The Rumpus

Literary essays, advice columns, and conversations. Personal-essay heavy; sometimes uneven, often unexpectedly good.

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The Rumpus Interview with Mark O'Connell - The Rumpus

Mark O'Connell, author of the first original e-book from The Millions, talks about why he is interested in and troubled by what he calls this “frictionless sharing and flattening of affect,” particularly when it comes to what Internet inside jokes have nicknamed Epic Fails.

Mar 13, 201314 min read

The Last City I Loved: Los Angeles (or How I Traveled the NY-LA Fault Line and Got Home) - The Rumpus

I always had the sense that I was American but never more so than when I moved from New York to California over twenty years ago.

Deanne StillmanMar 10, 201322 min read

Saturday Rumpus Essay: Yodels - The Rumpus

I like to push myself. How far can I go? How many slices of pizza can I eat and not die? How many Yodels until I hate myself?

Chloe CaldwellMar 9, 201312 min read

The New York Comics Symposium: Michael Joseph - The Rumpus

The New York Comics & Picture-Story Symposium is a weekly forum for discussing the tradition and future of text/image work. Open to the public, it

The New York Comics & Picture-Story SymposiumMar 8, 20138 min read

The Emily Dickinson Reader by Paul Legault - The Rumpus

At their best, love and translation share some contradictions, including selfishness and generosity. Translation is impossible, or at least not very good,

Barbara BermanMar 6, 20135 min read

The Rumpus Interview with Jesse Sykes - The Rumpus

The first thing you notice about Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter is Sykes’s voice. It’s a stunning blend of contradictions, cutting and vulnerable,

Scott PinkmountainMar 6, 201316 min read

Between Us (and Honeybun) - The Rumpus

I’ve been at the newspaper only a matter of days, but I've already noticed the guy sitting across from me participating in some peculiar phone

David HolubMar 7, 201316 min read

I Was a Teenage Arsonist - The Rumpus

My school was on fire. It was exhilarating. Fire trucks were whipping their sirens around, and my whole high school was out on the football field,

Delaney NolanMar 5, 201314 min read

The Rumpus Interview with Joe Mozingo - The Rumpus

Journalist Joe Mozingo digs deep into his ancestral history to uncover the origin behind his surname, and discovers it's one of the few African names to survive not only the Middle Passage, but the history of American slavery itself.

Peter OrnerMar 4, 20139 min read

Fair Copy by Rebecca Hazelton - The Rumpus

Tory Adkisson reviews Fair Copy by Rebecca Hazelton today in Rumpus Poetry.

Tory AdkissonMar 1, 20134 min read

The Last Book I Loved: Cataclysm Baby - The Rumpus

Cataclysm Baby, a short story collection by Matt Bell, explores fatherhood under the guise of a book of baby names. The innocent abecedary form belies the

Alvin ParkMar 1, 20135 min read

Readers Report: Broken Promises - The Rumpus

A collection of short pieces written by Rumpus readers pertaining to the subject of “Broken Promises.” Edited by Susan Clements. *** Sometimes promises

Susan ClementsMar 1, 201326 min read

Swinging Modern Sounds #42: Hey Man, I Thought That You Were Dead - The Rumpus

They Might Be Giants had that quality, the glorious-about-human-life quality on December 30th

Rick MoodyFeb 28, 201333 min read

"Dora," by Lidia Yuknavitch - The Rumpus

Lidia Yuknavitch's Dora: A Headcase is an uncomfortable, edgy, affecting novel. The Chronology of Water had the same charge: take challenging subject matter and build a narrative akin to unpacking tension-wracked nesting dolls, cumulative sadness and worry with each new section.

J. A. TylerFeb 28, 20134 min read

The Rumpus Interview with Dmitry Samarov - The Rumpus

Dmitry's spontaneous cab drawings had such great composition and confidence. You could almost feel his grimace in so many of his lines.

Wendy MacNaughtonFeb 27, 20138 min read

Secret Weapon - The Rumpus

I loved football. Even though Dad had also taught me to swing a bat, field a ball, shoot free throws, block lay-ups, tee off, and do the elementary backstroke, nothing got me more excited than catching a 30-yard pass

Megan GilbertFeb 27, 20137 min read

New Shoes on a Dead Horse by Sierra DeMulder - The Rumpus

Winning just about every national poetry slam competition there is, Sierra DeMulder’s words and poetic swagger have won untouchable real estate in my

Gina VaynshteynFeb 27, 20134 min read

The Rumpus Interview with Roger Gastman - The Rumpus

Graffiti impresario Roger Gastman sits down and talks about the evolution of street art, his new film The Legend of Cool "Disco" Dan, and his newest exhibit and ode to Washington D.C., Pump Me Up: D.C. Subculture of the 1980s.

Shawna KenneyFeb 25, 201313 min read

The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Joshua Mohr - The Rumpus

Anisse Gross talks with Joshua Mohr about his latest novel, "a call to arms against complacency, a rally towards reclaiming one’s own individuality."

Anisse GrossFeb 24, 201324 min read

ROCK OUT WITH YOUR BOOK OUT #1: JOLIE HOLLAND - The Rumpus

I once read an interview with Jolie Holland in which she mentioned how her songs come through her from some other world. I imagined the lyrics as they

Dani BurlisonMar 19, 20139 min read

Brother, This is Your Memory Cloak - The Rumpus

I was stronger. By far I was the stronger of us both. A ballerina’s punch could’ve broken your nose, but I held back. We danced around the room like two tiny sparrows pecking at a fresh worm.

Andrea CollinsFeb 22, 201311 min read

Sightseer by Cynthia Marie Hoffman - The Rumpus

Cynthia Marie Hoffman’s excellent debut poetry collection, Sightseer, is part travelogue, part epistle, and part reclamation of the very idea of tourism.

Ryan TeitmanFeb 22, 20134 min read

It Doesn’t Mean Very Much At All - The Rumpus

I was tired of endlessly explaining that sex work could be empowering and could be exploitative, but that most things in life could be either of these things as well.

Ruth FowlerFeb 21, 201321 min read

THE LONELY VOICE #23: It Doesn't Fit, It Will Never Fit, It Fits - The Rumpus

Of Jean-Claude Van Damme, Haiti, and V.S. Pritchett...

Peter OrnerFeb 21, 201311 min read

Deep Throat #1: On Being and Unbeing a Singer - The Rumpus

When I shut my mouth I lost a part of myself so ingrained, so accustomed, so integral I had not even known it was possible to lose it.

Hanne BlankFeb 20, 20138 min read

FUNNY WOMEN #94: An Actual Missed Connection - The Rumpus

This is a missed connection, and as such I am very sorry that our connection was missed, or maybe I’m not, I don’t know, because I’ve never met you.

Barbara HolmFeb 19, 20134 min read

The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Getting Made (in honor of Ronan Louis and Emily Rapp) - The Rumpus

The Rumpus joins yoga teacher Jennifer Pastiloff in remembering Emily Rapp's son, Ronan Louis, whose brief, remarkable life ended in the early morning hours on February 15.

Jennifer PastiloffFeb 17, 201312 min read

The Rumpus Interview with Lars Iyer - The Rumpus

If Laurel and Hardy stumbled into Mike Leigh’s Naked, the result might resemble writer and philosophy lecturer Lars Iyer’s novels.

Greg HunterFeb 18, 201317 min read

The Rumpus Review of Amour - The Rumpus

Thankfully, this film really is a love story. Yet it’s such a ruthlessly unsentimental one that the title still feels like a provocation.

Ryan BrowneFeb 14, 20137 min read

Sunday Rumpus Fiction: Nobody - The Rumpus

Nights at the store, the brother and sister bagged the groceries that tumbled down the conveyors, rarely looking up, a simple nod of the head at a thanks

Tom KealeyFeb 10, 201315 min read