writing
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Junot Díaz on the Writing Life
…nothing calls for the paper shredder like a story that the writer clearly hasn’t sat on. A story that hasn’t been rewritten, or rewritten enough. So many writers that I encounter send their work in so soon. It shows, it…
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Ignore This Advice
Policy Mic has a fun post about the four worst things people tell young writers about writing. Perhaps the most important of these to disregard is “Good writers always write well”: Imagine you are someone who has no idea how…
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NEW READERS REPORT THEME: “ALL FOR YOU”
We’re hungry for more writing from Rumpus readers, so we’re now accepting submissions for another “Rumpus Readers Report.” This time we want you to tackle the theme “All for You.” Please send your submissions, maximum 400 words, to Susan Clements, silentjoy2001…
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I Did Not Vanish: On Writing
But writing poems allows me mastery over a miniature universe. For those moments or hours, I am God of my kingdom. No one tells me how things go. No one can argue against me when I’m writing poems. When I…
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What If George Eliot Were Mary Ann Evans Instead?
Well, George Eliot is Mary Ann Evans. She chose a male pen name, believing that using her own name would not allow her to be taken seriously as a writer. Over on Thought Catalog, s.e. smith writes about using a…
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Exploring the Redwood Forest: Journals and the Private Self
Lately, over crumb-laden dinner tables and cups of coffee and on windy hillsides I ask friends, family, and peripheral acquaintances whether or not they write in a journal.
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FUNNY WOMEN #100: Writing the Next Great American Woman’s Novel
A lot of women people (as opposed to men people, or just “people”) are upset that Wikipedia editors have created a subcategory for “American Women Novelists.” But I’m not.
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Rejection Sucks and Then You Die: How to Take a Dear Sad Sack Letter (and Shove it)
In what job other than writing must you seek out frequent and concrete rejection? Okay, fine, but go get your own self-pitying rant.
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Notes for a Twenty-Something’s Memoir
You tell yourself to get as far from your mother and the suburbs as possible. You vow to embrace slutdom in college and not to wear underwear.
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A Day in the Journalistic Life
The life of a writer is rarely depicted as glamorous. We do it because we must. But sometimes we also must do other things like eat, and pay for shelter over our heads, or support those dependent on us. In…
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Monomania: Why Writing All By Your Lonesome Kind of Sucks
Over at the New York Times “Draft” blog, Benjamin Nugent, author of Good Kids, breaks down the romantic notion that locking yourself away in the “primeval hush of the Midwest” is a certified boon to your writing. Instead, Nugent discusses…
