Talking Haram Auntie Poetics: A Conversation with Fatimah Asghar
Fatimah Asghar discusses the new anthology she co-edited, HALAL IF YOU HEAR ME.
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Posts Tagged: Harry Potter
Redefining Manhood: A Conversation with James Hornor
James Hornor discusses his new novel, VICTORIA FALLS.
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Writing in Earnest: Talking with Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah discusses FRIDAY BLACK.
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Coming Clean
Intellectually, I know Gracie’s mom loves her and needs help. In practice, I just want my daughter safe.
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Nominations for the First Annual Woke Men Awards
The most important night for fragile male egos is nearly upon us.
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FUNNY WOMEN: Other Contenders for 2017’s Word of the Year
Fückit: When you’ve had enough, more than enough, but somehow enough is never enough, and I put wine in my cereal now.
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All My Visits from Santa
Confession: I’m a Hindu who loves Christmas.
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Slush Piles in White
The sensibilities of whiteness do not want us to work, do not want us to think, do not want us to imagine outside of its bounds.
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To Look for America: A Road Trip, a Soundtrack
One thing I was taught about travel—because my father is a black man born in Alabama in 1950—was that there are safe places for black people to go and places that aren’t as safe.
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
A weekly roundup of indie bookstore news from across the country and around the world!
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Spotlight: The Rumpus Review of Boundless
Brandon Hicks reviews Boundless, a new graphic novel from Jillian Tamaki.
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A Language in Constant Rebellion: Talking with Aura Xilonen
Aura Xilonen discusses her novel, Gringo Champion, the realities of immigration, translating texts, and her love of cinema.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Angie Thomas
Angie Thomas discusses her debut novel, The Hate U Give, landing an agent on Twitter, and why she trusts teenagers more than the publishing industry.
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The Read Along: Neda Semnani
I picked up The Odyssey because I wanted to read about wanders and refugees. A story about a man who takes a decade to get home and is on a quest for safety seemed like a good place to start.
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A Recommended Reading List for Trump’s America
We asked nineteen authors what books they’d suggest as recommended reading in light of America’s new political reality.
...moreWeekly Geekery
The big bad wolf’s name is Big Data. Michael Chabon messes with our memories. Snape was always a little crabby…
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
Bookstore sales continue to grow. In the wake of the presidential election, bookstores are becoming more than just shops and are serving their communities as impromptu community centers. More independent bookstores are becoming publishers. Bushwick Brooklyn’s Molasses Books has started fundraising for good causes following Trump’s election. Bridgeside Books in Waterbury is trying to make Black […]
...moreWeekly Geekery
Harry Potter reduces prejudice towards immigrants. Why facts don’t change your mind. Kafka (unsurprisingly?) had insomnia. A new clue in the great German crime drama of 1694. Hands-free typing with your brain: now a thing.
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Mr. Clarke, the Real Hero of Stranger Things
He’s the teacher who encourages questions beyond the class assessment, who always gets his students to open the “Curiosity Door.”
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Anna March’s Reading Mixtape #29: Literary Bitches
All too often, it gets hurled at strong women like a boulder of hate tied up with a big red misogynistic bow.
...moreThe Most Depressing Harry Potter Fan Theory
The only thing creepier than a spot-on Harry Potter fan theory is a spot-on Harry Potter fan theory that is … not exactly unconfirmed by J.K. Rowling herself. Harry Potter is a novel series with quite a few depressing moments to get readers all up in their feelings, so it’s certainly something when a fan theory […]
...moreJust Kidding
Heads up, Harry Potter fans: the staff over at VICE confirm that J.K. Rowling will be coming out with three more short stories about Hogwarts. The stories will provide background to some of the secondary characters in the Harry Potter series: Power, Politics, and Pesky Poltergeists centers on Voldemort’s ties with Professor Horace Slughorn at Hogwarts; […]
...moreKid’s Lit: Team Order or Team Nonsense?
Children’s literature as a genre has grown exponentially from early morality-racked lesson books to modern goofy masterpieces such as Captain Underpants—how did we switch from Order to Nonsense, and have we completely switched over? At Slate, Katy Waldman sits down with literary critic and professor Seth Lerer to discuss the evolution of children’s literature and the […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Heirlooms
The strings of our DNA mark us as one, but it’s the roots of our memories that bind us.
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
The World Bank houses a bookstore. Unfortunately, it’s closing. Harry Potter is causing a legal dispute between two bookstores in the Philippines, with one store claiming a legal monopoly over the book. CityLab checks out The Last Bookstore, a massive bookstore warehouse in Los Angeles.
...moreFranchise Exploitation
Harry Potter fans are celebrating the release of J.K Rowling’s newest work, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the eighth installment in the Harry Potter series. However, unlike the other novels in the series, Cursed Child is the script of a play, written primarily by playwright Jack Thorne with the help of Rowling: It’s hard […]
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
A woman met her husband when she fell in love with the man operating the Twitter account for Waterstone’s Oxford bookstore. Bookstores are more than just bookstores, declares the Chicago Tribune. You might not think the home of America’s television and film industry knew what a book was, but there are some great bookstores in […]
...moreBlame Harry Potter for Your Girlfriend Going Gone Girl
The then-girls, now-women who grew up reading Harry Potter are revitalizing the book market and steering publishing trends, and here’s what they want now: crime thriller fiction featuring calculating and vengeful female protagonists, now its own genre umbrella-ed by the term “grip lit.” MPR writes that the dark, psychological magic of Harry Potter inspired this […]
...moreSave the Children
Graeme Whiting, headmaster of the Acorn School (motto: “Have courage for the truth”) of Nailsworth, Great Britain, recently published a blog post condemning “sensational” fantasy novels such as the Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Hunger Games series that feature “dark,” “insensitive,” and “addictive” subjects. At the LA Times, Michael Schaub wrote about the […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Minsoo Kang
Writer and historian Minsoo Kang talks about his new translation of The Story of Hong Gildong, a touchstone novel of Korea written in the 19th century.
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