Become a Rumpus Member
Join NOW!We’re getting ready to send out our next Letter in the Mail, and it’s from Rebecca Makkai! Rebecca writes a handwritten letter from her home airport O’Hare, sharing with us its secrets. She also tell us the best traits of other airports, and some funny games you can play while waiting in them. Rebecca asks you to share your knowledge of airports with her, […]
...moreIt’s that time of year again, where writers young and old, from all corners of the country, come to congregate in one gigantic, frenetic, neurotic, alcohol-infused crowd, in a couple of fancy hotels no one can really afford, to stay in and talk shop (or not, depending on how your writing’s been this year). That’s right: […]
...more
Rebecca Makkai talks about ghosts, teaching, chronology in writing, and her new novel, The Hundred-Year House.
...moreFriday 9/5: David Tabak, author of the short story collection Lather Rinse Repeat, presents a reading of two short stories at City Lit Books. 6:30 p.m. The Naked Girls Reading is back this month to entertain on the theme “Back to School.” Come to the Everleigh Social Club to be stimulated intellectually. 7 p.m. Saturday […]
...moreHow would a writer without an MFA imagine an ideal Creative Writing degree program? Over at Ploughshares, Rebecca Makkai invites you to consider her optimal 2015/2016 course catalog, warning that “the course offerings will be much more practical than “Problems in Modern Fiction.” We’ll cover the things you need to know. (The writing part you […]
...moreTime to get all the literary skeletons out of the closet: over at Ploughshares, Rebecca Makkai confesses her unutterable secrets about books never read and authors she’s confused—and you can relax, you’re not the only one getting distracted at readings.
...moreWith its clean, careful shots and enigmatic plot resolutions, Mad Men tends to inhabit a liminal narrative space, as if the same rules of decorum that govern its romanticized 60s society extend their authority to the show’s refined formal characteristics. This aversion to definitive conclusion is no accident: writing for Salon, Rebecca Makkai examines how […]
...moreLast week, Will Self declared the novel dead. But so have a lot of people over the last century. Video may have killed the radio star, but who killed the novel? Rebecca Makkai asks that question over at Ploughshares: Who is to blame for this sad decline? We could look to our digitized lifestyle. Are […]
...more