Kevin Young discusses Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News, America’s relationship to hoaxes, and what we can learn from that relationship.
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What is so extraordinary about this collection is its lyricism, its humanity, and its urgency.
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Bonnie Jo Campbell discusses her collection Mothers, Tell Your Daughters, the natural world as a character, and finding writing from the male point of view easier.
...moreColson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad won the National Book Award on Wednesday night. In his acceptance speech he told us, “We’re happy in here; outside is the blasted hellhole wasteland of Trumpland. Be kind to everybody. Make art and fight the power.” Not only was this apt for the evening, but it also describes the […]
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It can be hard to describe a Jesse Ball novel. They’re willfully strange, dark and puzzling, but the pieces aren’t always designed to fit together. Instead, each of his books, which are always written in the first person, have a tendency to take the reader into the heads of the lead characters, which is often […]
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When you’re writing fiction, you can follow your own ignorance. You can write something and realize how flawed you are.
...moreAt the Guardian, Angela Chen profiles poet Robin Coste Lewis, who was only permitted to write one sentence a day after sustaining severe brain damage: “I would sit there for eight hours a day thinking of one line and it became delicious,” Lewis says. “It was this huge epiphany—‘Oh, this is what poetry is! You can […]
...moreAt the School Library Journal, Kelly Jensen examines gender norms and double standards in YA fiction, questioning which female protagonists we refer to as “strong”—and why do not refer to male voices as such: When women take risks in their writing, when they choose to write female-driven narratives with take-no-bull girls who may not care at […]
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Diana Arterian reviews Robin Coste Lewis’s Voyage of the Sable Venus today in Rumpus Poetry.
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Lauren Groff talks about her new novel, Fates and Furies, the life of creative people and those who love them, and why she’s grateful to anyone who reads books.
...moreThis year’s judges of the National Book Award seem to agree that women’s nonfiction writing is abundant and prize-worthy. The 2015 nonfiction longlist includes seven female-authored books, out of 10, the largest percentage of female nominees in the prize’s history. The longlist also contains two books by people of color, compared to last year’s one. […]
...moreA recent study by author Nicola Griffith reveals that books written about men were more likely to win major literary prizes over the last fifteen years than books written about women. During this timeframe, 12 Man Booker Prize winners and 10 National Book Award winners were primarily about men or boys. Griffith writes: It’s hard to escape the conclusion that, when […]
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Elliot Ackerman discusses his debut novel Green on Blue, fighting with the Marine Corps in the Second Battle of Fallujah, and being labeled as a journalist .
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Dean Rader talks with Edward Hirsch about his new book Gabriel, the pain of losing a child, and the challenges of writing grief.
...moreI think I was pretty nervous about it as a kid. I think I did [have] that fear of the world coming to an end. I think also it’s kind of how kids exist anyway, you know? You’re always fearing change; you’re always fearing the wrath of a parent; you’re always fearing that something is […]
...moreA newspaper columnist, a National Book Award winner, and some strangers get on a train… At the Times, Alexandra Alter writes about bumping into Phil Klay on the F train.
...morePhil Klay’s just won the National Book Award, and he talks with Rumpus Interviews Editor Emeritus Rebecca Rubenstein about the repercussions. They also hit on the burden of multiple voices, “entry points”, and what qualifies you to tell a true war story: Authenticity is a tricky thing. I think perhaps we’re too willing to assume authenticity just […]
...moreThe mismatch between quality and recognition in the world of translated fiction and nonfiction is surely more extreme than in any category of literature, and while this category has a growing number of great advocates, it deserves to have them at the highest level. At Melville House, Mark Krotov argues that the National Book Award […]
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The Rumpus talks to John Darnielle about his debut novel, Wolf in White Van, the differences between writing prose and songwriting, and what it’s like to be a dad.
...moreThis weekend, Heather Partington reviews Fridays at Enrico’s, Don Carpenter’s posthumous novel about novelists, and Inside Madeleine, a collection of stories by Paula Bomer that takes an unblinking look at femininity. While the former will strike a familiar chord for many Rumpus readers—Carpenter’s book follows a married couple pursuing literary success in the Beat world […]
...moreThe final key moment was when, suddenly, I was able to write the novel without feeling as though I needed the crutch of all the research and all of the books, and I felt that the characters were strong enough and their motivations had become more or less solid for me and satisfying for me […]
...moreHere is the complete list of finalists for the National Book Award in the fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young adult categories. The finalists include Rumpus interviewee Rachel Kushner and Rumpus book club participant George Saunders—plus one of the judges in the young adult category is our Letters for Kids editor Cecil Castellucci! Congratulations to all the brave and hardworking […]
...moreWilliam Vollmann is the author of dozens of novels, short stories, essays, and articles, and the recipient of a multitude of nominations, grants, and prizes, including the National Book Award. He is also, according to a piece he wrote for the latest issue of Harper’s, the subject of a 785-page FBI file related to suspicions that […]
...moreThe National Book Award Foundation recently launched an online exhibition devoted to the 373 books that were NBA Fiction Finalists between 1950 and 2011. Now a permanent part of the foundation’s website, the digital archive will expand each year as new nominees are announced.
...moreCongratulations to Keith Waldrop, winner of the National Book Award in Poetry. Here’s their interview with Waldrop. Mark Scroggins uses the Barrett Watten reading I mentioned last week as a jumping off point for an interesting discussion of, as he puts it, “the relationship of personal formation, as detailed & explored in autobiography, and literary […]
...more“I like to go where the life is. I’m pro-life, in the sense that chaos seems like life to me and order seems like death. I’m of the people in the bar and the people in my stories. They are my tribe.” – The Rumpus interviews the National Book Award finalist.
...moreHere’s some interesting reading from the world of poetry this week. Michael Schaub at HTMLGIANT picks up where the Poetry Foundation left off a little while ago about martinis and poets. You’ll like their entries. This is a little dated by internet standards, but it’s still worth looking at: Calvin Trillin versifies about the Roman […]
...moreAbject admiration is the worst way to start a review. Isn’t it the blurbist’s job to kiss a writer’s behind, the critic’s to skewer it on the formidable barb of his or her literary intellect?
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