Search Results for: The Rumpus

Reading List: Travel and Self-Discovery

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Emily Perper is a word-writing human for hire. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker.

“One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things,” wrote Henry Miller. Travel changes the traveler, obviously. Here, authors look at themselves, their societies, and their conceptions of home.

1. “Fat and Happy: Living Body Positive in Indonesia.” (Emily Anderson, August 2013)

I’ve followed Anderson’s adventures as she’s navigated the weird waters of serving abroad and intersectional feminism. Here’s her latest, a beautiful, articulate exploration of how fat is treated in Indonesia.

2. “Last City I Loved: Abu Dhabi.” (April Xiong, The Rumpus, August 2013)

A dreamy meditation on travel and what makes a home. Xiong studies film in Abu Dhabi, but isn’t sure if she’ll ever belong there, or anywhere.

3. “On Seeing England for the First Time.” (Jamaica Kincaid, 1991)

“My nose was pressed up against a glass window all right, but there was an iron vise at the back of my neck forcing my head to stay in place.” Kincaid describes the problematic relationship between her Antiguan childhood and England’s colonization thereof.

4. “Nine Airports.” (Armin Rosen, August 2013)

Rosen documents his adventures in different—you guessed it—airports in Africa and the Middle East, from the eerie Somalian stopover to the grandiosity of Jordan.

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Photo by Kate Ter Haar

Reading List: Sex Work and Sex Workers

Emily Perper is word-writing human for hire. She blogs about her favorite longreads at Diet Coker.

This week’s theme is sex work and sex workers. Such a complex subject is best explored through a variety of forms—essay, investigation, photo essay and interview.

1. “When the Fight Against Slut-Shaming Overlooks Victim-Blaming.” (Sometimes Magical, June 2013)

The author chastises so-called feminists for embracing sex positivity while remaining complicit in whore-shaming, using Biblical characters as examples. She makes the important distinction between those engaging in sex work of their own free will and those forced into sex trafficking. Both groups deserve dignity and respect, she writes, and have the potential to be great allies to one another.

2. “LinkedIn doesn’t care if we’re assaulted”: Sex Workers Speak Out.” (Gaby Dunn, The Daily Dot, May 2013)

LinkedIn’s latest policy update forbids sex workers of any kind to create profiles, send messages, or network at all. This risks the safety, security, and financial well-being of sex workers, degrades their professions and furthers the stigmatic status quo against them. Dunn interviews sex workers, sex rights activists, and LinkedIn representatives.

3. “This Is Not Just A Story About Prostitution.” (Coburn Dukeheart, NPR, August 2013)

Alicia Vera is a photojournalist. Eden, her friend, is a prostitute. With tenderness, Alicia documents a week in Eden’s life, as she goes to court, goes about her business, and talks to her mom about her job. (The link above is to NPR’s coverage; here is Alicia’s site, which has photos NPR could not publish. NSFW.)

4. “Johns, Marks, Tricks, and Chickenhawks: The Rumpus Interview with Veronica Monet.” (David Henry Sterry, The Rumpus, July 2013)

Veronica Monet traded the corporate life for a job as an escort, then a courtesan, as well as a vocal sex rights activist, speaker, author, minister and more. She discusses what led her to sex work, the pros and cons of the profession, and whether she recommends sex work to others.

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Photo by Alicia Vera

Reading List: Sex Work and Sex Workers

Longreads Pick

New reading list from Emily Perper featuring picks from Something Magical, The Daily Dot, NPR, and The Rumpus.

Source: Longreads
Published: Aug 18, 2013

Reading List: A Bizarre Institution

Emily Perper is a freelance editor and reporter, currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps.

What do Scientology, child abuse, financial exploitation, and millionaire parents have in common? They’ve all got a niche in the education system.

1. “Surviving a For-Profit School.” (Stephen S. Mills, The Rumpus, July 2013)

A strip-mall “college” that exploits the underprivileged, veterans, and abused housewives for hundreds of thousands of dollars: Who wouldn’t want to work there?

2. “For Their Own Good.” (Ben Montgomery and Waveney Ann Moore, Tampa Bay Times, April 2009)

Reports of child abuse and other atrocities spurred two talented reporters to investigate the Florida School for Boys.

3. “Inside Scientology High.” (Benjamin F. Carlson, October 2011)

A two-part profile of the practices of the Delphian School, a boarding school in the hills of Oregon that integrates aspects of Scientology into teaching its students.

4. “Is Avenues The Best Education Money Can Buy?” (Jenny Anderson, The New York Times, May 2013)

Parents are partners in the everyday operations of the $85 million start-up school Avenues: The World School.

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Photo by Cliff

Reading List: A Bizarre Institution

Longreads Pick

Picks from Emily Perper, a freelance editor and reporter currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps. This week’s picks include stories from the The Rumpus, Tampa Bay Times, Benjamin Carlson, and The New York Times.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 21, 2013

Reading List: Identity

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Emily Perper is a freelance editor and reporter, currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps.

1. “I Was A Manic Pixie Dream Girl.” (Laurie Penny, New Statesmen, June 2013)

The difference between playing a leading role in your own life and playing a supporting role in everyone else’s.

2. “Promises of an Unwed Father.” (Ta-nehisi Coates, Oprah Magazine, June 2013)

Upon the birth of his baby boy, the talented Coates examines his different entwined roles as partner, father, son and son-in-law.

3. “I Fake It So Real I Am Beyond Fake.” (Emily, Rookie Magazine, July 2013)

The author explains her process of adopting the confidence of others to create her own confidence, from teenage fashion to a career in comedy.

4. “Notes From A Unicorn.” (Seth Fischer, The Rumpus, February 2012)

Fischer faces criticism from many facets of the sexual spectrum for his bisexual identity.

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Photo by Photologic

Reading List: Identity

Longreads Pick

Picks from Emily Perper, a freelance editor and reporter currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps. This week’s picks include stories from the New Statesman, Oprah Magazine, Rookie, and The Rumpus.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 14, 2013

Reading List: Sunrise, Sunset

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Emily Perper is a freelance editor and reporter, currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps.

A few weeks ago, I was reading my weekly horoscope, courtesy of The Rumblr’s Madame Clairvoyant. The last three words of Leo’s outlook caught in my mind: “Don’t even worry.”

“Don’t even worry,” I whispered over and over. So many people have told me not to worry about the future in one breath, only to interrogate me about my future plans in the next. “Don’t even worry,” I say to myself. These are pieces that make me feel hopeful about the future — not in the naive hope that it will be easy, but with calm assurance that good things will happen to mediate the bad.

1. “The ‘Handicap Icon’ Gets New Life.” (Jennifer Grant, Christianity Today, June 2013)

A philosophy professor and an artist collaborated to create a “symbol of access,” angered by the stigma and ignorance directed toward differently abled citizens.

2. “The Empty-Nest Yard Sale.” (Kevin Sampsell, The Rumpus, June 2013)

Sampsell, a bookseller and independent publisher, considers his son’s teenage tendency toward aloofness and his own desperate, emotional response.

3. “Internship From Hell.” (Michael McGuire, The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 2013)

Once an intern at El Nuevo Heraldo in Miami, McGuire’s internship sums up a lot of what today’s working youth face: disgust, exhaustion, disillusionment, bouts of hysterical laughter and sweet relief at the end of it all.

4. “Slouching Towards Babylon.” (Anna McConnell, Rookie Magazine, June 2013)

Her hippie peers sneer at her New York upbringing, and sometimes, she does, too. But nature’s sublimity is no match for homesickness.

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Illustration by Kim

Reading List: Sunrise, Sunset

Longreads Pick

Picks from Emily Perper, a freelance editor and reporter currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps. This week’s picks include stories from Christianity Today, The Rumpus, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Rookie.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 7, 2013

Reading List: Wread About Writing

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Emily Perper is a freelance editor and reporter, currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps.

Salinger’s life is being made into a movie. Someone said writers work best with only one kid. Print journalism is, apparently, still the domain of white men. It’s been an unfortunate week. Here are four pieces to help you refocus on craft and life and journey.

1. “I Did Not Vanish: On Writing.” (Cynthia Cruz, The Rumpus, June 2013)

A tender dream of an essay on writing, risk and choosing life.

2. “Writing About Writers.” (Bob Thompson, The American Scholar, 2009)

In this delightful essay, book reviewer Bob Thompson discusses his interview secret—the “Didion Rule.”

3. “An Interview with Poet Rebecca Lindenberg.” (Elizabeth Clark Wessel, Bomblog, February 2013)

Lindenberg is the poet behind the crucial “Love: An Index,” written after the disappearance of her partner, the poet Craig Arnold. Here, she discusses her experimentation with form, her influences and how she sees her work changing. Parts of this interview are poetry themselves.

4. “To Write About the Button.” (Rachel Aviv, Poetry Foundation, March 2008)

“[Grace Paley] was just the opposite of a Romantic poet … It didn’t interest her to be a poet with a capital P. She was an absolutely ordinary person, and she was proud of it.”

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Photo: Joshua Burnett