| This Week from The Rumpus |
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- End-of-Year fundraising update
- New Voices on Addiction by Matti Ben-Lev
- Interviews with Hyeseung Song and Sarah LaBrie
- Reviews of Madeleine Cravens's Pleasure Principle and M.M. Olivas's Sundown in San Ojuela
- New Essays, Fiction, and Poetry by Andleeb Shadani, Sofi Stambo, Mac Crane, and Paul Hlava Ceballos
- Zahid Rafiq for The First Book, and the haunting of Lauren Brazeal Garza for Parallel Practice
- The Rumpus PRIZE, calls for submission, Letters in the Mail from Authors (Naomi Cohn)
- Thank you to this week's sponsor Disquiet
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| Publisher Update: We're in the final stretch of our End-of-Year fundraiser with $3,100 to go. |
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It's difficult to come up with a new way to say, Hey, we still need HELP every week, but here we go again . . .
We're so grateful that 200+ readers have stepped up to help us fill our 2025 funding gap. It's donor support we needed even before the 1,000 year flooding event in Asheville, but the situation felt particularly dire after that disaster. How was I going to run a *fun* fundraiser, start any new initiatives, or work extra hours at one of my other 2 jobs to help The Rumpus stay afloat? Publishing a scrappy, volunteer-run indie literary magazine is not a get rich business even in calmer times. However, it's crucial that through a mix of funds from merch, memberships, donors, and ad sales we break even every year.
Along with massive loss of infrastructure (its nearly 3 months after Helene and we still have over 90 bridges out in our county alone), our community lost its sense of stability. Everything takes longer and many of the choices we have to make are no one's plan A.
With all the shitty things that happened this year, I'm happy to share that our $25K goal feels almost within reach. As I'm typing this, we've raised $21,900—88% of our $25K goal—with just $3,100 remaining. With just 10 days left in the year, we need help NOW to make sure all of this year's bills are paid and we can calmly plan for 2025.
For those of you who love to swoop in close to the end to help organizations over the finish line, can you help us TODAY so The Rumpus can continue into 2025 and (hopefully) beyond.
We are incredibly grateful for your continued support during a very tough year.
With appreciation, Alyson Sinclair
Publisher, The Rumpus |
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Interviews & Reviews
“If you love something, you have to allow these things to have their own lives.”
Megan E. O’Laughlin interviews Hyeseung Song about her debut memoir Docile.
“A blood-curdling page-turner, body horror by way of Mesoamerican gods and ICE guards.”
Erin Vachon reviews M.M. Olivas’s debut novel Sundown in San Ojuela.
“I really needed a book like this, a story about mental illness and Blackness and friendship..."
Jennifer Stewart interviews Sarah LaBrie about her new memoir No One Gets to Fall Apart.
“These poems are interested in desire and relationality, in reaching and longing toward both pleasure and pain...”
Emily Alexander reviews Madeleine Cravens’s poetry collection Pleasure Principle.
“One sentence calling another, one story bringing another. Slowly gathering mass, gathering people.”
Zahid Rafiq talks the publication of his debut story collection The World With Its Mouth Open for The First Book. |
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New Essays & Columns
“Her body: white like a shroud. I had known her for two decades, and she always looked like an old sweater.”
Rumpus Original Fiction: “Leaves of a Cypress Tree” by Andleeb Shadani
“The feeling, one I cannot crush even if I wanted to, breaks out of my chest like shrapnel from a landmine.”
Rumpus Original Column Voices on Addiction: “Tender” by Matti Ben-Lev
“We had that freedom with dog names, but according to the Communist Party directive, all humans had to have Bulgarian names.”
Rumpus Original Essay: “Still Working on It” by Sofi Stambo
“Is to be human to be a human / poured into a body? / Lights are off, summer’s dark felt / fills window-spaces, tree-spaces.”
Rumpus Original Poetry: Three Poems by Paul Hlava Ceballos
“When we are apart, something feels off. The world is topsy-turvy. There’s a film between me and everyone else.”
Rumpus Original Essay: “Wilder’s Mozzy” by Mac Crane
“My son often saw what he called 'shadow people' when he was little.”
Rumpus Original Column Parallel Practice: "Haunting in Theory/Haunting in Practice" by Lauren Brazeal Garza |
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| RUMPUS PRIZE for
Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction! |
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Announcing the inaugural Rumpus Prize for Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction!
Submissions are open December 5, 2024 to March 2, 2025. The Rumpus has a long history of championing emerging and established poets, fiction writers, and essayists, and we’re pleased to announce a new way the magazine will bring attention to great writing.
All submissions will be read by The Rumpus‘s editorial team, and our final judges will be Kaveh Akbar (Poetry), Rachel Khong (Fiction), and Megan Stielstra (Creative Nonfiction).
The Rumpus Prize offers $3,600 total in prizes, with $1,000 awarded for 1st place prize and publication in 3 genres: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Honorable mentions receive $200 and publication in each of the 3 genres.
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| Help us break up with X (Twitter) |
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| It's them, not us. We just think it's time to go our separate ways. We're growing in different directions. We think it's time we lived our life on our own. You get it. If you get your Rumpus updates from X, consider following us elsewhere as we're currently phasing out the account. It's painful to give up 100,000+ followers, but how many of those are actually active, real life humans? If you're a human, follow us on: |
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| Our ceramic mug
NOW SHIPPING WORLDWIDE! |
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| 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! |
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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 . . .
January 1: Naomi Cohn is a writer and teaching artist whose work explores reclamation. The Braille Encyclopedia: Brief Essays on Altered Sight is her full-length debut. Her past includes a childhood among Chicago academics; involvement in a guerrilla feminist art collective; and work as an encyclopedia copy editor, community organizer, grant writer, fundraising consultant, and therapist. A 2023 McKnight Artist Fellow in Writing, her previous publications include a chapbook, Between Nectar & Eternity (Red Dragonfly Press, 2013), and pieces in Baltimore Review, Fourth River, Hippocampus, Terrain, and Poetry, among others. Raised in Chicago, she now lives on unceded Dakota territory in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Subscribe by December 31! |
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| Two new columns, Collaborative Criticism and Close Reads are now open year-round!
Our new column Parallel Practice is open again for submissions. Read the call here before submitting.
We are open for Funny Women and Prose and Poetry Book Reviews submissions year-round.
Opening soon: we'll be open for submissions for our Enough column from Jan. 3-Feb. 7. ENOUGH is a Rumpus series devoted to creating a dedicated space for work by women and non-binary people who engage with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence. We want to make sure that this conversation doesn’t stop until our laws and societal norms reflect real change. We consider personal essays, critical essays, poetry, comics, and hybrid work.
(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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