The Ugly Side of Ambition: A Conversation with Joy Lanzendorfer
Joy Lanzendorfer discusses her debut novel, RIGHT BACK WHERE WE STARTED FROM.
...more
Posts Tagged: Great Depression
Rumpus Original Fiction: Daddies and Sons
When Jeb was old enough to have a family of his own, he hardly ever laid hands on his boys.
...more
The Debt Never Promised
I am making progress, but progress is slow.
...more
These Places Surround Me: Talking with Quintan Ana Wikswo
Quintan Ana Wikswo discusses her novel, A Long Curving Scar Where the Heart Should Be, delving into the facets of trauma, and her creative processes.
...more
A Certain Frequency: Radio’s Appeal Across 75 Years
Today, radio is bigger than ever—but in vastly different forms. More people listen to the radio than watch TV, according to Nielsen, only now it’s on a computer, a tablet, or a smartphone.
...more
Why Is It Always up to the Women?
That’s the real tangle of women’s labor; it’s too deeply ingrained to the way our lives work for us to properly strike from it.
...moreSong of the Day: “Me and My Gin”
Though the British blues-rockers The Animals recorded a gritty version of a song called “Gin House Blues” in 1966, the tune was originally released by Bessie Smith in 1928 under the name “Me and My Gin.” Smith, the storied blues singer of the Prohibition and Great Depression, did record another song a few years earlier that may have confused other […]
...more
Broken Bones and Old Songs: A Novelist’s Fight to Keep Memory Alive
Memory is the machine of creativity—its heart and soul.
...more
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 2): “Ave Maria”
Mothers of America / let your kids go to the movies!
...more
What They Never Told Me, What I Never Asked: Reflecting on Roots and Writing
[T]he questions pile up, never to be answered.
...more