place outside a BART train station in the Mission District of San Francisco, as it has every Thursday night for the past fourteen years. If you were to pass by, you might not even notice what is taking place. The corner of 16th Street and Mission […]
...moreThis Week in Short Fiction
This week, a woman mysteriously becomes pregnant with a lizard egg in a short story at Guernica that is weird, funny, and surprisingly sweet. By Benjamin Schaefer, Prose Editor of Fairy Tale Review, “Lizard-Baby” explores themes of motherhood, difference, and community, and all through the fresh new lens of immaculate lizard-birth.
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David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Against Hatred
We poets do not believe the world belongs to us. Our existence is a miracle, and yet we know our world is limited.
...moreSong of the Day: “Have Some Love”
The diversely talented Donald Glover has gained a following in almost every artistic arena, from stand-up comedy, to sitcoms, to film and music. First making a name for himself as a writer for the smart and funny NBC program 30 Rock, Glover went on to star in Community and the FX series Atlanta. Meanwhile, quietly and then not-so-quietly, he […]
...moreAesthetics and Poetics
Over at The Walrus, Michael Prior talks with poet Hoa Nguyen about the assessment of poetry, poetic communities in the US and Canada, and the role of silence and space in her own poetry: I see spacing as a way to introduce visual interest. It cues the reader to apprehend units of sense and ‘score’ […]
...moreA Women’s Place
Most of these sites were beloved exactly for that same dual sense of security and inclusion members loved — and when that sense was lost, from time or toxicity or something else, the woman who made them moved on to another new place. For The Hairpin, Julia Carpenter writes about the community spaces women have carved for themselves […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Asali Solomon
Asali Solomon discusses her debut novel, Disgruntled, narrative structure, the mythology of memory and place, and returning to Philadelphia after years away.
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The Rumpus Interview with Cole Swensen
Cole Swensen, author of fifteen collections of poetry, discusses her work, walking, and her recent travels.
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The Conversation: Desiree Bailey and Sean DesVignes
For me, intersectionality is a reality that I can’t escape.
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Anna March’s Reading Mixtape #18: A Valentine: Fab Books by Fab Lit Citizens
I’m just back from Iowa, writing about the Democratic Caucus for Salon. You know what will make you think about citizenry? Watching hundreds of working-class union members standing in the harsh wind and freezing rain waiting to get in to a Hillary Clinton rally in an overheated high school gym in Cedar Rapids. Watching them […]
...moreKicking & Screaming: Week #6
Welcome back the blog mini-series where I write about my experience running a Kickstarter campaign to help release an album. This is the final installment: the round up. I’m relieved and overjoyed to say the project was fully funded and then some. No Country Music will have a proper release on vinyl with some extra […]
...moreA Literary Chorus: Communities On Twitter
I have heard writers take a stand that they are above Twitter and Instagram, superior for not participating in social media. It’s true the self-promotion feels inauthentic and tacky, but it can be brave to participate in the conversation with good intention. If the written word is a double-edged sword, then Twitter might be considered […]
...moreSunday Links
Brooklyn Magazine’s Favorite Writers Share Their Favorite Childhood Books. One novel I loved when I was a kid was Madam Pastry and Meow. The details are fuzzy for me now, but I recall this: A schoolgirl in Paris meets a young artist, the type who lives in a garret and spends his food money on […]
...moreAuthor Connections
Bookish social media site Goodreads has just launched a brand new feature—starting now, you can connect and ask questions of your favorite authors as well as fellow readers. Learn more and join the conversation here.
...moreLiterary Citizens Also Need to Write
The writing community has lately been buzzing with literary citizenship—attending readings, writing reviews, supporting other writers with blurbs or buying their books (preferably from independent bookstores). But not everyone is happy with the literary estate’s citizenship requirements. Last month, Becky Tuch warned against devaluing writing as labor. Now Lisa Marie Basile, writing over at The […]
...moreAll the Good Literary Citizens
The idea of literary citizenship suggests writers should belong to a kibbutz of bibliophiles where everyone contributes to the greater good by writing reviews, attending readings, and supporting independent, neighborhood retailers. But all this goodhearted community camaraderie has devalued writing as labor, Becky Tuch claims over at Beyond the Margins. She writes that the concept […]
...moreThe Gift of Understanding
Author and illustrator Wendy MacNaughton is featured on Brain Pickings for her new book, Meanwhile in San Francisco: A City in its Own Words. MacNaughton’s beautiful illustrations remind us of the importance of community, and an essential message: [T]here is no greater gift we can give each other than the gift of understanding, of looking […]
...moreWhen can online comments help?
We have written about the dangers of reading the comments before online. There are times however when it can be beneficial. Simone Supekar writes over at The Atlantic about how the comments on the internet helped her cope with a disease: “In an ideal world, there’d always be a George Clooney nearby, reassuring us of […]
...moreComing out of the closet
In one of the most inspirational TedX talks of all time, Ash Beckham talks about the difficulty in coming out of any closet. The way she describes it, the closet represents any difficult conversation you will ever have to have in your life. She also gives a three pancake rule for life that totally works. […]
...moreBookstores, Community, Shoppers and More Community
Here’s more fuel for the dialogue on brick and mortar bookstores and their integral role in creating and supporting the literary community. HTML Giant’s got a double dose of input on the subject—a video of Matthew Stadler delineating the difference between readers and shoppers, and an essay in The Stranger by Paul Constant, encouraging us […]
...moreMicro-Libraries Abound
DIY micro-libraries are the latest recession-inspired establishments to pop up around San Francisco, an awesomely affordable way to keep up on your reading. These informal mini-libraries provide an alternative to public libraries, which are perpetually at the mercy of budget-cuts, and private libraries with expensive membership fees. What they lack in quantity, they make up […]
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