From Dickens to Nabokov to Ali Smith, Kate Webb traces the history of authors pondering Christmas, and the 21st century revival of the Christmas story: Even in our prickly individualism,…
Join us tomorrow night, 7–8:30 p.m., at Housing Works for a holiday reading, co-hosted with Electric Literature! Celebrate literary community during winter’s darkest days: join The Rumpus and Electric Literature…
Lauren Gutterman writes for Notches, a journal on the history of sexuality, about the “holiday blues” documented in postwar queer literature. Gutterman’s examination of holiday-themed issues of queer literary publications…
Each holiday season, Icelandic readers enjoy the jólabókaflóð. This seemingly unpronounceable word is best translated as the Christmas Book Flood, a tradition of a rush of new books released in…
Sometimes we forget that many of the books and plays we know so very well are set during holiday festivities. Over at the Ploughshares blog, Annie Cardi reminds us of…
Merry Christmas baby You sure do treat me nice Soul icon Otis Redding’s short career was remarkably prolific. The highlights from his electrifying catalog are varied and buoyant, even in…
Two-sentence holiday fiction from Salon is fun and includes many Rumpus folks! You’ll find short fiction by Peter Orner, Matthew Specktor, Cecil Castellucci, Kelly Luce, Elliott Holt, and more! He was never sentimental…
If the usual array of winter holidays is simply not enough for you, you might consider checking out the medieval December saints calendar (part 1 and part 2). Who needs…