Rumpus Original Fiction: Curious
It is a brutal awakening.
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Join NOW!It is a brutal awakening.
...moreI wanted to be able to frame the story within this understanding that these are powerful forces and that these are stories we’ve heard a lot before, and that these stories get in the way of, or make it hard to understand or even listen to, a more authentic or more real story about who people are or can be.
...more“No remedy will undo your bad choices, or your addiction to sugar. And you can’t afford my prices anyway.”
...moreWhen I start running, I want you to keep your eyes on it, because you’ll notice something that may seem strange. You will find that no matter where I run, or how long, or how far, you will not see this moon move an inch in the sky.
...moreThe amount of pressure on young men still to get on with it and to bottle it up and to be strong and be certain is overwhelming. And it shows in the UK. The suicide rates for men are so high. It’s a mental health issue. We don’t allow men to express themselves or talk about their vulnerability, and we blame them for a lot; we get to that phrase “toxic masculinity” really quickly. I don’t believe masculinity is always toxic, I just think sometimes it’s very unhealthy and we need to examine it and open it up.
...moreRather than work being a place to follow your dream, or make a difference, it’s the place you work because you have to figure out a way to pay your rent.
...moreI think it is imperative to explore the limits of the colonial narrative and its dictates because, whether we like it or not, the world that we have inherited was created by that narrative. If we have any hope of moving past it, we have to understand it fully.
...more” . . . I’m pretending to be a student for the sake of a thought experiment I’m trying to disguise as a story so it has a better chance of getting read. Also, I look young.”
...moreJade Sharma discusses her first novel Problems, the complicated feelings that came with debuting to rave reviews, and her writing and editing processes.
...moreMegan Stielstra discusses her recently rereleased books EVERYONE REMAIN CALM and ONCE I WAS COOL.
...moreNothing is not right. There is no indication there has ever been a house.
...moreMy job was to help people suspend disbelief.
...moreIt’d been a while since I’d spent time in a body.
...moreClifford Thompson discusses his work and art-making.
...moreEverything old felt far away; everything new felt exhilarating.
...moreDeesha Philyaw discusses her debut story collection, THE SECRET LIVES OF CHURCH LADIES.
...moreA block away from my house, Reina killed herself.
...moreLaura Munson discusses her first novel, WILLA’S GROVE.
...moreThis is what happens when I listen. I react.
...moreLeslie Jamison interviews her mentor, Elizabeth McCracken.
...more“The planet ceases to rotate. Pundits debate whether or not the moon will fall from the sky.”
...moreAriel Gore discusses her new novel We Were Witches, why capitalism and the banking system are the real enemies, and finding the limits between memoir and fiction.
...moreAuthor Meghan Lamb‘s new novel, Silk Flowers (Birds of Lace, March 2017), is a book that cuts to the core of disturbance. In it, a woman is struck by an inexplicable and undiagnosable illness that renders her immobile and takes away her ability to speak. Her husband must become her caretaker, living with a woman […]
...moreIf anyone was old pals it was Leona and the house. Was she friends with a house?
...moreAt Catapult, Arielle Robbins writes a powerful story of coping with the legacy of sexual abuse. “From the Abuse Survivor’s Workbook” delivers the story, as the title suggests, in segments from the guided-journaling workbook sometimes prescribed as part of therapy, offering glimpses into the memories, anxieties, and daily life of the story’s survivor, Brie. The workbook […]
...moreLaurie Sheck is the author, most recently, of Island of the Mad, and A Monster’s Notes, a re-imagining of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in poetry for The Willow Grove, she has been a Guggenheim Fellow, as well as a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and at the […]
...moreAbeer Hoque talks about coming of age in the predominantly white suburbs of Pittsburgh, rewriting her memoir manuscript ten times, and looking for poetry in prose.
...moreGeorge Saunders discusses his new (and first) novel Lincoln in the Bardo, Donald Trump, and a comprehensive theory of literature.
...moreIn Kris D’Agostino’s second novel, The Antiques, he returns to familiar forms: A dysfunctional family whose members are in various stages of arrested development; a generational home in upstate New York; and the absurdity of life in its most darkly comedic moments. Here, the three grown (yet hardly mature) children of the Westfall family reunite […]
...moreTobias Carroll discusses his newest collection Transitory, the influence of film on his writing, and getting good news at bad times.
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