Why Fit In When You Can Stand Out?: Talking with Jason Mott
Jason Mott discusses his new novel, HELL OF A BOOK.
...more
Posts Tagged: race
The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Gene Kwak
Gene Kwak discusses his debut novel, GO HOME, RICKY!
...more
The Best of Brevity: A Roundtable Discussion on Flash Nonfiction
With Deesha Philyaw, Jaquira Díaz, Danielle Gellar, and Torrey Peters.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Two Flash Fictions by Kelsey Norris
It was strange what the nudity did to us—what the nakedness undid.
...more
Suffragette City: Women’s Rights Men
Not all suffragists were women.
...more
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #195: Curdella Forbes
“I wanted the thing to feel as ordinary as bread.”
...more
The Gates of American Belonging: Devi S. Laskar’s The Atlas of Reds and Blues
It begins with a gunshot.
...more
Rumpus Original Fiction: Sardines
The house, for the first time this weekend, is quiet.
...more
Telling a Good Story: A Conversation with Lisa Lenzo
Lisa Lenzo discusses her new story collection, UNBLINKING.
...more
A Complicated, Shifting Subjectivity: Talking with Franny Choi
Franny Choi discusses her second collection, SOFT SCIENCE.
...more
Rumpus Exclusive: “Dark Girls”
When I was born I came out looking just like them.
...more
Undertones
One moment white, the next Latina, the next neither.
...more
Redefining Manhood: A Conversation with James Hornor
James Hornor discusses his new novel, VICTORIA FALLS.
...more
My Dream about Loving White
My blackness, like my gender, was a sin.
...more
From One World to the Next: Talking with Julie Lythcott-Haims
Julie Lythcott-Haims discusses HOW TO RAISE AN ADULT and REAL AMERICAN.
...more
If You Let Me Tell You a Story
Stories need concrete details to help you understand, don’t they?
...more
Black Panther and Strong Women
I saw myself on the big screen—the strong black woman that I am, and the stronger black woman I aspire to become.
...more
Like Juggling Knives: Talking with Rumaan Alam
Rumaan Alam discusses his new novel, That Kind of Mother, the limits of the employer-employee relationship, and the grossness of heterosexual sex.
...more
A Heart-Centered Engagement: Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
Thompson-Spires illustrate[s] the psychic traps set when myths take precedence over lived experience, when “the monstrous head deforms the face.”
...more
By Accident and On Purpose: A Conversation with Leesa Cross-Smith
Leesa Cross-Smith discusses her debut novel, Whiskey & Ribbons, what it takes to return to a story after a long time away, and how her faith influences her writing.
...more
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #125: Tyree Daye
“I think if you are really doing the work, you can’t write about America and not explore race and slavery, and that goes for any writer.”
...moreIn Situ: Update to The Cub Scout Handbook
“Strategy is as important as woodworking.”
...more
Everybody Is Fine: Talking with Jasmine Guillory
Jasmine Guillory discusses her debut novel, The Wedding Date, finding success, writing sex, and the revolutionary act of eating.
...more
Power and Consent in Brown America
The rules of a more even world might call into question those of us who knew that we deserved better but could not match this knowledge with unambiguous demands.
...more
I Thought You Were Different
I don’t tell him that just because I happen to be black and he happens to be dating me means that there’s no chance that he could be a racist. I am not a pass.
...more
The Burden of Teachable Moments
My voice begins to crack so I clear my throat. I look at each one of the girls one by one. The heat in me rises. My skin feels like the Texas pavement in July.
...more
My Nanny’s Nanny
I have become the nanny. I hope my nanny is getting some good writing done.
...more
At the Mercy of the Mob: Theodore Wheeler’s Kings of Broken Things
[J]ust as bad nonfiction can be written to tell a lie, good fiction can be written to tell the truth.
...more
Slush Piles in White
The sensibilities of whiteness do not want us to work, do not want us to think, do not want us to imagine outside of its bounds.
...more
How to Workshop N-Words
I am not willing to let go of one of the only things that truly belong to my people and me. It’s a very exclusive, very tumultuous kind of privilege.
...more