Everything Must Change: A Conversation with Melissa Febos
Melissa Febos discusses her new essay collection, GIRLHOOD.
...more
Posts Tagged: sober
Voices on Addiction: There Were Also Girls, Women
I always thought I was too smart to be one of those girls.
...more
Voices on Addiction: A Conversation with Erica C. Barnett
Erica C. Barnett discusses her debut memoir, QUITTER.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Letting It Suck
The thing we most had in common was that none of us wanted to be there.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Call Us Beautiful
I’m saying people can be imperfect and still be remembered as beautiful.
...more
Voices on Addiction: A Body Full of Ghosts
I’ve known since I was a child that the world is ending. I felt it in my bones.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Jack and the Boss
My sobriety is still a mystery to me. Forty years this December.
...more
Voices on Addiction: How to Stay
Drinking is the opposite of staying.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Advice
What I know has taken a long time to learn, and even longer to accept.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Happy Birthday to Me
As long as I could feel, I was going to get high.
...more
Voices on Addiction: They Call It Spirits
Why was he so broken? And why did his broken make me feel broken, too?
...more
Voices on Addiction: All the Ways to Save Your Life
But we can make choices if we want to live. I believe that.
...more
Voices on Addiction: One More Conversation
That’s how I felt again, then: a child suddenly fallen, helpless. Unable even to breathe.
...more
Voices on Addiction: The Five Cs
The truth is different. The truth is always different.
...more
Pulling the Thread Through: Talking with Tina Alexis Allen
Tina Alexis Allen discusses her memoir, HIDING OUT.
...more
Voices on Addiction: A Review of The Recovering
As recovering addicts, we must love ourselves back to the source, love our shameful bits and decimations and not just our reconciliations and resurrections.
...more
Coming Clean
Intellectually, I know Gracie’s mom loves her and needs help. In practice, I just want my daughter safe.
...more
The Delusion of Objectivity: Talking with Leslie Jamison
Leslie Jamison discusses The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath, understanding that every text is incomplete, and whether motherhood has changed her writing.
...more
A Love Letter to Fuckhead
If you’re judging your characters, you’re not doing it right. I’ll always be grateful to [Denis] Johnson for teaching me that.
...more
Voices on Addiction: Twenty-Five
I know that there are those who would argue that alcoholism is a singularly extreme condition, and I get that, but I’ve always felt clear that there’s a lot of overlap between alcoholism and plain old ordinary humanity.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Joshua Mohr
Joshua Mohr discusses his memoir Sirens, writing for his daughter, and why he values art that trusts its audience.
...more
The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Daddy Issues
What I’m saying is I was a fucking wreck and it’s not my dad’s fault.
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Mila Jaroniec
Mila Jaroniec talks about her debut novel Plastic Vodka Bottle Sleepover,” writing autofiction, the surprising similarity between selling sex toys and selling books, and the impact of having a baby on editing.
...more
Voices on Addiction: A Bad Night
Trying to protect him from himself is like trying to protect atmosphere from weather.
...more
My Life with Annie Lennox: A Christmas Cornucopia
Perhaps part of what prompted me to get clean and sober was the fact I kept making myself uncomfortable.
...more
Weekend Rumpus Roundup
In “Hunting For The Little Prince,” Sigal Samuel invites us to tag along as she pursues the real-life inspiration for the blonde-haired protagonist of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous children’s book. No spoilers, but this particular missing person search ends happily. Then, in the Sunday Essay, Rob Roberge tackles his demons and the continuing fallout from […]
...more