Posts Tagged: the stranger

The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Danzy Senna

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Danzy Senna discusses New People, inhabiting her characters without judging them, playing with the reality and surreality of identity, and pushing against traditional story arcs.

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The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #56: Patricia Engel

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I met one of my favorite writers before she ever published a single story. We were classmates vying for our MFAs in Creative Writing from Florida International University and would smile at each other from across the room. She was shy, but never defensive, in workshop and always strove, really made the effort, to answer […]

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Writing for All

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At The Stranger, Rich Smith describes the Till Writer’s Residency program at Smoke Farm in Arlington, Washington. Unlike most residency programs, which are expensive and require writers to pay for travel, the Till Residency is affordable and aims to provide a learning space for all kinds of writers: Till Residency at Smoke Farm, an annual four-day […]

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A Spirit of Rebellion

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Maddie Crum interviews Jacques Ferrandez, who adapted Albert Camus’s classic The Stranger into a graphic novel, on the importance of The Stranger, his personal connection to it, and more: The book is about the human condition and also about youth. Camus used to describe Meursault as someone who does not know how to lie. Each […]

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Saving Trees

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For The Stranger, Rich Smith reviews Even Though the Whole World Is Burning, the film about poet W.S. Merwin and his life as a conservationist in Hawaii: The film glorifies Merwin as a giver of life, a distinction that invites an eye roll. But looking at the evidence the film presents, it’s hard to call foul. […]

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Little Theaters of Heat

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Christopher Frizzelle shares a dazzling review of Garth Greenwell’s debut novel, What Belongs to You, praising its ferocity and intense exploration of homosexuality: These “little theaters of heat,” these packets of desire or panic or imminence, these doublings-down of doubt and upswellings of confidence—these concentrations of feeling are Greenwell’s subject. The novel is explicitly set in Bulgaria, […]

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Oxford Dictionary of Emojis

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For The Stranger, Rich Smith justifies Oxford Dictionaries’s choice for the UK’s Word of the Year: an emoji. Although OD has been getting backlash from critics lamenting “the death of language, the end of the world, etc.,” Smith claims that emojis are just like words in the way that they evoke feelings: …to address those who don’t think […]

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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Michael Seidlinger

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The Publisher-in-Chief of Civil Coping Mechanisms and Book Reviews Editor for Electric Literature talks about his newest novel, The Strangest.

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The Real Deal

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Many of us choose to pursue MFAs; many of us are also plagued with doubts about the value of a degree in creative writing. Former teacher Ryan Boudinot shares his thoughts about programs, publishing, and the unlikely chance that you’re the Real Deal: I think the instant validation of our apps is an enemy to producing […]

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Treatment as Metaphor

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In our daily efforts to stay healthy, to invent solutions for staving off death, have we already put ourselves in treatment for diseases yet to come? Conner Habib writes about his cancer diagnosis over at The Stranger, challenging Susan Sontag’s argument against seeing illness as a metaphor by revealing the ways in which we can’t […]

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On the Internet, No One Knows You’re A Liar

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Slate‘s recurring feature “The Longform Guide to…,” curated by Longform.org, is usually fascinating, and the most recent installment is no exception. In “honor” of the revelation that Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o’s girlfriend never existed, Max Linsky leads us through a maze of stories on Internet hoaxes. Especially unsettling is “The Lying Disease,” a recent […]

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40th Anniversary of Miles Davis’s On The Corner

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At The Stranger, Dave Segal and other Seattle musicians commemorate the 40th anniversary of Miles Davis’s On The Corner. “Grooves solid as diamonds with freaked-out tendrils that wrap around your soul and poke at you where you least expect to be poked. Sometimes they draw blood. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? You’ll be okay—just let […]

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Bookstores, Community, Shoppers and More Community

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Here’s more fuel for the dialogue on brick and mortar bookstores and their integral role in creating and supporting the literary community. HTML Giant’s got a double dose of input on the subject—a video of Matthew Stadler delineating the difference between readers and shoppers, and an essay in The Stranger by Paul Constant, encouraging us […]

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Notable New York, This Week 10/11 – 10/17

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This week in New York David Grossman translates with Paul Auster, Justin Taylor and Eva Tamladge exhibit tattoos for the literary inclined, Tao Lin reads, Guernica celebrates, Bill Bryson is Private, Rick Moody joins the Sunday Salon, Catfish is the SATURDAY MOVIE PICK, and James Frey combines Dante, literature, and ART.

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Saturday Morning Links

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Lots of people, myself included, mocked NBCU’s decision to change the name of the Sci-Fi Channel to the “hipper” and more easily textable “SyFy.” Michael Hinman, who created the website SyFy Portal ten years ago (now named Airlock Alpha), has a different take on the controversy. Graphic novels, after years of huge sales numbers, finally […]

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