Figuring It Out: A Conversation with Rosellen Brown
Rosellen Brown discusses her new novel, THE LAKE ON FIRE.
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Posts Tagged: Zoe Zolbrod
Notable Chicago: 8/10–8/16
Literary events in and around Chicago this week!
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Notable Chicago: 7/6–7/12
Literary events in and around Chicago this week!
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What to Read When Everyone Is Talking about Rape
A list of memoirs, fiction, poetry collections, and nonfiction that deal with rape culture and the many ways that is shapes our society and the women and men who live within it.
...moreNotable Chicago: 10/6–10/12
Literary events and readings in and around Chicago this week!
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Reinventing Motherhood and Re-Dreaming Reality: Talking with Ariel Gore
Ariel Gore discusses her new novel We Were Witches, why capitalism and the banking system are the real enemies, and finding the limits between memoir and fiction.
...moreNotable Chicago: 5/19–5/25
Friday 5/19: Emil Ferris reads from My Favorite Thing Is Monsters at Women & Children First. 7:30 p.m., free. Saturday 5/20: Join Chicago historical mystery writers Susanna Calkins, Cheryl Honigford, Michelle Cox, and D.M. Pirrone, as they gather for a lively panel discussion about their work and all things mystery! The Book Cellar, 6 p.m., […]
...moreNotable Chicago: 3/24–3/30
Friday 3/24: The Conversation series at Women & Children First continues with this week’s theme, On Being American: Identity & Belonging Under a Hostile Regime. This edition will feature Boris Fishman, Cristina Henriquez, Erika L. Sanchez, the artist Riva Lehrer, and Zoe Zolbrod. 7:30 p.m., free (donations to local nonprofits encouraged). Sunday 3/26: Join The […]
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The Last Book I Loved: The Telling
After what seems like a lifetime of bracing and bottling, I’ve gotten closer to settling my fourth-grade trauma.
...moreWeekend Rumpus Roundup
First, in the Saturday Interview, Helga Schimkat talks to author Eden Robinson about silencing the inner voice of criticism. Robinson, whose award-winning novel Monkey Beach is set in British Columbia, emphasizes the sensory and emotional role of home in her work, saying, “Writing about your community is difficult for any writer. The push and pull of representing your […]
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Anna March’s Reading Mixtape #27: True Stories
These are extraordinary stories, exceptionally well-told. In a world where too many storytellers don’t tell truths, these writers do. Each one of these authors is steadfast and loyal, fierce and open, generous and unflinching. Their works deeply satisfy. Every story here made me consider my own life more carefully and inspired me to tell my own […]
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Fathers, and Stories, and Father’s Day Stories from the Sunday Rumpus
This time last year I sat for days with my father in his room at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, recording his voice as he narrated the story of his life. “She’s helping me write my memoirs,” he quipped to the endless parade of nurses passing through to change the dressings on his legs, take […]
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The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Zoe Zolbrod
The Rumpus Book Club chats with Zoe Zolbrod about her new book The Telling, pushing against victim narratives, how the conversation surrounding sexual abuse has evolved, and the melding of research with memoir.
...moreNext Letter in the Mail: Zoe Zolbrod
We’re getting ready to send out our next Letter in the Mail, and it’s from our own Sunday Rumpus Co-Editor, Zoe Zolbrod! Zoe writes her letter about another letter she must write but keeps postponing, and what happens when she finally writes it. To make sure this letter makes its way to your mailbox, subscribe to Letters in the Mail today! And, […]
...moreSunday Links
This week I found myself reading way too much about the Democratic primary. To what extent is the expressed dislike of Hillary rooted in sexism? Is being the first woman to win a primary contest in the United States giving a big f-you to the establishment, or is someone who’s been paid big bucks by […]
...moreWeekend Rumpus Roundup
First, Brandon Hicks personifies a crucial part of all stories in “The End: A Biography.” Then, in the Saturday Essay, Lisa Ellison recalls the comforting presence of Molly Ringwald on her television screen alongside difficult memories of her mother’s drug and alcohol addiction. “Mom was our Molly,” Ellison says, “a natural redheaded princess who loved […]
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Sarah Einstein
Mot was living my own fear… I wanted to learn from him how I might survive, if I too ended up without a home, without the resources to live what I thought of as a minimally decent life.
...moreWeekend Rumpus Roundup
Gentrification, and analogies for it, are the focus of Mary Biddinger’s poetry collection A Sunny Place With Adequate Water, reviewed by Danielle Susi. The inhumanity of coin-operated machinery serves as a theme. Moments of “lucidity” make these poems “a little weird, a little quirky, and a lot beautiful.” Then, in the Saturday Essay, Tara Isabella Burton looks back […]
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Chloe Caldwell
Chloe Caldwell talks about her new novella Women, gender nectar, break-up grief, and her impatience with analyzing the fiction/nonfiction divide.
...moreSunday Links
What to do with the interesting or vexing stories from our lives, the people who fascinate us, the situations that obsesses us? Do we spin them into fictions or try to capture them in nonfiction, in memoirs, essays, or—in what seems to be a trend—some hybrid form? “Autobiography is increasingly the only form in all […]
...moreKathy Acker, Icon
In today’s New York Times Book Review, there’s a great essay by Cheryl Strayed responding to the prompt “Is This a Golden Age for Woman Essayists?” She rightly tears the question to shreds. And yet, I’ll admit it. I tend to gravitate towards writers who are women, both in terms of what I read and […]
...moreNew Sunday, New Editors
Way back in the 1990s we, Zoe Zolbrod and Martha Bayne, decided to publish a zine. For months we zipped editorial ideas back and forth on our brand-new AOL accounts, and then, shortly after Martha emigrated from Brooklyn to join Zoe in Chicago, we produced our first issue: a hot-off-the-presses publication called Maxine, with a […]
...moreFarewell, “Casa Azul Cripple,” and Other Voices Querétaro 2015
Today marks my last day as the editor of the Sunday Rumpus, and I’m honored to celebrate it by publishing one of my favorite writers working today, Emily Rapp, with a stunningly powerful and complex essay, “Casa Azul Cripple.” I was thrilled to first introduce Emily’s work to The Rumpus three years ago, and this, […]
...moreGoodbye for now…and new at the Sunday Rumpus helm…
Dear amazing Rumpus tribe— This September marks my third anniversary as the editor of The Sunday Rumpus. These three years have included some of the true highlights of my 17 years as an editor—from being able to interview one of my lifelong literary heroes, Margaret Atwood, to introducing the work of many writers whose essays […]
...moreWeekend Rumpus Roundup
On this weekend in 1652, a law was passed in Rhode Island banning slavery in the colonies. Turns out that particular law didn’t cause much of a stir. Unfortunately, some of today’s legislation intended to protect marginalized groups isn’t faring much better. See Stephen Elliott’s, “Eden Alexander, Crowd Funding, and Discrimination Against Sex Workers”, for a […]
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Who’s Crying Now
Faced with parenting children who have no qualms about bursting into tears, Zoe Zolbrod revisits her own stoic childhood, two generations of secret abuse, and whether crying may hold the power to protect.
...moreWeekend Rumpus Roundup
Monday already? We understand your pain; why don’t you gulp down the rest of your morning cup of Soylent and secure ample room in your gullet for these weekend Rumpus features: Once again, Yumi Sakugawa showcases her mastery of capturing existential torment with Saturday’s comic. In Sunday’s essay, Zoe Zolbrod uses a writer’s financial struggles—struggles that […]
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Lisa, Wolf, and the World
What is the price of art–of inspiration? Shaken by the dire financial need of one of her youthful punk idols, Zoe Zolbrod powerfully re-examines her own relationship to the middle-class ethos.
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Fresh Air Fail: What Happens When Personal Writing Draws a Spotlight
Martha Bayne wrote a piece for The Rumpus about her unplanned pregnancy. Next thing she knew, she was being invited onto Fresh Air. That’s when things got sticky…
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Anne Elizabeth Moore
“The phrase ‘global citizen’ always gets tossed around with my work, and part of it is that, clearly, talking about being a global citizen is the only way we can talk about participating in globalization without feeling like assholes.”
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