Tracking Our Literary Style
Is there a distinct difference between our everyday, colloquial speak and written literary language? Fiction has gone through some major evolution since the 19th century when written prose and the…
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fiction
217 posts
The Rumpus Interview with David Shields (Paperback Edition)
The February 2010 publication of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, by David Shields, generated an amazing amount of discussion from all sides.
A MODERN READER #3: Extreme Solitude
I have largely avoided The New Yorker’s Fiction section. The stories were about aging women who lived on Cape Cod, or they were set in developing countries. I don’t want…
The Rumpus Sunday Book Blog Roundup
The author of the forthcoming My Life with the Lincolns asks what happens when you type Abraham Lincoln into Etsy. The answer is pretty awesome. Anyone interested in fiction and the…
The Rumpus Sunday Book Blog Roundup
Happy sexin’ day, everyone! This isn’t my favorite holiday, so I’m gonna let the Book Bench do all the talkin’ about it with these Dear John letters and some blogging on emails…
Woman Whose Bio Resembled Novel’s Character Awarded $100K
A woman who claimed a novelist and former friend based the character of a sexually promiscuous alcoholic on her has won a $100,000 libel award from a Georgia jury. Vicki…
The Rumpus Sunday Book Blog Roundup
Because I have way too much time on my hands, and because it’s oddly fitting this week, the book blog roundup is in the form of a dialogue between a…
The Rumpus Interview with Alasdair Gray
Writer and artist Alasdair Gray is his own best nightmare. It took the modern Scottish bard twenty-five years to finish Lanark: A Life in Four Books (1981), his fat, strangely…
Jim Shepard on Writing Fiction That’s Got Some Truth to It
“The first worry writers have when they consider working with something like historical events has to do with the issue of authority: as in, where do I get off writing…
“My Worst Mistake? Getting Sick of My Work”
Fiction writer Michelle Wittle got so tired of going over her short story that she just sent the damn thing out, assuming it had no typos. Oops. Of course, this…
The Storymatic
I’ve always been a sucker for writing prompts, even though they have a way of sometimes being cheesy, forced, and ultimately silly. But recently I came across this interesting product,…
For the love of God, we are not Generation Y
A little while ago, I got sick of hearing that my generation—which for some God awful reason is called Generation Y—was spoiled, lazy and stupid, all while we were fighting…