"Moore’s tales are transcendent in many ways—filled with wisdom, soul, and blues." Teri Elam reviews Carrie R. Moore’s Make Your Way Home (@tinhouse.bsky.social). ➡️ buff.ly/vlK4Ezm

“Matty threw the porcelain as if he had had a normal childhood and knew how to throw a baseball.” From "Porcelain," a new original essay by @alextretbar.bsky.social. ➡️ buff.ly/gf7iD50

"Our hands were made for so much more than scrolling." From Rumpus original comic "Drawing Hands" by KC Councilor. ➡️ buff.ly/HeQ0eI7

tomorrow! my next desk belongs to my dear friend @ilanaslightly.bsky.social 🤩❤️‍🔥join us live from @therumpus.net IG account at 6pm ET/3pm PT for another rollicking ride 🛸🛸🛸

WHAT'S BETTER THAN @therumpus.net OPENING FOR ESSAY SUBMISSIONS??? Well, a few things, tbh, but still.... #RumpusEssays therumpus.submittable.com/submit

“The allure of Todd and his cart has less to do with the quality of the water than the temperature it’s served. You’d be amazed at what a few ice cubes can do to make you feel almost human again.” From "Waterline," a new original essay by BC Kim. ➡️ buff.ly/mb9YlY2

“What, it asks, can an artist do to push her work through a hostile system and retain her vision?” Celia Bell reviews Helen DeWitt’s Your Name Here (@deepvellum.bsky.social). ➡️ buff.ly/FhWXxcg

"Don’t let them tell you that you’re not worthy of life." Charlotte Fleming interviews @vacharat.bsky.social about This Moth Saw Brightness (@duttonbooks.bsky.social for Young Readers). ➡️ buff.ly/tEfoAOz

Greg Mania @gregmania.bsky.social is flooding your timeline again in our newest installment of Show Us Your Desk! Join Greg and his guest @ilanaslightly.bsky.social, author of Beings (@bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social), on Tue., Sept. 16 at 6 pm ET / 3 pm PT. See you there!

“Even she had been morphed in my mind into something ethereal: a woman unspoken of, shrouded in mystery and left in the darkness of untouched grief.” From "White Tongue," an original essay by Riley-Grace Huggins. ➡️ buff.ly/QV6jJ1m

“I’d inherited my father’s gods, just like I’d inherited his knobby knees and an allergy to shellfish.” An excerpt from the novel First Time, Long Time (@grandcentralpub.bsky.social) by Amy Silverberg. ➡️ buff.ly/mSTfIWg

"I am interested in the gaze of female desire. I want that gaze to be complex and vital, because it is. I want it to deconstruct and disrupt." @riggstah.bsky.social interviews Nini Berndt about There Are Reasons for This (@tinhouse.bsky.social). ➡️ buff.ly/gVbFooL

Congrats to our alum @bennysummerhill.bsky.social, whose essay “‘Tell Me When to Go’ Had Just Dropped and I Was from Oakland” won the inaugural @therumpus.net Prize for nonfiction! Check it out here:

“Each version of the self is at once grounded in the present and oracular, speaking as the prophet of a past life.” @asaldrake.bsky.social reviews @estherwslin.bsky.social’s Cold Thief Place (@alicejamesbooks.bsky.social). ➡️ buff.ly/uAx3BSS

"It was also helpful to know I had peers who were chipping away at their own works—an often quiet yet propulsive kind of fellowship." Tennessee Hill discusses the publication of her novel Girls with Long Shadows (@harperbooks.bsky.social) for The First Book. ➡️ buff.ly/eC6cyj1

"This is a love letter to serotonin, the inhibitors and / holders of beautiful disasters. A lighthouse." From the April 2023 Archives: "Sertraline: A Prescription Zuihitsu," an original poem by @cmanick.bsky.social. ➡️ buff.ly/jNX3eii

Sometimes looking through prior pubs is healing "Power Dome" from 2023 in @therumpus.net each dome-blessed morning we’ll wake and make love or not we’ll rise and bathe or not luxuriate over breakfasts of mangoes and cream, we’ll spend our days dreaming up new worlds therumpus.net/2023/02/10/2...

Our next letter in the mail comes from author @beebabs.bsky.social, author of Honey and Spice, on Love in Color, and her forthcoming novel Sweet Heat (@wmmorrowbooks.bsky.social). To read Babalola's letter right before Sweet Heat launches, subscribe NOW to Letters in the Mail at buff.ly/93ERbnp.

“He started talking when I sat down. Something something something. On and on. His lips were wet. The pulse of his heart shook the couch.” From the Archives, July 2018: "The Earth Revolves around the Sun," original fiction by @vanessajcuti.bsky.social. ➡️ buff.ly/dmJv7qO

"It’s all a question of who controls the narrative and what story she gets to tell." Amy Y. Q. Lin interviews @rfkuang.bsky.social about her novel Yellowface (@wmmorrowbooks.bsky.social). ➡️ buff.ly/0y0AtoT

“Everything I touch feels like the moon’s glow. Everything I inhale smells like wet grass, desolate beneath the stars.” From “Rocket Drive," new original fiction by Michael Carlson. ➡️ buff.ly/QpYtV1c

Loved writing this review - thank you @therumpus.net!

“Life’s forward movement hovers over the novel like a storm cloud that never quite breaks.” Hilary Malamud reviews Nanae Aoyama’s A Perfect Day to Be Alone (Other Press). ➡️ buff.ly/44LzvwX

“In my dream, there is no landscape, no earth beneath the sky, only light and the velvet black beyond it.” From “In Search of Light,” a new original essay by Maya Dobjensky. ➡️ buff.ly/V59UZgC

"Cousin / what category of longing is this / to have brought us so far from genesis?" From the Archives: "First Person Plural," one of two poems by Bryan Byrdlong. ➡️ buff.ly/pwi6fMn

"What do you do when it feels impossible to speak?" @anushreenande.bsky.social interviews Anelise Chen about Clam Down (One World). ➡️ buff.ly/O4MGHz7

It's #Monday which makes it a perfect time to revisit this list from @wendyjfox.bsky.social in @therumpus.net: What to Read When You Want to Quit Your Job, which also includes SFWP author @egjames.bsky.social therumpus.net/2021/11/12/w...

"I feel that one of the bedrocks we share as humans is grief." From the Archives: Jeri Frederickson interviewed Shangyang Fang about Burying the Mountain (Copper Canyon). ➡️ buff.ly/c0It5HQ

The ever amusing, host with the most, @gregmania.bsky.social shows us Eloghosa Osunde's desk on Tuesday, August 12 at 6 pm ET / 3 pm PT! We can't wait to see what hijinks ensue when Mania and Osunde sit down together to discuss Osunde's novel Necessary Fiction (@riverheadbooks.bsky.social).

“Every time someone says her name, Smiley feels a chill as the girl she was supposed to be skids a long remember-me finger down her spine.” From the Archives: "Overlook," a short story by @ashleylopez.bsky.social. ➡️ buff.ly/ZXCEHxn

I'm so excited to share this essay by @misternagel.bsky.social for @therumpus.net with the world. I remember the first time I read it, I was delighted by how perfectly he captures the absurdity of the situation, amidst the mind-bending power of pre-emptive grief. It was an honor to edit.

The Smart Search List of the Day is: Literary Nonfiction feat. @ploughshares.bsky.social @therumpus.net @pitheadchapel.bsky.social @theforge.bsky.social et al. https://duotrope.com...

“It wasn’t until I was falling asleep later that night that I wondered: If there hadn’t been a blood clot, what had they removed?” From “Orientaton,” a new original essay by @misternagel.bsky.social. ➡️ buff.ly/TIOZvYa

“Heresies are dreamy, to me. They nudge us to think, to imagine, to forsake the given scripts and safety associated with conforming to received beliefs and conventions.” @civitaveritas.bsky.social interviews @alinaetc.bsky.social about My Heresies (@sarabandebooks.bsky.social). ➡️ buff.ly/qCPYFBV

I absolutely adore this @therumpus.net essay by @misternagel.bsky.social about the upside-down-ness caused by a family health emergency. #RumpusEssays therumpus.net/2025/07/17/o...

We're welcoming Hinton Publishing to the Small Press Sunday family on Sunday, Aug. 3! Join ‪@janetrodriguez.bsky.social‬ and Hinton Publishing's deputy publisher Maggie Block at 3:30 PT / 6:30 ET to peek behind the curtain of one of your favorite small presses. See you there on Instagram Live!

"That’s the greatest challenge of the writing life...Doing it again and again until it’s just right, despite the world going on without you." From the archives: Julie Marie Wade in conversation with Julie Iromuanya about Mr. and Mrs. Doctor in this interview from 2021. ➡️ buff.ly/Q57rAMb

“I keep swimming till the sound of the waves drown out her voice, and her panicked face has blurred with distance. Sand and salt rush over my spine coaxing me farther, farther.” From the archives: "The Divine Aquatic," an essay by Nafisa A. Iqbal from 2022. ➡️ buff.ly/Us8CEE4

"It is possible that the deluge will / equal the drought. It is possible to red-line a rout." From the archives: "Irritation Odes," a series of poems by Anna Maria Hong from 2022. ➡️ buff.ly/dnrXhNA

“Tonight, she is the fantasy, rhinestoned to death in her thrift store dress. No one can tell her otherwise.” From the archives: "Fantasyland," a short story by Scott Fenton from 2023. ➡️ buff.ly/axoNTSx

So happy that my @therumpus.net story "Nocturnal" will be in this! In some weird, amazing company 👇🏼

Tonight on Instagram Live!

Our next letter in the mail comes from author Ben Shattuck, author of Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau (@tinhouse.bsky.social) and The History of Sound: Stories (@vikingbooks.bsky.social). To receive Ben's letter, subscribe NOW to Letters in the Mail: buff.ly/XU7yn9W

Join us Tuesday, July 8 at 6 pm ET / 3 pm PT on for the latest Show Us Your Desk! @gregmania.bsky.social's next desk belongs to Kashana Cauley, author of The Payback (@atriabooks.bsky.social). We'll see you there on Instagram Live!

the coolest thing I’ve ever done was interviewing Ross Gay for the @therumpus.net 🌱 therumpus.net/2019/02/06/t...

“These poems do not merely give a new perspective on existing worlds but create the worlds of which they speak.” Kat Matson reviews ‪@tagreathouse.bsky.social‬'s Deed (‪@weslpress.bsky.social‬). ➡️ buff.ly/HO8lMAm

"I wrote this novel for anyone experiencing living in the interstices—the space between cultures, between places, and between identities..." Daniel Tam-Claiborne discusses the path to publication for his novel Transplants (Regalo Press) in the latest The First Book. ➡️ buff.ly/xuIfL5W

"...progress toward liberation requires we actually abandon such obsession to 'goodness' or 'rightness' in order to meet each other with honesty..." From "What to Read When You Want to Destabilize the Binaries Between Good and Bad" by ‪@leighsugar.bsky.social‬. ➡️ buff.ly/9xdt0Ez

"I picked my cuticles bloody, watching his hands shiver with stimulation. I felt a wild outsized tenderness for him." From "The Red Zone," new original fiction by Jennifer Galvão. ➡️ buff.ly/vv29aoy

“The verby, staccato prose holds the reader captive and propels them from scene to scene, conversation to conversation...” Nathan Blum reviews David Szalay’s Flesh (‪@scribnerbooks.bsky.social‬). ➡️ buff.ly/ip4G8lA