Henry Green
The Times Literary Supplement has published an edited version of a lecture given by critic and novelist James Wood celebrating English author Henry Green.Henry Green (the nom de plume of Henry Vincent...
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A Brief History of Swans
I like to imagine that they are waiting for us. I like to imagine that they check the reservation (“Burton, for three, are you sure?”), that they bite their nails and tap at their watches and wait...
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Greenford’s Gift
for Khalammi***First memory of Greenford, Middlesex: September, 1967. The beginning of a new school year. I’m a four-year-old in Mrs. Lord’s class. She’s a kind woman with a gentle voice and frequent...
View ArticlePJ Harvey Tuesday #9: “The Last Living Rose”
Of the notable rock bands that formed in the early ’90s, a large percentage have either broken up or—even worse—reunited after years-long hiatuses with only half the original lineup. Others have never...
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The Light Men
I grew up in Dallas, Texas, where Christmas lights are a competitive sport. The day after Thanksgiving, the first house on the block was illuminated, its outline twinkling against the night sky....
View ArticleBrown Bag Your American Literature, Quick
Michael Gove, Britain’s Education Secretary, is rewriting Britain’s public school curriculum to be more British. To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and The Crucible are among the titles being...
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The Rumpus Interview With Jon Hopkins
I was first introduced to the work of Jon Hopkins after Diamond Mine, his beautiful 2010 collaboration with Kenny Anderson of King Creosote. Diamond Mine was recorded largely in the Kingdom of Fife in...
View ArticleCoffee is the Future of Libraries
The Telegraph looks at some of the recommendations from the Independent Library Report for England, which include the suggestion to offer the “usual amenities of coffee, sofas and toilets.”Related...
View ArticleUK Publishing is Racist, Too
The Writing the Future report . . . found that the “best chance of publication” for a black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) writer was to write literary fiction conforming to a stereotypical view of...
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The Rumpus Interview with Paul Kingsnorth
Paul Kingsnorth is a British journalist, essayist, protestor, editor, poet, and novelist; and roughly—chronologically, at least—in that order. His first book, One No, Many Yeses, is an exploratory...
View ArticleA Modern Take on the Serialized Novel
To marry the traditions of the Victorian novel to modern technology, allowing the reader, or listener, an involvement with the characters and the background of the story and the world in which it takes...
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An Oral History of Myself #15: Neil Elliott
In 2005 I began interviewing people I grew up with. Because I left home at thirteen and spent four years in group homes, my social network was significantly wider than most people of that age. What’s...
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The Rumpus Interview with Danielle Dutton
Danielle Dutton’s forthcoming novel Margaret the First dives into the story of Margaret Cavendish, an unconventional 17th century British Duchess. This work of historical fiction explores Margaret’s...
View ArticleStable Decline
According to an article by Alison Flood in the Guardian, library use in England has fallen almost 31 percent over the past decade, with one notable exception:Adults in the least deprived areas of...
View ArticleRoald Dahl’s Hidden Village Home
Take a stroll through the storybook town of Great Missenden, a tiny village in the county of Buckinghamshire in Britain, and the home of children’s literature’s grand-wizard, Roald Dahl, in the latter...
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The Alienation of an Irish Abortion
When I was seven, my aunt sat me at my grandmother’s kitchen table and gave me the “needle and thread” test to determine how many kids I’d have in the future. The narrow room smelled of wet clay and...
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The Rumpus Interview With Danielle Trussoni
Not long after the success of her first novel, Danielle Trussoni’s life became a fairy tale, when she and her writer husband Nikolai moved their family to a magical 13th century fortress in the...
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You Can’t Be a Snob with Bad Teeth: Talking with David Sedaris
Reading David Sedaris’s Theft By Finding is like reading the liner notes for all your favorite essays. A collection of diary entries, written from 1977 to 2002, the book begins with Sedaris hitchhiking...
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TORCH: My American Playground
I was born in England, but my earliest memory is of America. My mother had taken me to a playground at the crest of a low grassy hill. The sun was shining and I was hanging from a purple, spiral-shaped...
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Shara Lessley
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club chats with Shara Lessley about her new collection The Explosive Expert’s Wife, the task of humanizing those we might dismiss as monsters, exoticizing Jordan, and writing...
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