What’s Between the Covers: A Conversation with Naben Ruthnum
Naben Ruthnum discusses CURRY: EATING, READING, AND RACE and FIND YOU IN THE DARK.
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Posts Tagged: Literary Community
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #144: Cathy Linh Che
“I think a safe space is one of deep listening and deep caring.”
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In the Wake of His Damage
To be named, and yet not named. Something broke in me when I read his synopsis of us, as if I had been summarily dismissed after twenty long years.
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Independent Bookstore Day: Q&A with Celeste Ng
To help kick off the celebrations, we have an exclusive Q&A with Celeste Ng, 2018 National Bookstore Day Ambassador!
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Here’s Your Beginning: A Conversation with Lynn Freed
Lynn Freed discussions her recent essay collection, The Romance of Elsewhere, the importance of a good first sentence, and the risks involved in writing irony.
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Flying Blind: A Conversation with Kate Angus and Joe Pan
Kate Angus of Augury Books and Joe Pan of Brooklyn Arts Press discuss the challenges and triumphs that come with running an indie press, and the recent decision to make Augury an imprint of BAP.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Morgan Jerkins
Morgan Jerkins discusses This Will Be My Undoing, getting her start on the Internet, and why her collection of linked personal essays isn’t just another Millennial read.
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The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #29: Poetry Is an Affliction
On Thursday night, May 25, an amazing event will take place outside a BART train station in the Mission District of San Francisco, as it has every Thursday night for the past fourteen years. If you were to pass by, you might not even notice what is taking place. The corner of 16th Street and Mission […]
...moreWhat’s at Stake: The NEA and the Literary Ecosystem
As a poet I get it: talking about “literary infrastructure” is boring. Who wouldn’t rather talk about poets, poems, or aesthetic movements? When we start hearing a lot about the organizations dedicated to supporting authors, presses, and readings rather than the people making literature it probably means those organizations are threatened. Well, welcome to 2017! […]
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The Rumpus Interview with André Alexis
André Alexis discusses his latest book The Hidden Keys, puzzles, chance, divinity, and the Toronto literary community.
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The Rumpus Interview with Vanessa Hua
Vanessa Hua discusses her debut collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, writing fiction in order to understand life as an American-born child of immigrants, and the importance of literary community.
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The Rumpus Interview with Alice Mattison
Alice Mattison discusses her newest book, The Kite and the String, a meditation on her lifelong journey through the craft of writing, the joys of teaching writing, and the importance of community.
...moreAesthetics and Poetics
Over at The Walrus, Michael Prior talks with poet Hoa Nguyen about the assessment of poetry, poetic communities in the US and Canada, and the role of silence and space in her own poetry: I see spacing as a way to introduce visual interest. It cues the reader to apprehend units of sense and ‘score’ […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Will Evans
Will Evans, Executive Director of Deep Vellum Publishing, talks about publishing translated works as well as the Texas and Dallas literary scene he wants to help grow.
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with David Rivard
David Rivard discusses his new collection Standoff, writing as both a public and private act, the interiority of reading, and Pokémon GO.
...moreOutside the Lit Community, Looking In
Most writers, especially those who are just starting out, feel lost and lonely in a literary world that seems to have pre-constructed cliques that are so hard to infiltrate. Anne Korkeakivi, an ex-pat and ever-traveling author with literary connections spread around the world, tells us that we are all peripheral to the literary community, and […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Becky Tuch
Becky Tuch discusses founding The Review Review, motherhood, creativity, and the future of literary magazines.
...moreTo Become Louder, Even Still
We can’t change our community, and ourselves, if we don’t foster a dialogue about how power is abused within it, and the only way to do that is to empower survivors to speak. Following recently forced awareness, Muriel Leung, editor of Apogee, collects fourteen responses from various writers to the sexual violence perpetrated in our […]
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(K)ink: Writing While Deviant: Brian Kornell
The more secrets I wrote about, the fewer I wanted to keep. And the more secrets I made public through my writing, the more I gained.
...moreThe Story Behind the Story
At this stoplight, you might begin to think, “I’ve been here before, there is nothing new to notice.” But it seems to me that we actually live here, and we often fail to notice what is in our own yard. For Flavorwire, Jonathon Sturgeon talks about what we talk about when we talk about books.
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Anna March’s Reading Mixtape #18: A Valentine: Fab Books by Fab Lit Citizens
I’m just back from Iowa, writing about the Democratic Caucus for Salon. You know what will make you think about citizenry? Watching hundreds of working-class union members standing in the harsh wind and freezing rain waiting to get in to a Hillary Clinton rally in an overheated high school gym in Cedar Rapids. Watching them […]
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A Brief History of Pandering
Erasing women writers like Woolson carries immense implications. It creates an environment ripe for the continued marginalization and silencing of women’s voices today.
...moreThe Language of Community
The dream of a global literary community is not new. But as globalization has not meant greater political or economic equality, cultural cosmopolitanism has not been guaranteed by instant communication and inexpensive travel. These do, however, present significant new opportunities for literary activism. In a recent New York Times op-ed, author Benjamin Moser talks about […]
...moreBuilding Literary Community, Online
A new website from Electric Literature and Grove Atlantic hopes to unite the online literary universe. The Wall Street Journal reports that the website is the latest attempt by publishers to connect with readers, particularly as newspapers dial back book coverage. The site will include essays from partners like n+1, the Paris Review, and others, […]
...moreLiterary Citizens Also Need to Write
The writing community has lately been buzzing with literary citizenship—attending readings, writing reviews, supporting other writers with blurbs or buying their books (preferably from independent bookstores). But not everyone is happy with the literary estate’s citizenship requirements. Last month, Becky Tuch warned against devaluing writing as labor. Now Lisa Marie Basile, writing over at The […]
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