This Week in Essays
A weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
...morePosts Tagged: Matthew Salesses
Loving America: Reading Carlos Bulosan with My Students
Can one love one’s country into a better version of itself? And can that love better the self?
...moreWhose Workshop Is It?
Here’s what I mean by not centering the author of the workshop piece: I always tell my students, following the lead of my favorite MFA professor, that the truth is that workshop is most helpful to the person talking, not the person being workshopped. Not that it isn’t or can’t be helpful to the person […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Interview: Vivian Lee
As an editor of color, one advantage I have is that writers of color are comfortable knowing I’m not asking for edits to artificially enhance or to cover up their race. It’s not weird to me that their characters look like them.
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Among the Wild Mulattos and Other Tales by Tom Williams
Michael Copperman reviews Among the Wild Mulattos and Other Tales by Tom Williams.
...moreThe Gift of Gratefulness
The worst insult people hurl at adoptees is that they are “ungrateful” and should “go back” (to their “own” countries, to their old families). That is the moment when adoption becomes a gift—because that is the moment when it becomes clear that adoption belongs to people like the adoptive parent and not people like the […]
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The Weight of the Future, the Emptiness of the Past
I am reminded of how we know something is there, sometimes, by its absence, how dark matter is said to exist because of so much missing mass.
...moreHow Do You Contend with the Hubris?
For Salon, Teddy Wayne interviews six prominent authors on what has shaped their thoughts into word: with Lauren Groff, Alexandra Kleeman, Helen Phillips, Matthew Salesses, Steve Toltz, and Claire Vaye Watkins.
...morePlot and Prejudice
At Electric Literature, Matthew Salesses discusses the works of Joseph Conrad and Flannery O’Connor to explore the problem of unconscious prejudice and unintentional racism in writing, and how writers can avoid it: The writing of fiction cannot treat marginalized characters as vessels, cannot let the plot play out the racism of under-enlightened protagonists. Perhaps the […]
...moreNext Letter in the Mail: Matthew Salesses
We’re getting ready to send out our next Letter in the Mail, and it’s from author Matthew Salesses! Matthew writes to us about equality, possibilities, and missing Linsanity. And we’re offering a special Let’s Get Cozy promotion—purchase or extend a yearly LITM subscription anytime during the month of September, and you’ll receive an autographed copy of Matthew Salesses’s The Hundred-Year Flood, just released 9/1 from Little […]
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The Rumpus Three-Way Interview: An Incomplete Catharsis
Carmiel Banasky, Alexandra Kleeman, and Matthew Salesses on their new novels, writing from a place of tension, and how our writing changes as we do.
...moreLet’s Get Cozy: A Letters in the Mail Special Promotion
The cool weather is approaching and The Rumpus wants to help you curl up with a good book! Purchase a yearly Letters in the Mail subscription anytime during the month of September, and you’ll receive an autographed copy of Matthew Salesses’s The Hundred-Year Flood, just released 9/1 from Little A/Amazon Publishing! You’ll also receive Matthew’s Letter in the Mail later this month! If you already have a yearly […]
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The Hundred-Year Flood by Matthew Salesses
Scott Onak reviews The Hundred Year Flood by Matthew Salesses today in Rumpus Books.
...moreThe Importance of Diversity in Workshop
Workshop can be a stressful experience for anyone, but it can be especially stressful for a person of color. Matthew Salesses wrote this piece for NPR, highlighting the importance of making the workshop a safe space for everyone.
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The Rumpus Interview with Mary Miller
Mary Miller talks about her first novel, The Last Days of California, the musicality and rhythm of sentences, how to avoid authorial intrusion, and when it’s better to back away from the revision process.
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The Rumpus Interview with Matthew Salesses
Writer and Rumpus contributor Matthew Salesses discusses the form of flash fiction, the selective nature of adoption narratives, and how to confront fears of parenting.
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Different Racisms II: On Jeremy Lin and Singular Models
I was never able to have that moment, which I realized other kids had, where the character seemed to be me. I was always aware that I was reading about other people.
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The Last Repatriate, by Mathew Salesses
There’s an inherent need to stitch together a war veteran’s memory because narratives made of memories are otherwise fragmented. This is the tragedy of a war story—that the wholeness will never find resolution. Unfortunately for many veterans, these qualities follow them home and gain tight purchase. Such a POW is nineteen-year-old Teddy Dickerson, a soldier […]
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