September 11th
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Three Things I Have Never Told Anyone
Does it seem now like I believe in God and he is a comfort to me? I don’t, and he isn’t. And yet this story is a comfort to me.
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A Bearing
But one morning, I get caught behind a tractor on the way to school and I wade in just before the bell to find someone else’s sedan parked in my space. It’s a Ford Escort, a two-door hatchback. Cherry-colored. Looks…
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September 11th from Spain
In fall of 2001, Molly Beer was in Spain, studying to become an ESL teacher and trying her hardest to win over the non-Americans who populated her program. Then September 11 happened, and everything changed. In an essay for Vela called “That…
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The Decade of Magical Thinking
A Rumpus Lamentation on What We Lost Say you took the long view of September 11, 2001, the view from the heavens, the view of a compassionate celestial being. From up there, you’d see that approximately 150,000 earthlings died that…
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The Rumpus Interview with Jess Row
“It’s really a liability in contemporary American fiction that many of us are taught to avoid political or intellectual matters in our work. It’s a real weakness in the way that fiction is taught in this country.”