family secret
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Otter
The emblem, not the animal, mattered. We swatted mosquitoes, made no pilgrimages to Vermont to see bears and moose. I wanted to get as close as possible to my potential animal totem.
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The Rumpus Interview with Lucy Jane Bledsoe
Lucy Jane Bledsoe discusses her latest book, A Thin Bright Line, uncovering the remarkable story of her aunt, and illuminating history through the lens of imagination.
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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.
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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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The Murder That Shaped Our Family
When I ask her about her childhood, she draws a blank. There is only blackness to her past, her entire early life erased by the trauma of that night.
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Remnants
There were six people under the same roof, surviving but not living. Because living requires stories.
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Keeping Secrets from the Stupid
I was four years old when my mother taught me to lie. There were certain instances, she explained, when lying was acceptable, when it wasn’t even lying, really.
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There Is No Such Thing as a True Story
Perspective is a fickle beast, and memory is an unreliable traveling companion through the years.
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Conversations with Writers Braver than Me: Anne Roiphe
Anne Roiphe on respecting writers’ freedom to express the truth of their experiences, while also respecting their subjects’ prerogative to shun them for it.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: The Sweetest Kidnapping
[S]ometimes you don’t know you’re experiencing a fairytale until years later.
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Two Lobotomies: Uncle Bennie and Rosemary Kennedy
My uncle and Rosemary Kennedy were born within nine years of one another. They both suffered from mental illness.
