Posts by tag
jack kerouac
26 posts
The Queer Syllabus: Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
In The Queer Syllabus, writers nominate works for a new canon of queer literature.
Reading Ferlinghetti in the Age of Trump
This lesson feels especially relevant to our moment: that it’s possible to be both a frustrated activist and also a present and joyful human being.
Staying Syncretic: A Conversation with Kool A.D.
Kool A.D. discusses his debut novel, OK, the war on drugs, systemic destruction of left-leaning movements by the government, and the inability to escape American capitalism.
The Rumpus Interview with Erik Kennedy
Poet Erik Kennedy discusses literary community and his formative years as a young writer in New Jersey, and shares two new prose poems.
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #54: Jade Chang on The Wangs vs. the World
With a mix of humor, agility, and insight, Jade Chang’s debut novel, The Wangs vs. the World (HMH Books, October 2016), tells a fresh immigrant story. Charles Wang has left…
Remarks On Walking Around in Boston
As you walk, you become intensely aware in two directions. There is the outer world, and there is your head space. It is not necessary or possible really to keep strict focus on one or the other. They blend together.
Mapping Literary Road Trips
What is more American than the road trip? Steven Melendez has created an astonishingly detailed interactive map of the beloved institution as documented in twelve works of American literature. The books…
FUNNY WOMEN #131: Writing Prompts for Girls and Women
Write a character who can walk home alone at night while feeling unafraid.
The Rumpus Interview with Sean Wilsey
Sean Wilsey discusses his latest book of essays, More Curious, being David Foster Wallace’s neighbor, the healing power of the American road trip, and the difference between writing fiction and memoir.
Lines Like Loss, Like Leaving
I know you understand me when I tell you this. I know you understand dead of night. Tell me what lines you’ve read so I know how to imagine you. Tell me who is gone. Tell me if you, like me, always think of going.
On the Road Again
What gives the road movie (or, more broadly, the epic voyage) its staying power across cultures and time is an intrinsic narrative structure with a built-in beginning and end in the form of a starting point and destination.