Once in a great while, a novelist comes along with the ability to dazzle the crowd with their own taxonomy-defying creation. In her debut novel, Fire Season, Leyna Krow deftly weaves together elements of magical realism, historical fiction, and traditional westerns to make something so much greater than the sum of its parts. Fire Season is a propulsive story of three scheming opportunists—a banker, a con man, and a woman with an extraordinary gift—whose lives collide in the wake of a devastating fire in the American West. Author of the short story collection I’m Fine But You Appear to Be Sinki ..read more

There must remain a delicate balance between life and death for the world to function, and as the St. Bernard women in Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s debut novel When We Were Birds have understood from generation to generation, the dead need to stay dead, no matter how much they rage on and cling to the idea of life. Lloyd Banwo delivers a well-written narrative — part ghost story, part social commentary — that explores love in all its complexity. Although the novel is initially presented as a romance between two young people trying to find their place in the world, the true story lies within their resp ..read more

Austin-based poet and short story writer ire’ne lara silva was born in and grew up in the Rio Grande Valley. She is the author of four poetry collections, two chapbooks, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán. Her first two full-length poetry collections, furia (Mouthfeel Press, 2010) and Blood Sugar Canto (Saddle Road Press, 2016), were finalists for the International Latino Book Award in Poetry. CUICACALLI/House of Song (Saddle Road Press, 2019), her third collection, was a finalist for the Texas Institute of Letters Poetry ..read more

Joy Lanzendorfer and I met through a workshop we both took with the writer Sheila Heti over a weekend this past winter. It was during the heart of pandemic lockdown and it seemed like many of us were craving intimate connection through the craft of writing. There were well over a hundred people contained within a grid of small Zoom boxes as Sheila held court from her living room in Toronto, an oversized dog wandering about in the background. After the workshop ended, one of the participants took on the burly task of connecting writers who might be interested in working together. Joy and I both ..read more

Once in a great while, a novelist comes along with the ability to dazzle the crowd with their own taxonomy-defying creation. In her debut novel, Fire Season, Leyna Krow deftly weaves together elements of magical realism, historical fiction, and traditional westerns to make something so much greater than the sum of its parts. Fire Season is a propulsive story of three scheming opportunists—a banker, a con man, and a woman with an extraordinary gift—whose lives collide in the wake of a devastating fire in the American West. Author of the short story collection I’m Fine But You Appear to Be Sinki ..read more

As a nature writer first and foremost, Callum Angus is preoccupied with narratives of change. Looming over Angus’s writing, of course, are the two most central change narratives in his life: transition and a world spinning ever faster into climate change. Writing transition alongside nature is an enticing prospect, but it presents immediate problems and pitfalls as well—nature, ecology, and the animal world offer beauty and possibility, but concepts of nature can themselves become limiting constructs, weapons, or cages. In his debut story collection, A Natural History of Transition, out April ..read more

There must remain a delicate balance between life and death for the world to function, and as the St. Bernard women in Ayanna Lloyd Banwo’s debut novel When We Were Birds have understood from generation to generation, the dead need to stay dead, no matter how much they rage on and cling to the idea of life. Lloyd Banwo delivers a well-written narrative — part ghost story, part social commentary — that explores love in all its complexity. Although the novel is initially presented as a romance between two young people trying to find their place in the world, the true story lies within their resp ..read more

The Rumpus Book Club chats with Morowa Yejidé about her new novel, Creatures of Passage (Akashic Books, March 2021), how the book sprang from her love for the color indigo, trying to understand whether monsters are made or born, how the book became a life raft for her through the pandemic, and more. This is an edited transcript of the book club discussion. Every month The Rumpus Book Club hosts a discussion online with the book club members and the author, and we post an edited version online as an interview. To become a member of the Rumpus Book Club, click here. Upcoming write ..read more

Austin-based poet and short story writer ire’ne lara silva was born in and grew up in the Rio Grande Valley. She is the author of four poetry collections, two chapbooks, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán. Her first two full-length poetry collections, furia (Mouthfeel Press, 2010) and Blood Sugar Canto (Saddle Road Press, 2016), were finalists for the International Latino Book Award in Poetry. CUICACALLI/House of Song (Saddle Road Press, 2019), her third collection, was a finalist for the Texas Institute of Letters Poetry ..read more

There have been centuries where I’ve really missed having a body. I like this one. I’ve been in it for about twenty years. It’s in its fifties now and still sorting what that means. Not old. Not young. I have a señora face and señora hands—not smooth, slightly wrinkled, a little lived-in— but good. Still strong. Still enough energy for a good parranda, an all-night sing and dance and scream and fight and run. It’s just that that night’s followed by one day of intense pain and then a few more days of lingering pain. But that’s okay. The body mostly forgets by the time the next party comes aroun ..read more