Rumpus Original Fiction: Poor People Disappear
Nothing is not right. There is no indication there has ever been a house.
...more
Posts Tagged: Thailand
Affliction: On Finding Relief in Pain
Hurting heightened everything, both within and without it.
...more
Afrofuturist Triptych for My Mother
This is what I think of when I think of home; Africa is my altar.
...more
When Our Inner Voices Speak: Reema Zaman’s I Am Yours
Reema’s book teems with gorgeous metaphors.
...more
The Abattoir
This is what my mother doesn’t want me to see: the death rattle in a forbidden room. This is what she doesn’t want me to know: how one life is sacrificed for another to live.
...more
VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Faith Adiele
Faith Adiele discusses what it means to be a good literary citizen, the importance of decolonizing travel writing, and how she wants to change the way Black stories are being told.
...moreFetishizing Distress: The Wrong Light and Sex Trafficking
Josie Swantek Heitz’s and Dave Adams’s The Wrong Light, theatrically released in NYC through Cinema Guild on July 14, is disturbing on several levels. First, there’s the story itself. The filmmakers set out to create a portrait of the Children’s Organization of Southeast Asia (COSA), a nonprofit boarding school of sorts founded in 2005 by […]
...more
The Water Goddess
To exist solely now on land is to live always waiting to reenter the water—to feel soothed even by the sound of it falling. To live a life on land is to feel the loss of our former lives within our very faces.
...more
Concubines and Expat Husbands: Catching Up with Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan discusses her new novel, Sarong Party Girls, concubine culture, and the freedom of writing fiction after a career in journalism.
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
If you are looking for an indie store in Chicago, the Chicago Review of Books has a roundup of local options. Gun nuts are so afraid of books, they’re taking their guns to bookstores. Author Emma Straub’s Books Are Magic is set to open in May in Brooklyn.
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
You’ll never believe this amazing sales technique! A bookstore is making clickbait headlines from classic novel plots. Bustle highlights some unconventional bookstores around the world. April 29 is Independent Bookstore Day and a Seattle area store is issuing a challenge to readers: visit 19 participating stores get your bookstore passport stamped.
...more
Wanted/Needed/Loved: Weyes Blood’s Mysterious Kris
To this day no one really knows where my kris came from or whether or not it’s a significant part of my family history, if it’s a random object or an heirloom with an untold story.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Kim Brooks
Kim Brooks discusses her debut novel, The Houseguest, her approach to character and historical narrative, and the value of engaging readers with larger social issues through literature.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Brendan Jones
Brendan Jones talks about his debut novel, The Alaskan Laundry, living in Alaska, his time as a Wallace Stegner Fellow, and living and loving what you write.
...moreAnother Country
Donald Quist talks to Liz Blood at Awst Press about some of his favorite writers, his graduate school experience, living as an ex-pat in Thailand, and his recent essay up on The Rumpus: I was a little fearful publishing that essay. I worried that because I no longer reside in the States, some might think I don’t […]
...more
I’ll Fly Away: Notes on Economy Class Citizenship
I want to break from a continued and systematic white supremacy so pervasive it is entrenched in the vernacular I use to express myself.
...more
Here Be Dragons
For anyone from the global fringe, the flattening expectation created by a cultural stereotype is pervasive and familiar.
...moreThe Stories that Remain
Slender Man and the Hunger Games salute have crossed the boundaries from the fictional world to the real world. Begging the questions, what are the stories that remain with us? That we manifest into reality?
...morePolitics Sunday
Hey! You! I love doing these political links, but no one clicks on them. So I want to hear from you: What kind of political links do you want to see? What are you interested in? I will scour the Internets for you if you tell me. “Is the Pope toast?” Josh Marshall invents a […]
...more