The Dangerous Myth of the “Perfect Victim”: A Conversation with Jonathan Parks-Ramage
Jonathan Parks-Ramage discusses his debut novel, YES, DADDY.
...more
Posts Tagged: tropes
Subverting the Wild West: A Conversation with Anna North
Anna North discusses her new novel, OUTLAWED.
...more
The Desire for a Pain-Free Existence: Talking with Karen Tucker
Karen Tucker discusses her debut novel, BEWILDERNESS.
...more
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project: Sayantani Dasgupta
“I wanted to write a story that doesn’t shy away from the problems but one that’s also hopeful.”
...more
Hell Is a Young Man: Fraternity by Benjamin Nugent
The brutality of frat culture, Nugent suggests, is a veneer that hardly masks its devotees’ miseries and insecurities.
...more
Life Gets in the Way: Talking with Emily Hashimoto
Emily Hashimoto discusses her debut novel, A WORLD BETWEEN.
...more
FUNNY WOMEN: How to Write the Perfect Fantasy Novel
Get creative! “Brian” could become “Bryawn,” courter of women, slayer of ogres.
...more
Girl Power: Quan Barry’s We Ride Upon Sticks
But this is We Ride Upon Sticks: someone’s perm falls out, someone becomes prom queen.
...more
Queering the Southern Gothic: A Conversation with Genevieve Hudson
Genevieve Hudson discusses her debut novel, BOYS OF ALABAMA.
...more
Telling Our Own Stories: A Conversation with Kate Reed Petty
Kate Reed Petty discusses her debut novel, TRUE STORY.
...more
Lingering on Darkness: Sleepovers by Ashleigh Bryant Phillips
When Ashleigh Bryant Phillips lets loose, she can shock.
...more
Nothing Gets Solved: Talking with Kevin Nguyen
Kevin Nguyen discusses his debut novel, NEW WAVES.
...more
The Rumpus Mini-Interview Project #211: Rachel Vorona Cote
“Ultimately, this is who I am. I can only write honestly, and from where I live.”
...more
Expunging the Bogeyman: Sady Doyle’s Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers
The root of these imagined, monstrous versions of women, Doyle argues, is fear.
...more
The Rumpus Interview Mini-Interview Project #196: Cathy Ulrich
“I hope it will mean as much to readers as it does to me.”
...more
Driven from the Village with Pitchforks
“Monster” is a good name for anything you want to destroy.
...more
The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Nicole Dennis-Benn
Nicole Dennis-Benn discusses her second novel, PATSY.
...more
A Badass Just Because: Talking with Steph Post
Steph Post discusses her new novel, MIRACULUM.
...more
Love, Marriage, and the Bicultural Identity: Talking with Huda Al-Marashi
Huda Al-Marashi discusses her new memoir, FIRST COMES MARRIAGE.
...more
FUNNY WOMEN: Manic Pixie Dream Girl, The Spin-Offs
Time for a flip of the gender script!
...more
You Like That, Baby?: The Myth of Feminine Mystery
“It’s like a damn Rubik’s cube down there!”
...more
FUNNY WOMEN: Lifetime Network’s New Channel for Men
Mark your calendars, gentlemen—and watch your backs!
...more
Like Juggling Knives: Talking with Rumaan Alam
Rumaan Alam discusses his new novel, That Kind of Mother, the limits of the employer-employee relationship, and the grossness of heterosexual sex.
...more
The Unexpected Feminism of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Perhaps it’s more productive then to think about Rebecca’s craziness as a source of sanity in a crazy world in which women are routinely disregarded.
...more
VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Aurvi Sharma
Aurvi Sharma discusses her memoir-in-progress, finding inspiration in ancient women’s voices, and writing against erasure.
...more
The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Suzuki and Kawasaki in the Dominican Republic
We are all punchlines. Projections of projections of projections. But whose joke is it? And where is the bill?
...more
The Rumpus Review of Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation
Parker set out to bring a different kind of “slavery movie” to audiences. And it is different.
...more
Literature’s Second-Class Citizens
They’re there but not there. They’re included but their stories don’t fully weave into the story.
...moreDaddy Wasn’t There
Anyone who made it through high school English can probably recall reading a story or two about young protagonists finding themselves in the absence of parental guidance. From whence does this orphan trope come? And why? Is this what all of us innately fear—the state of being in charge of our destinies, the only ones […]
...moreThis Week in Short Fiction
This week, Karen Russell of Swamplandia! fame has a new story in The New Yorker that unearths the self-deceptions beneath what we often think is love, and also unearths a body. In “The Bog Girl,” a teenage boy named Cillian digs up the 2,000-year-old body of a girl that has been perfectly preserved by a […]
...more