Become a Rumpus Member
Join NOW!Is there any fabric more well-loved than flannel? At Vela Magazine, Sonya Huber discusses the significance wearing flannel had to her teenage self in the 1980s Midwest: Flannel hid the shape of a woman, yet it revealed as we pushed our breasts against its grid; it protected us from scrutiny. Inside flannel’s soft tent, I […]
...moreRufi Thorpe writes for Vela on the responsibilities of writing and motherhood, and the transformation of a woman writer into an “art monster”: But any soldier will tell you that much of the Army is similarly boring and routine. Yet we do not ask a war poet, Do you ever worry your work will become […]
...moreAt Vela Magazine, Amy Bess Cook discusses living with epilepsy, and the problem with considering epilepsy as neurodiversity: While one of these—grand mal seizures—overlaps with Sylvie’s, our conditions differ. Seizure causes, auras (the body’s precursory warning state), and severity leave room for infinite variety. Understanding epilepsy, then, requires letting go of certainty—something we epileptics do everyday.
...moreAt Vela Magazine, Danielle Jackson discusses Whitney Houston as an embodiment of black excellence, and the continued erasure of black artists’ contributions to commercial music: Houston and the entire lineage of black women performers that preceded her invented techniques and sounds that have been endlessly covered and riffed upon, but they are generally under-acknowledged for their […]
...moreIn a nuanced essay at Vela Magazine, Anne P. Beatty discusses what her experiences teaching for the Peace Corps in Nepal and teaching at an impoverished school in LA taught her about privilege and about America: Nepal seemed full of life and community and hope and culture, whereas America was lonely and sterile, devoid of […]
...moreVela Magazine’s always-funny Sarah Menkedick discusses her newfound relationship with Instagram as a mother, and posits photo-sharing as a powerful validation of domesticity: It creates scenes, story. More importantly, it asks for recognition and imbues meaning. It ushers the domestic out as worthy of attention, praise, Lo-Fi filters and exaggerated lighting. For this, I believe, women […]
...moreAt Vela Magazine, Leslie Kendall Dye discusses living with her mother who has dementia, and the connection between her mother and her own daughter: After dinner, I watch my mother and child play in my daughter’s shoe-box room. My daughter is dancing to Dick Hyman’s jazz rendition of The Nutcracker Suite. My toddler instructs my mother […]
...moreOver at Vela Magazine, Sarah Menkedick discusses her complicated relationship with the endless distraction and instant gratification of the Internet as a writer: My default instinct is to skew towards the more challenging option, which demands greater discipline and less immediate reward, and so I continue to aim for the longform essay over the viral […]
...moreOver at Vela Magazine, Rachel Wilkinson explores the cultural significance of women’s hair: Feminists have often identified hair grooming as the first lesson in gender socialization. Dolls are perfectly designed to aid girls in learning submission, letting them play-act the labor that will later be expected of them when it comes to appearances.
...moreIn a poignant and funny essay, Vela Magazine’s Sarah Menkedick discusses being a writer while being a mother: The house looks as though someone has flipped it upside down and shaken it, we’re surviving off cans of refried beans, the poor dog is curled beneath the walnut tree in a state of shocked repair, and I […]
...moreAt Vela Magazine, Katie Booth writes on the historical repression of sign language in favor of oralism, and her experience growing up hearing with a deaf grandmother: Everywhere she went, she brought Sign. In my mind, it was an act of rebellion as much as it was an act of preservation. The schools told her that […]
...moreVela Magazine is hoping to raise $25,000 to pay its women writers and editors. With less than a week left, they have $7,059 to pry from your gender-netural credit cards.
...moreLove our “Funny Women“ column as much as we do? Find out who “Funny Women” editor Elissa Bassist thinks is hilarious, courtesy of Vela Magazine.
...moreRumpus interviews editor Rebecca Rubenstein recently launched a kick ass online literary magazine, Midnight Breakfast. The folks over at Vela Magazine were quite impressed with MB and Rumpus contributor Kima Jones‘s CNF piece, “The Aqiqah”: “It’s always exciting to see a new literary site launch, especially when it includes complimentary original artwork. But when I saw […]
...moreChris was also a transfer student but from the other direction, further north, one of the towns in that cluster—El Sobrante, Crockett, Port Costa—where the Bay waters tentacle and the urbanity dissipates. “The Midwest begins where the BART line ends,” a San Francisco comedian once quipped. I wish I could say that isn’t true. In […]
...moreIn fall of 2001, Molly Beer was in Spain, studying to become an ESL teacher and trying her hardest to win over the non-Americans who populated her program. Then September 11 happened, and everything changed. In an essay for Vela called “That Spanish September,” Beer writes about what it was like to experience that day as a […]
...moreAs part of its ongoing battle to get women writers the recognition they deserve, Vela has put together a “list of women writers of various forms of creative nonfiction that future list-makers and anthologists…might peruse and thereby make their “bests” and “greats” better and greater, their collections more representative of the world we live in.” Here’s “The […]
...moreIt’s rare for female writers to receive recognition when it’s due. In light of International Women’s Day, Vela Magazine is collecting suggestions for its “Great Nonfiction by Women” List. We want to know which women writers you like “best,” who you think belongs on those reading lists and what works you wish got more attention. […]
...more