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Dearest Readers,
I recently received a typewriter (!!!!) as an early birthday gift. Is owning a typewriter a giant cliché? Perhaps. Do I care? Not really.
I am feeling particularly excited about this gift because I neither asked nor hinted—it felt like S. was able to intuit this yearning that I hadn't articulated. I have also recently re-read Mrs. Dalloway and am easily susceptible to an as-yet-unearned-nostalgia (yearning? wistfulness? fatality) that is inappropriate to my age.
I was asked if I had named my typewriter, and the answer was "not yet." After some deliberation, I've got "Richard" and "Bee," but neither feel right. The last thing I named (other than my cat, who has one of those couple-compromise names [Salem Sweet Potato Pie]) was a stuffed animal—a clam-holding otter called Sealey. (Suggestions are welcome.)
Speaking of Sea-things—I am delighted to share that TICKETS are now available for The Rumpus' big Thursday night reading at AWP. I had one really good idea in 2022, and it is coming to fruition: Sapphic Storytelling in Seattle, The Rumpus w/ Elliot Bay @ The Woods on March 9th, ft. Kristen Arnett, Ariel Delgado Dixon, Allegra Hyde, and Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya. Warning readers now that this event will LIKELY SELL OUT, so don't wait!
See you in Seattle,
AS
p.s. Our 1st IRL event in Asheville, NC on Feb. 8th is now officially SOLD OUT. Aly and I are looking forward to meeting more writers in our community next week. A special thanks to AVL Today for yesterday's write-up on the move.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: "Career Day" by Jiordan Castle
Take Your Parent to School Day. Future Day. Capitalism Day. Career Day.
Lucy’s dad had lots of names for the two-hour period in which all the available parents came to class to talk about their jobs to a bunch of nine-year-olds with their fingers up their noses before lunch. After the parents had explained the ins and outs of their job at the bank, the mall, the post office, the precinct—that’s when the important part would begin.
Reviews of . . . The Hive by Camilo José Cela: This is also where the process of translating the novel must have been the most challenging. How do you represent, in a different tongue, the languages within the language of the original text? Anchor by Rebecca Aronson: Anchor is both elegy and eulogy, but the collection also pulses with life as the speaker remembers small moments.Curing Season by Kristine Langley Mahler: “Nowhere hurts like the place you learned to be hurt; nowhere hurts like the place you were a preadolescent.”
Rumpus Original Fiction: "Daughterhouse" by Kelly X. Hui
My mother blames everything that goes wrong in our lives on the slaughterhouse next door, but I know better. She thinks it’s the violence that comes from the kill, that it leashes itself into our bones and makes us the way we are. She’s wrong. It’s always been festering inside us, a lineage of rot.
Interviews with . . . Marisa Crane: I never feel like I know how to live in the world. Only on top of it, hanging on as it spins madly.Bushra Rehman: I wanted to write about fierce, Muslim women going on adventures and being funny and smart and brave.Davon Loeb: Writing a memoir is writing with authenticity rather than just the authority of the narrator. Because of this, I have a responsibility to write people accurately.Sorayya Khan: I think we are all shaped by history, whether we accept this or not. Jennifer Savran Kelly: As a person who’s queer and presents as female, I’ve spent my life trying to get comfortable taking up space. Art has been the arena in which I’ve been able to do it most successfully.
A reading list for bird lovers by Priyanka Kumar, author of Conversations with Birds
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Our submissions period for essays is open through the end of February.
Our submissions period for comics is open through mid-March.
Our submissions period for fiction will open mid-February.
We are open for Funny Women and Reviews submissions year-round.
Find guidelines and submit here.
(Reminder, annual Rumpus Members can submit their work in any genre all year long.)
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Letters in the Mail (from authors)
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Letters in the Mail (for adult readers) authors include: Anuradha Bhowmik, Matthew Salesses, Asale Angel-Ajani, Idra Novey
Letters in the Mail for Kids (ages ~8-12) authors include: Lee Edward Födi, Elly Swartz, Anya Josephs, Sonja Thomas
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Every month subscribers get a book in the mail handpicked by The Rumpus staff. We search for titles that we are truly excited about!
Next up: Happily by Sabrina Orah Mark for our (prose) Book Club (excerpt below!) and Michael Chang's Synthetic Jungle for our Poetry Book Club selection. If you're not already a subscriber, join by midnight February 15 to receive either or BOTH!
As a subscriber, you'll also be invited to an exclusive online discussion with the book's author the last week of every month and we'll send you a pass code to join. These will take place on the brand new Rumpus https://avltoday.6amcity.com/indie-magazine-the-rumpus-relocate-to-ashevillechannel and will remain available to members for 1 month after they take place in case you miss the live event or you'd like to re-watch the conversation later.
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This week we're sharing an excerpt from our March Book Club pick HAPPILY by Sabrina Orah Mark.
GHOST PEOPLE
My son’s teacher pulls me aside to tell me she’s concerned about Noah and the Ghost People.“Ghost People?”
“Yes,” she says. She is cheerful, though I suspect the main ingredient of her cheer is dread. “Can you encourage Noah to stop bringing them to school?” She is whispering, and she is smiling. She is a close talker and occasionally calls me “girl,” which embarrasses me.
“I don’t know these Ghost People.”
“You do.”
“I don’t think so.”
“He makes them out of the wood chips he finds on the playground. They’re distracting him. He isn’t finishing his sentences.”
“Okay,” I say. “Ghost People.”
She smiles wide. One of her front teeth looks more alive than it should be.
As a toddler, Noah always had a superhero in one hand and a superhero in the other.
Like the world was a tightrope and the men were his balance pole. Now he makes his own men. Out of pipe cleaners and twigs and paper and Q-tips and string and Band-Aids, but mostly wood chips. I eavesdrop. With Noah there, the Ghost People seem to speak a mix of cloud and wind. They are rowdy and kind. They comfort him. If Adam looked like anything in the beginning, I suspect it would be these wood chips, the color of dry earth. He, too, would be speaking in a language from a place that doesn’t quite exist.
But also I know as Noah gets older the world will make it even more difficult for him to carry these People around.
“For god’s sake,” says my mother, “let him carry the freaking Ghost People around. Who is he hurting?”
“Maybe himself?” I say.
“Why himself?” she asks. “How himself?”
“They’re distracting him,” I explain.
“From what?”
“From his sentences.”
“Who the hell cares?” says my mother.
(continue reading here)
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