The Moment Moves On: A Conversation with Wendy J. Fox
Wendy J. Fox discusses her new story collection, WHAT IF WE WERE SOMEWHERE ELSE?
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Posts Tagged: day job
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #214: Sarah Kersey
“A poem cannot exist without form or structure, just like the human body can’t operate without a skeleton.”
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The Search for Permanence: Hilary Leichter’s Temporary
A permanent job doesn’t need her, and neither do her boyfriends.
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Split Chins, Open Coats
My whistle was useless. Using it felt like an insult.
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A Body Is a Bill to Pay
If my body is a bill to pay, my voice will be singing the receipts.
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Between Floors
“Never just stand there,” the video said.
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My Nanny’s Nanny
I have become the nanny. I hope my nanny is getting some good writing done.
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Faith, Gods, and Gay Sex: A Conversation with Matthew Gallaway
Matthew Gallaway discusses his second novel, #gods, moving from a big publishing house to an indie press, and why it was important to him to depict gay sex in writing.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Samantha Irby
Samantha Irby discusses her new collection, We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, her reluctance to call herself a writer, and writing for the “cream jeans” crowd.
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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #92: Bud Smith
It’s hard to say when I first became aware of Bud Smith’s writing. I’m sure it was online; his work is fairly ubiquitous here—an essay here, a poem there, a short story someplace else. He’s got a few books under his belt to boot, the stellar F-250 and Calm Face, as well as the most […]
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On Speaking Plainly: A Conversation with Rajith Savanadasa
Rajith Savanadasa discusses his debut novel, Ruins, writing across oceans, and the chance encounter with refugees that led to the story at the heart of his novel.
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The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #27: Spring Is Sprung
It is springtime for sure in the house of The Storming Bohemian and Argyle C. Klopnik. All day, every day, Klopnik digs his garden. Our once-chaotic backyard is now a richly soiled pile of black, with a section of lawn and some brick pathways, terraces, and several rose bushes a-blooming. (Ah-choo!) Our landlady is delighted […]
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Mila Jaroniec
Mila Jaroniec talks about her debut novel Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover,” writing autofiction, the surprising similarity between selling sex toys and selling books, and the impact of having a baby on editing.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Melissa Yancy
Melissa Yancy discusses her debut story collection Dog Years, using her day job for inspiration, and being “an old curmudgeon at heart.”
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Lee Clay Johnson
Lee Clay Johnson discusses his novel Nitro Mountain, growing up with bluegrass musician parents, and what people are capable of under the right set of circumstances.
...moreLife as a Whole Foods Cashier
Writers are accustomed to having other jobs and before working at Esquire and Vanity Fair, Lucie Shelly found meaning in the trials and tribulations of being a Whole Foods cashier. Over at Catapult, Shelly writes nostalgically about feeling “needed, productive, and healthy” and her brief fling with a long, flowing-haired, philosophizing butcher. “I knew neither situation was permanent,” she writes, “but I found […]
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The Upper Far East
So much for the ‘glamour’ of selling pretty things to pretty people.
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The Commune
Our house, we believed, was a microcosm of that country. Every month, we’d gather at the kitchen table for our house meeting, where we, like politicians, unveiled our big plans for change.
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The Rumpus Interview with Danniel Schoonebeek
Danniel Schoonebeek discusses living a quiet life in the Catskills, the importance of travel, partying in the woods with poets, and how capitalism forces people to be cruel to each other.
...moreThis Week in Short Fiction
This was the trouble with bringing a gun to work: you couldn’t stop thinking about it. This understatement comes from “Rutting Season,” a story by Mandeliene Smith in this week’s new issue of Guernica that flirts with every office worker’s worst nightmare—or secret fantasy—while exploring the divide between the public persona and the private self. […]
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Used-Car Salesman
I wondered if he understood my joke, or its evasion, but surely he knew a used-car salesman always fudged his story. In fact, the car had been in my possession all of three weeks. Also, it didn’t exactly belong to me.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: As Soon as I Stop
I feel dizzy, but I’ve got the donkey’s tail in my hand and if I pin it just right, my whole life could change.
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The Last Book I Loved: The Loss of All Lost Things
I recognize something in the stories… It’s the culture of “I made it” versus the culture of staying behind, the culture of achievement versus the culture of guilt.
...moreThe Day Jobs That Influence Our Writing
At the New York Times, writers Francine Prose and Leslie Jamison explain how their past jobs—at a morgue and in kitchens—have taught them about writing: But it was another truth — the humility of that kitchen, confronting what I didn’t know — that has felt most resonant across my writing life. As my work has […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Isaac Oliver
Isaac Oliver, author of Intimacy Idiot, talks to us about Grindr, OkCupid, different forms of intimacy, and being single in NYC.
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