fiction
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The Rumpus Interview with Sean Michaels
The Rumpus talks to Sean Michaels about his new book, Us Conductors, challenging a reader’s empathy, and a true, strange musical instrument: the theremin.
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The Devil Finds Work
Combining The Exorcist, New Jersey, and James Baldwin, among other things, Nick Ripatrazone reviews William Giraldi’s new novel, Hold the Dark, at The Millions. He contemplates Giraldi’s place in contemporary Catholic literature, using his fiction, alongside Cormac McCarthy’s and Christopher…
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British Insecurity
Among those who bemoaned the change of rules were a number of British novelists. Why did they assume their American counterparts were better? Or if they thought Americans were just different, why did they assume judges would prefer the game…
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Leaving Out the Details
Tobias Carroll, writing over at Electric Literature, considers the level of detail authors use to create worlds in fiction. Some writers are known for sparse, minimalistic writing. Others leave out key details in a way that adds meaning to the story.…
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The Theory of Trickle-Up Literacy
One does not pass from lower to higher. On the contrary one might perfectly well fall from the higher to the lower, or simply read both, as many people eat both good food and junk food, the only problem being…
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The Rumpus Interview with Edan Lepucki
Author Edan Lepucki talks to the Rumpus about publishing, the craft of writing, teaching, and what to do about the end of the world.
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Dr. Critic and Mr. Novelist
Can a good critic be a good novelist too? Daniel Mendelsohn and Leslie Jamison, who both have written both fiction and non-fiction, answer this question in the weekly Bookend column for the New York Times’s Sunday Review. Though their ideas differ, the…
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Details Inform Readers Beyond Fictional Reality
Fiction writing gains more than verisimilitude from the included details. Writing at Beyond the Margins, Nichole Bernier examines how a writer’s choice of details informs the reader about a great deal more than the reality of a story: But choosing which facts…
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Annie Dillard and the Art of the Essay
“Writers serve as the memory of a people. They chew over our public past.” Read an essay on Annie Dillard’s philosophy of the essay and its writer over at Brain Pickings.
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The Lonely Voice #28: All Lives Are Interesting: My Father and Mavis Gallant
Alive, dead, what’s it matter to me, truly? I had her books then, I have her books now. Let others sing her praises today from the rooftops. For me, Gallant is all days.
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The Sunday Rumpus Fiction: Vapor Trail
“There’s days I think I’ll burn a year in Hell for every night Maria woke her momma and me, wanting to sleep with us, and I told her no, took her back to her room.” Acclaimed novelist Craig Clevenger debuts…
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Iris Has Free Time by Iris Smyles
Brachah Goykadosh reviews IRIS HAS FREE TIME by Iris Smyles today in The Rumpus Book Reviews.