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Thoughts on Letters In The Mail
When I saw the words “This week’s Letter In The Mail is from Sari Botton” at the bottom of Wednesday’s Daily Rumpus email from Stephen Elliott, my stomach dropped.I hadn’t been nervous while writing my...
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Happy Audio Book Month
Did you know that it’s Audio Book Month? I’m going to guess you didn’t. It’s hard for me to imagine too many Rumpus readers habitually listening to books read aloud by other people, usually not the...
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Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me #13: Cheryl Strayed
Before I read Cheryl Strayed’s New York Times Bestselling, Oprah-Book-Club-restarting memoir, Wild – before I read her novel Torch – I was taken with her brave, self-reflective writing. A longtime...
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The Sweet Smell of Excess
Al-Anon sucked. If I hadn’t been too broke for therapy, I’d never have taken a friend’s advice to attend those awful meetings. They were worse than the AA meetings I’d been to over the years in support...
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Hurricane Sandy Relief Effort Roundup
News coverage of the Hurricane Sandy aftermath – especially in places far from the U.S. east coast – is beginning to wane. But there are still hundreds of thousands of people in New York, New Jersey...
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Post-Sandy Fundraisers, and My Money is with Occupy Sandy
With the Petraeus sex scandal hijacking everyone’s attention away from anything else resembling news – and I am so guilty of gawking incessantly at this juicy side show; I’ll admit I CANNOT wait for...
View ArticleSkip the Forced Family Fun and Volunteer This Thanksgiving
Seriously, this Thanksgiving, would you rather 1) endure awkward conversations with those cousins with whom you have nothing in common, and yet another interrogation about your life choices from your...
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Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me #14: Marco Roth
Sometimes I fantasize about expanding these conversations beyond the one-on-one – getting a few particular writers into a room together to discuss the risky business of writing the sort of memoir or...
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Confessions of a Good Girl
If you told most of the friends and family I grew up with that I’ve had two abortions, they probably wouldn’t believe you. A clergyman’s daughter and a firstborn, I began cultivating early in life the...
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Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me #15: Melissa Febos
If you attended Stephen Elliott’s Let’s Make A Movie fundraiser for the Happy Baby movie in November, then you got to hear me interview Melissa Febos live, onstage, about writing her memoir, Whip...
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Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me #16: Rebecca Walker
Hello, after more than a year. It’s been my intention to keep this column going regularly, as it had been. But this year life has been nuts. I edited two anthologies, am doing another; I’m running...
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Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me #17: Samantha Irby
If you want people leave you alone, try reading Meaty by Samantha Irby in public. I did that a few months ago on a plane to LA, and received the strangest looks as I vacillated between laughter and...
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Conversations with Writers Braver than Me: Anne Roiphe
For some time I’ve wanted to interview author, journalist, and essayist Anne Roiphe for this column. I mean, who better to ask about the ramifications of writing about family than someone who has...
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Conversations with Writers Braver Than Me: Jason Diamond
A quick glance at the vibrant pink cover of Jason Diamond’s Searching for John Hughes: Or Everything I Thought I Needed to Know about Life I Learned from Watching ’80s Movies might give one the...
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Conversations with Writers Braver Than Me: Jessica Berger Gross
From the minute a galley of Jessica Berger Gross’s excellent memoir, Estranged: Leaving Family and Finding Home, landed in my mailbox, I knew I’d found a kindred spirit. I couldn’t put the book down....
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