Variants of Unknown Significance
My gynecologist won’t stop bothering me about getting a genetic test done.
...more
Posts Tagged: health
My Burning Tongue
What price have we paid for our silence?
...more
Less-Than-Linear: A Conversation with Georgia Webber
Georgia Webber discusses DUMB: LIVING WITHOUT A VOICE in an illustrated interview!
...more
Letting Go of What We Love: Talking with Rachel Heng
Rachel Heng discusses her debut novel, Suicide Club, the book’s genesis, her writing and reading life, and her thoughts on “wellness.”
...more
Breaking the Rules: A Conversation with Amy B. Scher
Amy B. Scher discusses her memoir, This Is How I Save My Life, what to do when all available treatments have failed, Trump’s presidency, and the power to heal.
...more
Trust Us When We’re Sick: Maya Dusenbery’s Doing Harm
The systems created for men by men are not sufficient in caring for women. Different bodies and chemical makeups, of course, require different treatments.
...more
What Did You Expect, Though?
The immune system, meant to protect a body from foreign invaders, works too assiduously, sees danger where there is none, turns on itself. Such conditions lend themselves to metaphor.
...more
The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Achy Obejas
Achy Obejas discusses her new collection, The Tower of the Antilles, what she’s learned from translating works of others, and why we should all read poetry every day.
...more
The Gate of Permission: A Conversation with Victoria Redel
Victoria Redel discusses her newest novel, Before Everything, living through and beyond grief, and why she loves secrets.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Melissa Yancy
Melissa Yancy discusses her debut story collection Dog Years, using her day job for inspiration, and being “an old curmudgeon at heart.”
...more
The Body and the Blood
The world around me looked suddenly sharper, more sinister, the female body where I lived appearing so much more penetrable, exposed, and impossible to hide.
...more
Wild, Salty Body of Water
Sometimes, thick clouds roll in like doubts, and the god-like giants are obscured to the point where I almost swear they never existed. Other days, there’s no questioning their presence.
...more
Keeping Secrets from the Stupid
I was four years old when my mother taught me to lie. There were certain instances, she explained, when lying was acceptable, when it wasn’t even lying, really.
...more
Eating in Purgatory
I always say the last time was the last time, and I always mean it, but I’m scared I’ll relapse again.
...more
Glass Cases
What more do we remember of a story, of a life, really, than a gesture, a face, an expression frozen on the page?
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: In Defense of Not Cooking
Should there be a Bechdel test for women in the kitchen?
...more
The Big Idea: Mark Bittman
Suzanne Koven talks to food journalist, author, and activist Mark Bittman about his “Big Idea”—how food has changed in the last fifty years, and how to teach our children to eat better.
...moreWeekly Geekery
Trauma haunts your DNA. Robots at CVS. Erik Larson’s favorite gadgets. Drones do good? Shrooms, science, and Beatrix Potter.
...moreWriting Helps Writers
Powerful writing might be just as moving for the writer as for the reader. New research is demonstrating that the old advice about writing through your problems might actually be based in science. Researchers in various studies are gauging how writing about situations can help improve them, like students writing essays about the difficulty adjusting […]
...more
Strong Is the New Sexy
I began to lack reality. I took to baggy tops and A-line silhouettes to hide my poking collarbone, my meatless hips. I took up as much space as I could in bulky sweaters. I compensated for my diminishing reality by covering over my negative space.
...moreA Literature of Concussions
In the Super Bowl weekend, Rumpus author Sebastian Sockman writes a long essay on Los Angeles Review of Books about the controversial story of severe traumas within the NFL and all the books that dealt with that topic. The helmet — the head — wasn’t always a weapon. In the old leather-helmeted days only a maniac would […]
...moreOnly the Lonely (Have Serious Health Problems)
Loneliness is more than just a feeling, according to an article in the New Republic. It’s a biological process that activates your physical pain responses and trashes your immune system. Here’s one of many fascinating (and, okay, probably depressing) examples of the very tangible effects of loneliness, from a study of gay men with HIV during […]
...more
Five Reasons to Kiss My Gynecologist
My gynecologist makes me feel like the complex whole I am. He makes me feel both normal and unique, recognizes that my body and my emotions are inextricably connected.
...moreNational Donate Life Month
In honor of April being National Donate Life Month, here are some facts about organ donation:
...moreYou’ve Got To Have Friends
Forget the herbal supplements, the diets, the hyperbaric oxygen chambers–a big circle of friends has a huge effect on your long-term health.
...more