Become a Rumpus Member
Join NOW!This week, in a story by Akhil Sharma that will leave you devastated, an Indian woman in an arranged marriage wakes one day to discover that she loves her husband. “If You Sing Like That for Me,” originally published in the Atlantic in 1995, is available this week at Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading in conjunction with […]
...moreThe PEN America World Voices Festival, a weeklong international literary festival that focuses on human rights, is ongoing in New York City this week, and this year’s theme of gender and power seems more pertinent and urgent than ever. While over 150 writers from across the globe gather at the festival to bridge borders through […]
...moreIn a political climate in which undocumented immigrants are painted as criminals and rapists and half the country is crying for deportation, this week’s story reminds us that immigrants are fathers who love their daughters, who work hard and send money home to dying mothers, who will go to the ends of the Earth for […]
...moreThis week at Recommended Reading, PEN America offers an excerpt from Brazilian author Noemi Jaffe’s novel Írisz: as orquídeas, which is remarkable for many reasons, one of them being that this is so far the only opportunity to read part of the Portuguese-language novel in English translation. Jaffe’s narrator, Írisz, has fled to Brazil from Hungary […]
...moreNew motherhood: it’s common but totally strange, completely natural yet weirdly alien, a beautiful miracle and absolutely disgusting. It can also have some strong effects on a woman’s perception of self and identity, as Helen Phillips (The Beautiful Bureaucrat) explores brilliantly in her story “The Doppelgängers,” chosen by Lauren Groff at Recommended Reading this week. […]
...moreElectric Literature’s Recommended Reading has put out its 200th issue, and to celebrate, they’re watching television. Or, thinking about watching television by revisiting the 200th episodes of classic sitcoms: J. Robert Lennon on The Cosby Show, Rob McCleary on The Love Boat, Morgan Parker on The Jeffersons, and Téa Obreht on Frasier.
...moreEditing. It’s the most reviled step of the writing process. It’s where we do the backbreaking work of word-weeding, where we must dissociate from ourselves enough to see our work objectively, where we’re forced to kill our darlings. It’s the dark place between writing and publication, mostly characterized by bloodshot eyes and crippling doubt. It’s […]
...moreYou can count on One Story as a sort of literary sieve, distilling story-sized servings of up-and-coming writers we should know, and soon enough will know, if we don’t know them already. Next week, One Story will host its annual Literary Debutante Ball, a party thrown in honor of those who’ve published stories with them and […]
...moreShe’d been ready to do her part for the war effort. Out of appreciation and gratitude and patriotism. All those hours on that terrible ship. Now what Seymour wanted was love, and she couldn’t possibly give that to him. For Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading series, Ann Beattie highlights “At the Fairmont,” a short short by […]
...more
Halimah Marcus and Benjamin Samuel, the co-editors of Recommended Reading, discuss the ins and outs of editing an ambitious literary project.
...moreI think that most of us believe that time doesn’t really exist outside of the school. Or at least we act like it does not. This is to say, we know that in theory there was life before the school and that there will be life after the school if we can ever get out. […]
...more“But what if there were no one around with whom to reach an agreement about the meaning of a word? What if the thing you’re trying to express can’t really be understood by anyone else?” Sarah Gerard looks at Wittgenstein, marital rights, and translation in her review of the new edition of Clarice Lispector’s The […]
...moreThe latest story featured by Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading comes from National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward, author of Salvage The Bones. The story, originally published in A Public Space, is a powerful look at a long drive across the south. “Every time I go west instead of east, seem like the sun bleach all […]
...moreRecommended Reading, Electric Literature’s free digital magazine, has been released! The inaugural story comes from Ben Marcus. “If my mother knew that she only needed to survive for just under an hour―in order not to die today―would her chances of living increase? If I phoned her now and told her to hang on, so that […]
...moreElectric Literature is launching Recommended Reading, a free digital magazine that publishes one original story every week, “each chosen by a great author or editor.” The first issue, to be released in May, will feature a new story by Ben Marcus. After reaching their initial Kickstarter goal in just two days, the magazine is aiming […]
...more