Interviews & Reviews
Stephen Patrick Bell interviews Phillip B. Williams about Ours
"While writing Ours, I found myself constantly in awe and sometimes horrified by some of the decisions that characters made."
Peter Huhne reviews Daniel Lefferts's Ways and Means
"Ways and Means suggests what happens when relations are so imbalanced and the sources and effects of wealth so nebulous as to make the idea of pairing off all but impossible."
Anna Held interviews Leslie Jamison about Splinters
"There’s a question that shows up very early in the book: would every moment of happiness have this grief tucked inside of it?"
ICYMI: The Rumpus's Publisher, Alyson Sinclair interviewed on Bloomsday's F***ing Shakespeare podcast during AWP 2023.
"I heard a joke [at AWP] a couple years ago that we're all passing around the same $20 bill. That's actually pretty accurate if we marked it."
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New Fiction & Columns
Rumpus Original Fiction: "We Are the Titanic" by Gabrielle Griffis
“We succumb to a watery grave, waving like seaweed. Then we are stiff with death. Our souls ascend, dissolve like oxygen bubbles into air.”
Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Alexa Luborsky
“So I became an expert on ripeness. I wore my body like a fig. Try not to understand me. I, just another of her fruits. But still, the more of her I ate, the hungrier I was. My hunger was unbearable.”
Rumpus Original Column Voices on Addiction: "Learning to Steal" by Rebecca Evans
“In the dressing room, I re-layered after removing tags—a tank, a button-up, a scarf, five or six pairs of thongs, easily hidden beneath my baggy jeans.”
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Next up in our Indie x Indie
POETRY BOOK CLUB:
Blue on a Blue Palette by Lynne Thompson
x BOA Editions |
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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!
Join by midnight March 15, to receive our April Poetry Book Club pick Blue on a Blue Palette by Lynne Thompson and join our subsciber-only conversation with author Lynne Thompson and a Rumpus 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 April's Poetry Book Club selection: Lynne Thompson’s Blue on a Blue Palette reflects on the condition of women—their joys despite their histories, and their insistence on survival as issues of race, culture, pandemic, and climate threaten their livelihoods. The documentation of these personal odysseys—which vary stylistically from abecedarians to free verse to centos—replicate the many ways women travel through the stages of their lives, all negotiated on a palette encompassing various shades of blue. These poems demand your attention, your voice: “Say history. Claim. Say wild.”
“Lynne Thompson’s Blue on a Blue Palette is at turns—and, often, all at once—old and new. That is, rooted strong in a long tradition and legitimately experimental. Thompson’s range in form and subject matter is equaled only by the deftness with which she handles each. In these pages we get a true blue blueswoman who knows when to whisper and when to wail, one who has lived some, and means to make song of what she’s seen.” —John Murillo, author of Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry
About April's featured indie press: Since its founding in 1976, BOA has published more than 300 books of American poetry, poetry-in-translation, and short fiction. BOA Editions, Ltd., a not-for-profit publisher of poetry and other literary works, fosters readership and appreciation of contemporary literature. By identifying, cultivating, and publishing both new and established poets and selecting authors of unique literary talent, BOA brings high quality literature to the public. Support for this effort comes from the sale of its publications, grant funding, and private donations.
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Join The Rumpus on Instagram Live for Small Press Sunday with Janet Rodriguez! Small Press Sunday is a look inside the presses who make your favorite books. Our next press is Curbstone Books with Senior Acquisitions Editor Marisa Siegel. Follow us on Instagram and tune in on 3/3 at 2:30 PST / 5:30 EST.
Curbstone Books is an innovative and award-winning line of books in fiction, creative nonfiction, memoir, and poetry that promote human rights, social justice, and intercultural understanding. Founded in 1975 by Judith Doyle and Alexander “Sandy” Taylor, the original Curbstone Press operated for thirty years and garnered numerous national and regional accolades, including the New England Booksellers Association for Publishing Excellence, the National Hispanic Academy of Media Arts and Sciences for Achievement in Publishing, the ALTA Award for Dedication to Translation, the PEN New England “Friends to Writers” Award, and the PEN Gregory Kolovakos Award for commitment to Hispanic Literature. In 2008, Curbstone Press joined Northwestern University Press and become the Curbstone Books imprint. Northwestern University Press continues the mission of Curbstone Press by publishing two to four books per year that support social uplift and equity across cultures and continents.
Missed the last interview in the series? Check our Janet's conversation with Ryo Yamaguchi from Copper Canyon Press here.
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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, an author letter from . . .
March 15: Aimee Bender is the author of six books of fiction including NY Times Notable Book The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, bestseller The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, and most recently The Butterfly Lampshade. Her short fiction has been published widely, and she’s so glad The Rumpus unearthed this letter. Subscribe by Mar. 14! |
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| Fiction is open for submissions until March 15.
Comics is open for submissions until March 31.
We are open for Funny Women and Prose and Poetry 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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