Strangely in the Middle
If rats then represent terror and chickens innocent striving for something approaching authenticity, humans, for Lispector, are strangely in the middle, often stricken with fear, or handing out terror, but…
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short stories
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Guildtalk #3: Lori Ostlund
For our ongoing Authors Guild series, Lori Ostlund speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo about what it means to live a literary life in the 21st century.
The Rumpus Interview with Marian Thurm
Prolific author Marian Thurm talks about her new collection of stories, Today is Not Your Day, being a true New Yorker, and the importance of sympathetic characters.
A Vending Machine of Cold, Refreshing Short Stories
Are you wandering the plazas of Grenoble, France, looking to spend a few minutes immersed in a story? But unfortunately, you left your Flannery O’Connor novel in the hotel room?…
So Little Time and Space
In an adapted excerpt from her introduction to 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories over at Lit Hub, Lorrie Moore grasps at the ungraspable reasons we read short stories: This…
Visceral Vignettes
I sort of just follow the impulse to go there and to sit with an uncomfortable emotion or an uncomfortable physical thing. In conversation with radio host David Naimon, writer…
The Rumpus Interview with Zarina Zabrisky
Zarina Zabrisky talks about her new book, Explosion, the art of the short story, Russia and Ukraine, and being "a Jewish pessimist in the spirit of Shalom Aleichem."
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…
The Rumpus Interview with Matt Bell
Author Matt Bell talks video games, fiction, nonfiction, politics, empathy, and his new books, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn and Scrapper.
Dog Sees God
A preacher cares for his daughter’s child while she has a nervous breakdown in a foreign land. A teenager watches her mother slowly die. Another teen mourns his father, who…
The Rumpus Interview with Adam Johnson
Pulitzer Prize–winning author Adam Johnson talks about his new book, Fortune Smiles, fiction and voice, veterans and defectors, solar-powered robots and self-driving cars, and infrared baseball caps that can blind security cameras.
Macho Literary Culture
Kingsley Amis all but disappeared from the American literary consciousness after his death. Many of his novels were not even available stateside after their initial publication, although a new line…