Interviews & Reviews
Jinwoo Chong interviewed by Yasmin Roshanian about his novel Flux
"...those moments of vulnerability are very scary. They're painful, they're brief, but they are beautiful when they happen."
Matti Ben-Lev reviews Marie Darrieussecq's memoir Sleepless: Imprisoned by Insomnia
"...with insomnia, she has found a real-world subject appropriate for her ongoing concerns about making sense of the absurd."
Kate Finegan interviews Daphne Kalotay about her latest collection The Archivists
"I associate short stories with a feeling of warmth...I feel that they bring us in close in a way that novels often don't. They can be so powerful in such an intense way."
Eugenia Leigh's Bianca, reviewed by Asa Drake
"Leigh’s collection sustains an imperfect and idealized self—plural and human and no less miraculous." |
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Originals & Columns
Rumpus Exclusive: Excerpts from Ross Gay's forthcoming The Book of (More) Delights
“The know-it-all's job is to put a stake in wonder's fat and gooey heart."
Rumpus Original Poetry: Two Poems by Artress Bethany White
"Breaking News woos with pain / but there is no romance in the sound / of a body hitting the floor / or children crying behind a closed door."
ENOUGH: Words as the Way: Rediscovering my Sister and Myself 40 Years After Her Assault
"I never knew you saw me. I never knew that you knew how deeply I was hurt,” she said. “I never knew that I wasn’t alone." |
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For our September 2023 - August 2024 selections (and possibly beyond!), we’ll focus on great new poetry collections AND hear from the indie publishers behind the books with our new Indie x Indie Poetry Book Club format!
* Sign up by TONIGHT midnight, SEPTEMBER 15 to start with our October Poetry Book Club pick: Another Last Call: Poems on Addiction & Deliverance edited by Kaveh Akbar and Paige Lewis in conversation with Sarabande Books Executive Director & Editor-in-Chief, Kristen Renee Miller + Rumpus Editor-at-large, Marisa Siegel.
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Next up: join between Sept. 16 & midnight October 15th, to receive our November Poetry Book Club pick Orders of Service by Willie Lee Kinard III and join our subsciber-only conversation with author Willie Lee Kinard III, Carey Salerno, Executive Editor and Executive Director at Alice James Books, and Brian Spears, Rumpus Poetry Editor.
As a subscriber, we'll send you a copy of this book the first week of October and you'll also be invited to an exclusive online video discussion with the book's author + the author's editor + a Rumpus Editor and fellow book club members. Subscribers are encouraged to join in the chat with their questions before and during the conversations. These will take place on the Rumpus' Crowdcast channel and will remain available to subscribers for 1 month after they take place.
About November's Poetry Book Club selection: As a young, Black, queer person in a small town in the South where everyone knows everyone, Orders of Service is a coming-of-age exploration of the everyday fever of fleeting relationships, while capturing the romantic, psychic quotidian of the Bible Belt.
“Willie Lee Kinard III’s astonishing debut collection braids mythology, sex and desire, gutbucket and gospel—defying outdated notions of bodies, binaries, the black church, and the natural world. These verses render testimonies so electric, you can’t help but shout. Kinard knows caring begins in language. He knows black boys crafted of fable can become sharp-witted and tender lovers and loving men. Orders of Service cuts so clean and deep you’ll find yourself several pages in before you notice blood on your fingers.”
—Yona Harvey
About November's featured indie press: Founded as a feminist press in 1973, Alice James Books is committed to collaborating with literary artists of excellence whose voices have been historically marginalized by producing, promoting, and distributing their work which often engages the public on important social issues. Alice James provides a platform from which to elevate exceptional literary artists and is dedicated to helping its writers achieve purposeful engagement with broad audiences and communities nationwide. We help writers tell their stories and connect with readers. We envision this work making continued contributions that sustain American literary and artistic culture and to growing a more understanding, equitable, and just community through literature. |
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IN PERSON | September 28, 7 PM McNally Jackson Seaport, NYC
The Rumpus presents Sapphic Storytelling: Queer eQuinox
Featuring authors Hannah Beresford, Jaquira Díaz, CJ Hauser, Lars Horn, T Kira Madden, and Kelley Van Dilla. Moderated by Rumpus Senior Features Editor, Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn. This is the latest in our reading and conversation series were we present writers we adore and use the term “sapphic” as a tongue-in-cheek term to refer to queerness that nods to the writerly and lacunae-filled history of queer people of all sexualities and genders. This event is a Bookends event presented in partnership with the Brooklyn Book Festival. |
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| | HYBRID |October 9, 6 PM
Malaprops Bookstore, Asheville, NC
The Rumpus co-presents Good Women: Halle Hill in Conversation with Diamond Forde Join The Rumpus IRL(or virtually) for a conversation with Halle Hill and Diamond Forde about Hill's debut story collection, Good Women from Hub City Press.
In her debut, Halle Hill’s Good Women delves into the lives of twelve Black women across the Appalachian South. A woman boards a Greyhound bus barreling toward Florida to meet her sugar daddy’s mother; a state fair employee considers revenge on a local preacher; a sister struggles with guilt as she helps her brother plan to run away with a man he's seeing in secret; a young woman who works for a scam for-profit college navigates the lies she sells for a living. Darkly funny and deeply human, Good Women observes how place, blood-ties, generational trauma, obsession, and boundaries—or lack thereof—influence how we navigate our small worlds, and how those worlds so often collide in ways we don’t expect. Through intimate moments of personal choice, Hill carefully shines a light on how these twelve women shape and form themselves through faith and abandon, transgression and conformity, community, caution, and solitude. |
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| Letters in the Mail (from authors!) |
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Letters in the Mail from authors is a Rumpus subscription in which you receive an actual, postmarked letter from one of our favorite writers in your IRL mailbox twice a month. All letters are non-promotional, include a creative prompt, and have a return mailing address in case you'd like to write the author back!
Up next, author letters from . . .
October 1: Ling Ma is a writer hailing from Fujian, Utah, and Kansas. She wrote the novel Severance and the story collection Bliss Montage. Her fiction has been awarded the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, the Whiting Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and others. She lives in Chicago with her family. (subscribe by September 30)
October 15: Kelly Sather is the author of the short story collection SMALL IN REAL LIFE, selected by Deesha Philyaw for the 2023 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. The book invokes the myth and melancholy of L.A. glamour, of starry-eyed women and men striving for their own Hollywood shimmer no matter the consequences. Her stories and interviews have appeared in publications including Santa Monica Review, Pembroke Magazine, J Journal, PANK, and on ZYZZYVA. (subscribe by October 14) |
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| Featured Partner or Sponsor |
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| | On Saturday, October 14th, Kundiman will host The Kundiman Gala: A Speakeasy Soirée, at Bohemian National Hall in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. All proceeds from the auction will support readings, writing workshops, and mentorship for Asian American writers.
Join the Gala (in-person or virtually)
Bid on your favorite item or service (including a 1-year subscription to The Rumpus's Letters in the Mail from authors!) in the online auction. |
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| Open Aug. 1 to Oct. 31 for original Comics.
Closing SOON! Open Aug. 15 to Sept. 15 for original Fiction.
Open Set. 1 to Oct. 31 for original Essays.
Parallel Practice, a new monthly column at The Rumpus, is edited by our very own Anna Held. We are open for Funny Women and Book Reviews submissions year-round.
(Reminder, annual Rumpus Members can submit their work in any genre all year long.) |
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Reader Support Keeps The Rumpus Going! |
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| Founded in 2009 in San Francisco, CA and now based in Asheville, NC with readers and editors all over the US and abroad, The Rumpusis one of the longest-running independent online literary and culture magazines. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers readers already know and love. Often, we are an emerging writer's first notable publication, which is something we’re really proud of. We believe that literature builds community—and if reading The Rumpus makes you feel more connected, please show your support! Our Membership and subscription programs along with tax-deductible donations made to The Rumpus through our fiscal sponsor, Fractured Atlas, help keep us going and brings us closer to sustainability. |
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