family
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Out of the Swollen Sea
I think of a story I might write: about a daughter who loses her father to the sea. She grows progressively more melancholy; her dreams haunted by man-o-war, stingray, and poisonous rockfish.
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On Sisters, Love, and Rage
Sometimes I envy Absalom. He had recourse. He had power. He raised up an army in his rage. He did something. He turned his rage into an insurrection. All I’ve ever done is turn my anger into words. How can…
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: What Do You Bring Pauline?
Hoping to gain some insight into the nature of love and family, Elizabeth Tannen begins to visit the elderly woman who was once like a grandmother to her and who now has Alzheimer’s.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Transparent and the Evolving Culture of Shame
There’s a ray of nuclear longing at the center of Transparent…
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Coyotes and Roses
I was a man and when the time came for my shot, I pulled the trigger and painted the prairie with coyote blood. Glenn was right. Being eaten while alive was unacceptable; the coyotes had to die.
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Life In a Box
The Niemyers’s experiment is part family adventure, part exercise in extreme minimalism, and part matter of convenience.
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The Rumpus Interview with Kenny Porpora
Kenny Porpora discusses his memoir The Autumn Balloon, addiction and alcoholism, writing truthfully about his mother, falling asleep at Burger King with his laptop while drafting, and how he finally found his personal writing style.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: We, the Crazy Ones
My childhood battle was already set in motion: to resist the vortex. To not go where he was trapped. To not trade his love for my life.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Photos that Remember Us
Mathew Daddona’s father and uncle were adopted into different families. When they reunited with each other and their biological father as adults, they uncovered connections that extend through the generations.
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Eventually, We All Become Members of the Dead Dad Club
Dads are a funny thing. So many of us have strained relationships with them.
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Second Chance
Complete strangers often ask me how I got my name. They think this is an acceptable question. But for me, for the longest time, it was like being asked to tell the origin story of a scar.
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For Lack of Anything Better
The curse of being a writer is knowing other people. I need other people (to write about) but I can’t handle other people (the way I can literary characters).