fiction
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0–9
0) The beginning of all this, maybe. This woman who insists I could have loved anybody. We saw the Atlantic from Normandy. We saw the Pacific from San Francisco. This is not “my love is like an ocean.” We’d been…
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Sunday Rumpus Fiction: Nobody
Nights at the store, the brother and sister bagged the groceries that tumbled down the conveyors, rarely looking up, a simple nod of the head at a thanks from a customer.
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When Fiction Won’t Let You Lie to Yourself
Why do we incorporate our personal lives into works of fiction? And how do we know when to stop? In a post for the New York Times‘s “Draft” series, “about the art and craft of writing,” Rumpus columnist Peter Orner recalls…
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“Some Case Studies in Failure”
“X—well, X is just failing. At taking vitamins. At fully committing himself to the idea of dental hygiene. At opening beer bottles and wine bottles and most bottles made of non-synthetic material. Give X something with a metal lid, and…
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Life in Fiction
I write for the same reason I read: to free fall into a story and live in that world for a while. My novels begin in tiny glimmers—of character, story, scene. When those pieces surface in me, I feel them,…
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“Break All the Way Down”
Rumpus essays editor Roxane Gay has a new story over at Joyland. “The mother of my boyfriend’s youngest child called in the middle of the night. He was asleep, the heat from his body wrapping around us. I stared at…
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For the Late Bloomers
Bomblog’s Friday “Page Break” series “embraces long-form writing on the web by showcasing original works of fiction by emerging literary talents.” Today they feature Rumpus columnist Alina Simone’s “Late Bloomers,” which is excerpted from her novel-in-progress, Titillation Plus.
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Following The Rules
“The problem with pulling this kind of thing the wrong way in a speculative-fiction story is that science fiction, fantasy, and horror don’t necessarily share mainstream fiction’s baseline expectations for how reality works, and it’s far too easy to leave…
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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 vernacular of the time diverged, but this dichotomy has transformed.…
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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.
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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 to name names, but you know what I’m talking about,…
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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 Internet should read this now. Sappho and banjos! (via Bookslut) “Why…