memoir Archives - Page 44 of 46 - The Rumpus

The Rumpus Interview with Justin St. Germain

When Justin was twenty, his mother was murdered by her fifth husband in their trailer, off the grid from Tombstone, Arizona. He spent the next decade trying not to be defined by his mother’s death, before deciding to face his grief head on for his new memoir, Son of a Gun.

The Rumpus Interview with Leigh Newman

Balancing love and truth probably requires a very rigid, if not anal avoidance of glory and shame, when it comes to the portrayal of the people in the story—be they family members or characters.

Rumpus Original

Fresh Air Fail: What Happens When Personal Writing Draws a Spotlight

Martha Bayne wrote a piece for The Rumpus about her unplanned pregnancy. Next thing she knew, she was being invited onto Fresh Air. That's when things got sticky...

The Rumpus Interview with Elizabeth Scarboro and Lidia Yuknavitch

Both Yuknavitch and Scarboro, whose books echo each other in interesting ways, were willing to talk with me about this question of what to do with memoir, and much more.

Rumpus Original

Notes for a Twenty-Something’s Memoir

You tell yourself to get as far from your mother and the suburbs as possible. You vow to embrace slutdom in college and not to wear underwear.

Other

Sounds of Leigh Newman’s “Still Points North”

“The story was there in the music, down to the epilogue.” Leigh Newman’s memoir, Still Points North: One Alaskan Childhood, One Grown-up World, One Long Journey Home, gets a unique treatment…

The Ghost of Mary MacLane

An average American newspaper-reader in the first decade of the last century immediately understood, if he read that something was “of the Mary MacLane type,” that this name was shorthand for outsized self-absorption of a specifically feminine nature.

The Rumpus Interview with Rosie Schaap

Rosie Schaap discusses Drinking with Men, her love of poetry, her intriguing family members, and what she would do with her life if she weren’t a writer.

Other

The Debate on Confessional Writing

There has been no shortage of criticism in response to Hamilton Nolan’s Gawker post “Journalism Is Not Narcissism.” Rumpus editor Stephen Elliott wrote a recent critique of Nolan’s essay, as did…

Other

More on Memoir

Rumpus columnist Steve Almond weighs in on Stephen Elliott’s side of the is-memoir-an-acceptable-form-of-literature debate. “[Hamilton] Nolan is right to decry this kind of cynicism,” writes Almond. “But what he gets…

The Comics Journal
Kmart Shoes

Reviewed by Rob Clough Lance Ward describes his autobiographical comics in the subtitle of his book KMart Shoes as “a therapeutic exercise” and “a painful memoir.” It’s the psychological equivalent…

Other

“Diva Boy”

At The Nervous Breakdown, Rumpus contributor Melissa Chadburn writes about her relationship with her older brother. “By then Ken’s life was no secret. He’d already fought all his battles. His…

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