the believer
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A Month Forever Voyaging
Mike Mills—the director of Beginners, Thumbsucker, and any number of fluorescent music videos—speaks to The Believer about his upcoming film. On their monthly podcast, The Organist, Mills discusses A Month Forever Voyaging through Strange Seas of Thought, what it felt like…
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Ashley Farmer Release Party in SF
If you live in the Bay Area, you owe it to yourself to make it out to this release party for Ashley Farmer’s book Beside Myself, out from our essays editor Roxane Gay‘s own Tiny Hardcore Press. THP—and its associated litmag, PANK—are…
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The Rumpus Interview with Mary Miller
Mary Miller talks about her first novel, The Last Days of California, the musicality and rhythm of sentences, how to avoid authorial intrusion, and when it’s better to back away from the revision process.
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“A Fight Against the Language That’s Been Fucked Up”
Before this government, usually you would find people in the buses with their books and with their newspapers, now you can’t see that. When I read in the bus now, I become like an alien. People start looking at you…‘He’s reading.…
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Retrospective: Nancy vs. Tonya
This month in The Believer, Sarah Marshall takes a look back at figure skating in the 90’s. Particularly the stifled rivalry between US ice princesses Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. Marshall’s perspective is not unique but it’s beautifully thorough. She…
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“Write What You Feel Like Writing”
For the Believer, Lane Koivu interviews our fearless leader Stephen Elliott about, among other things, “the thrill of finding himself in the director’s chair, the time he nearly got locked up by a psychiatrist in San Francisco, and why he’s always in…
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Searching for Dave Chappelle
“To turn his back on Hollywood, to walk away from the spotlight because it was turning him into a man he didn’t want to be—a man without dignity—was a move that was, in a way, Chappelle’s birthright, his own unwieldy…
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TV Can Be Literature Too
Long-running, writer-driven shows have overtaken American cinema as the most prestigious strand of American visual culture, revealing most of even the supposedly best American movies as risk-averse, unimaginative, and hopelessly bound by their time constraints. Todd Hasak-Lowy argues on the Believer‘s blog…
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Happy Birthday, Maurice Sendak!
Maurice Sendak, author of dearly loved children’s books like Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, would have turned 85 today. Celebrate his unrestrained imagination and (sometimes not-so-subtle) iconoclasm by revisiting his interview with The Believer or his unforgettable chat with…
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Organist Rocks Out
If you’re not already listening to the Believer’s new podcast, the Organist, don’t worry—there’s still time to catch up! The third episode, posted earlier this month, swings from hillbilly records to classic horror movies, hitting everything in between. It’s worth a…
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Ali Liebegott and Dorianne Laux at The Believer
In honor of National Poetry Month, please check out poet Ali Liebegott’s wonderfully conducted interview with the eminent Dorianne Laux, where Laux sheds light on Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay for helping her hone her poetic craft. If…
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Keep Doubt Alive with Essays
If you’re a regular Rumpus reader, you probably like essays. And if you like essays, you’ll probably enjoy this New York Times opinion piece about their literary and social value: Ever since Michel de Montaigne, the founder of the modern essay,…