This Week from The Rumpus
  • Week One of National Poetry Month kicks off with Naomi Shihab Nye, Roger Reeves, Sadie Dupuis, and Hua Xi
  • Interview with Lauren K. Watel by Emma Bolden
  • Reviews of Shubha Sunder's Optional Practical Trainingand Kiran Bath's Instructions for Banno
  • Essay by Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo
  • Comic by Jenni Belotserkovsky and Sarah Yahm
  • Letters in the Mail for April 15 with Tiana Clark
  • Rumpus 📚 > 🤖 BOOKS OVER BOTS tote bags in collaboration with Pilsen Community Books! Available and shipping now.
  • Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Reedsy! Scroll down for a special 30% discount offer.

National Poetry Month


“We will not delete you. / We would give you / anything we have. / Your pain is not money.

"Current Affairs" by Naomi Shihab Nye

“And the brush of grass against the lowering / Roof of the evening. The eye can eat the vanishing light

"Late February" by Roger Reeves

“With a wrought baby / spoon in my ankle, a teething / bracelet in my thigh, / I hid from the responsibility of aging.

"My Accomplishments" by Sadie Dupuis

“No matter how long, / I have more of myself to lose.

"Shed Hairs" by Hua Xi
A special offer from our sponsor, Reedsy
Are you hoping to finish a novel in 2025? Reedsy’s acclaimed novel-writing course gets you to The End in just three months. Rumpus newsletter subscribers can take 30% off using coupon code RUMPUS30. Click this link (or the image) to enroll.
If you want guidance and accountability, this is the course for you: You'll learn about writing craft from award-winning author and ghostwriter Tom Bromley, get feedback from a supportive community, and finish your first draft. (Pro tip: You can get a free lesson just by signing up via the link.)

Interviews & Reviews
 

“My brain was like a cauldron, and I made potions in it.”

Emma Bolden interviews Lauren K. Watel about Book of Potions 

“Her exploration of the way the self forms in the space between distant origins and immediate experience feels wholly authentic.”

Asya Partan reviews Shubha Sunder’s Optional Practical Training

“A cosmic and indispensable collection; it is a map, a kindling, and a passage for dreaming...”

Rukan Saif reviews Kiran Bath’s Instructions for Banno

New Essays & Columns


“The deer come out at dusk. The sky is purple. It’s hard to see quite right. People call it the magic hour.

Rumpus Original Essay: "Contra" by Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo

“She was a skeleton assembled wrong tangled bone grinding against bone.

Rumpus Original Comic: "Fragments" by Jenni Belotserkovsky and Sarah Yahm
Small Press Sunday: University of Akron Press

Sunday, April 6 at 3:30 PT / 6:30 ET


Join us on Instagram Live!
Show Us Your Desk: Jeremy Gordon

Tuesday, April 8 at 3:00 PT / 6:00 ET


Join us on Instagram Live!
Letters in the Mail (from authors!)
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...

April 15: Tiana Clark is the author of the poetry collections Scorched Earth; I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood, which won the 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize; and Equilibrium, which won the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. Clark’s other honors include a Pushcart Prize, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Tennessee State University, where she studied Africana and women’s studies. She is the Grace Hazard Conkling Writer-in-Residence at Smith College. Find out more at TianaClark.comSubscribe by April 14!
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AVAILABLE NOW!
New Rumpus tote bags in collaboration with Pilsen Community Books!

Introducing brand new Rumpus tote bags made in collaboration with the very fine worker-run bookstore Pilsen Community Books in Chicagothe first totes The Rumpus has made in over a decade!!

Back in October, as those of us in Asheville, NC were still struggling with getting running water back after Hurricane Helene, Pilsen Community Books worker-owner and long-time friend, Mandy Medley, reached out to see if there was a way to help boost The Rumpus from afar

We spend so much time publishing new work that we don’t often have the resources or bandwidth to create new merch, so we came up with the idea of collaborating on a tote and commissioning Asheville-based artist Kyndra Sweep to create the illustrations and lettering for us.

Net proceeds will be split evenly between Pilsen Community Books and The Rumpus. If you’re in the Chicago area, you can purchase totes in-person at the bookstore.

If you’re anywhere else in the USyou can order HERE directly through The Rumpus store.

Thank you for supporting human artists, writers, and workers. Books over bots, freethinkers over algorithms forever!


—Alyson Sinclair, Publisher, The Rumpus
AVAILABLE NOW!

Calls for Submissions

Two new columns, Collaborative Criticism and Close Reads are now open year-round!

We are open for Prose and Poetry Book Reviews submissions year-round.

(Reminder, annual Rumpus Members can submit their work in any genre all year long.)

Our ceramic mug
NOW SHIPPING WORLDWIDE!
Sometimes our international friends ask how they can order our classic "Write Like a Motherfucker" ceramic mug. Well, we now have an option for you to get them through Bonfire. Get one for yourself or your best overseas bud. Also available to US folks, of course!
Order HERE

Reader Support Keeps The Rumpus Going!

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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