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The Rumpus Interview with Lacy M. Johnson
In her stunning memoir The Other Side, Lacy M. Johnson tells the story of being held prisoner in a soundproofed basement of her ex-boyfriend’s apartment. Though the violence in her book is easy to...
View ArticleTalking on The Other Side
I agree that The Other Side is, in part, about how I’ve learned to claim my body as my own, but it’s also about claiming my voice, and about how those two things are not as separate as you might...
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The Rumpus Saturday Essay: Stain
One summer afternoon when I was twelve, I walked my dog a bit further than usual and we ended up under the viaduct where I-75 crossed above our heads. It was so dark under the metal bridge that I...
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This Week in Essays
In a stunning bit of reportage at Guernica, Lacy M. Johnson looks at the costs of laying nuclear waste to rest, and at the impact doing so has had on one particular St. Louis suburb. For Nowhere,...
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Notable NYC: 9/29–10/5
Saturday 9/29: Johnny Lorenz and Val Vinokur read poetry from Traitors Press. Unnameable Books, 7 p.m., free. Itiola Jones, John Bazley, Katie Rainey, Kwame Opoku-Duku, and Leah Johnson join the Angry...
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Change Ourselves, Change the World: Talking with Lacy M. Johnson
In her memoir The Other Side, Lacy M. Johnson unspooled the hardest story of her life, of being kidnapped and raped by who she calls “a man [she] used to love.” She told her story in all of its...
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“It reflects a clear principle: Only the president and his allies, his supporters, and their anointed are entitled to the rights and protections of the law, and if necessary, immunity from it. The rest...
View ArticleNotable Chicago: 10/12–10/18
Friday 10/12: Visit Women & Children First to celebrate the release of Losing Beck by Susan Hahn. For this event, Susan will be joined by special guest Donna Seaman. 7 p.m., free. Saturday 10/13:...
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What to Read When: Rumpus Staff Favorites 2018
This year has been unrelenting. America and the world face a series of crises that we are ill-prepared to manage, let alone avoid. I am struggling to believe that next year might be different. I’m...
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The Rumpus Guide to AWP 2019
AWP is almost upon us! Next week, over 12,000 attendees—writers, editors, publishers, teachers, students, and book lovers—will descend upon Portland, OR for four days of literary madness. The...
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The Thread: The Unthought Known
At the beginning of March, I was asked to watch Holly Austin Smith’s survivor story. My team at work was planning to discuss including it in a curriculum. From the setup, I expected to hear about...
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Nurture Rupture: On Motherhood, Writing, and Gender Inequality
As soon as Lacy M. Johnson agreed to this project, and we began to think about the ideal audience for it, I realized just how much we need more conversations—and publications—that focus on issues of...
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“Anything less but the prioritization of women over the pregnancies they carry cedes ground the left cannot afford to lose.” At Intelligencer, Sarah Jones writes urgently on the need to reframe how we...
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Notable NYC: 6/8–6/14
Saturday 6/8: Nathan Englander presents Kaddish.com. Congregation Beth Elohim, 8 p.m., Free with RSVP. Monday 6/10: Lisa Maria Basile, Diannely Antigua, Kate Doyle, and Dennis Norris II join the Pigeon...
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What to Read When You’re Mad Enough to Burn It Down
I used to think of anger as a sickness, something I should expel from my body as quickly as possible. Even when I had every reason to be angry—even when I had been wronged, or when I was reacting to...
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The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Jeannie Vanasco
The Rumpus Book Club chats with Jeannie Vanasco about new memoir, Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl (Tin House, October 2019), writing about trauma, the importance of the FBI’s revised...
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You Have to Look For It: A Conversation with Cameron Dezen Hammon
Cameron Dezen Hammon’s hauntingly reflective, philosophical and spectacular memoir This Is My Body takes us into her religious world in a megachurch in Texas from the first chapter. A half-Jewish New...
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Making It Through: A Conversation with Kelly J. Baker
Kelly J. Baker’s Final Girl is a collection of essays that explores the issues of trauma, mental illness, and grief. Baker digs into her childhood trauma and examines how it has shaped who she is...
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From the Archive: The Rumpus Interview with Lacy M. Johnson
This was originally published at The Rumpus on July 22, 2014. During the month of June 2022, we’re highlighting some of our favorite work from The Rumpus archives to show readers how the magazine has...
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