rebecca makkai

  • Notable Chicago: 12/16–12/22

    Friday 12/16: Women & Children First’s annual Recommended Reading Night is back! Rebecca Makkai, Deborah Jian Lee, Emily Gray Tedrowe, Jasmine Sanders, and Thea Goodman will be discussing their top two favorite books of 2016, followed by a Q&A and…

  • Black Friday Sale and Rumpus Holiday Gifts!

    Black Friday Sale and Rumpus Holiday Gifts!

    This holiday season, give the gift of The Rumpus! We have plenty of holiday gift options for the well-read optimist or literary child in your life, and we’re kicking things off with a Black Friday sale!

  • Writing about Humans

    I don’t trust any writer who takes himself seriously. It’s all kind of ridiculous. Our job is to write about humans, and humans are funny.  Over at BOMB Magazine, J.T. Price talks with Rebecca Makkai about her first collection of short stories,…

  • Your Next Story

    WRITER: Thank you. Thank you. Really. Because my whole problem is I’m incapable of noticing things I might want to write about. I walk through this world blind, and it’s not till helpful people shove things in my face and suggest that…

  • Murder by Numbers

    Over at the Ploughshares blog, Rebecca Makkai puts together a series of graphs depicting ironically depressing stats about books and writers.

  • This Week in Short Fiction

    In the wake of the Charleston church shooting last week and with Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev back in the news, the world seems full of nothing but hate and intolerance, violence, and terror. But as families of the Charleston…

  • Next Letter in the Mail: Rebecca Makkai

    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…

  • This Week in Short Fiction: A Guide to AWP

    It’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…

  • The Rumpus Interview with Rebecca Makkai

    The Rumpus Interview with Rebecca Makkai

    Rebecca Makkai talks about ghosts, teaching, chronology in writing, and her new novel, The Hundred-Year House.

  • Notable Chicago: 9/5—911

    Friday 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…

  • An Ideal MFA

    How 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…

  • Literary Skeletons Out of the Closet

    Time 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.