A place to read, on the Internet. A literary community.

The Rumpus publishes original fiction, poetry, literary humor writing, comics, essays, book reviews, and interviews with authors and artists of all kinds. Our mostly volunteer-run magazine strives to be a platform for risk-taking voices and writing that might not find a home elsewhere. We lift up new voices alongside those of more established writers our readers may already know and love. We want to bring new perspectives into the conversation that will make us all look deeper.

The Rumpus launched in San Francisco in 2009 and now has editors all over the US. In January 2017, The Rumpus was purchased by Marisa Siegel, who had previously served as Managing Editor from 2014–2017. In January 2022, Alyson Sinclair became the new owner/publisher, Aram Mrjoian is the current Editor-in-Chief, and Marisa Siegel continues at The Rumpus as an editor-at-large.

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The Rumpus

We welcome essay submissions up to 5,000 words in length. In addition to personal voice-driven essays we are interested in non-traditional forms of nonfiction. Essays should explore issues and ideas with depth and breadth, illuminating a larger cultural context or human struggle. Regardless of topic, we are looking for well-crafted sentences, a distinct narrative voice, compelling scenes, and thoughtful reflection. Surprise us! Intrigue us! Delight us! We want work we cannot put down or soon forget after reading. 
Please submit work that is evergreen because, given our publication schedule, we cannot respond, explicitly, to the news cycle. That said, we are very interested in work that engages with the current sociopolitical climate. 
Essays must be previously unpublished. This includes personal blogs and social media. Please submit only one essay for consideration at a time; we ask that you wait until a decision has been made on that essay to submit again.
A cover letter is also welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself,  where your work has appeared if you're previously published, or anything else you think might be important for us to know. You do not need to explain your work as we trust it will speak for itself. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but do withdraw your submission if your essay is picked up elsewhere and congratulations on that placement.
Thank you for taking the time to proofread your submission. If you have not heard a decision from us after 3 months, feel free to check in. Please submit your work as a Microsoft Word file.

Essays

We are looking for thoughtful interviews (the kind that go beyond say, process) with the most interesting writers, artists, thinkers, musicians, and excellent humans around. Submit pitches and interviews here.

Interviews

Please submit 4-8 poems (up to 12 pages) in one Word .doc accompanied by a brief cover letter and third-person bio. Please only send 1 submission at a time and if you have a submission pending, please wait to submit again until you've received our decision on the pending submission. 
Work must be previously unpublished; this includes personal blogs/websites and social media.
While we embrace and consider poems with diverse page presentations, there may be situations where we are unable to accommodate poems with special formatting as seen on the page.
We encourage simultaneous submissions but request that this be noted in your cover letter. If poems in your submission are accepted elsewhere, please notify us through Submittable.
We look forward to reading your work!

Poetry

The Rumpus Original Fiction series features original short fiction of a wide variety.
Please submit a short story of up to 5,000 words as a Microsoft Word file, accompanied by a brief cover letter and third-person bio. If you are sending flash fiction (1000 words or fewer), you’re welcome to submit up to three pieces for consideration as one submission.
Please only send one submission at a time, and if you have a submission pending, please wait to submit again until you've received our decision on the pending submission. Work must be previously unpublished; this includes personal blogs/websites and social media.
At The Rumpus, we are interested in stories that have layers, with elements of surprise and unexpected stakes and points of tension running beneath. Rumpus stories have an edge and feature unique, indelible voices. They tackle emotional depth while not being at all sentimental. We love it when a story's language, plot, and characters feel palpable and dynamic on the page, and a strong sense of place goes a long way. Show us something new, bold, brash, alive.
We encourage simultaneous submissions but if your submission is accepted elsewhere, please withdraw it through Submittable, promptly. Also, congratulations on the acceptance!
We look forward to reading your work!

Fiction

Flash Fiction

If you are interested in submitting a review of a poetry collection, please only do so in our Poetry Book Reviews category on Submittable. Do not submit poetry reviews here.
We're interested in thoughtful, engaging cultural criticism between 1200-5000 words. Please submit a finished draft rather than a pitch.
For book criticism, please provide the following information at the top of your review: Title of book, author's name, name of press, and publication date. 
For theatre criticism, please include the name of the show, the theater where it is playing, and the dates of the show's run. If it's open ended, please list the start date - present. 
For music criticism, please include the name of the album, the musician(s), the label, and release date.
For art criticism, please include the name of the artist(s), the gallery/museum where the work is being exhibited, and the dates of the exhibition. 
We welcome all kinds of cultural criticism. We believe criticism is meant to be critical, but we aren't interested in a tear down without substance.  We aren't interested in uncritical fan service, book reports, or summaries. We want thoughtful engagement with interesting cultural artifacts. We want your writing to reflect your distinct point of view. We want to understand the context into which the cultural artifact(s) being reviewed has been created, the ideas with which it engages, and what the cultural artifact reveals about our culture.
Please note that we do not accept work where a conflict of interest exists.
All work must be previously unpublished—this includes personal blogs, websites, and social media.

Criticism

The comics section at The Rumpus welcomes a wide range of artistic and narrative styles of varying lengths. Currently, we are only considering standalone, complete comics submissions. This means we are not currently accepting pitches for comics (although we hope to in the future!), scripts with incomplete artwork, or chapters/sections of larger works. While we’re interested in what short-form comics can accomplish artistically, we do not typically accept single-panel “New Yorker-style” cartoons or cartoon strips you’d find in the newspaper. The best way to get a sense of what we love is to look through what we've previously published: therumpus.net/sections/comics. 
While we’ll accept submissions in whatever legible file you can upload to Submittable, we’ll expect the final file to be 72dpi and 1,000 pixels wide.
We can only consider work that is previously unpublished—this includes personal blogs, websites, and social media. Please only submit once to any given category of the magazine. When you've received a decision, you are welcome to submit again.
We receive a tremendous amount of Comics submissions, and we appreciate your patience in waiting to hear from us. If you haven't received a decision within eight months of submitting, please feel welcome to query regarding submission status.
We do allow simultaneous submissions; please let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere by withdrawing your submission through Submittable.

Comics

The Rumpus is pleased to announce a new category for submissions, Flash Fridays. We will be accepting fiction and nonfiction, up to 1,000 words, to be included in our weekly newsletter on Fridays. Payment for this work is $200. We are looking for work that understands the power of brevity, the art of telling a powerful story within the constraints of the flash genre, writing that is exciting, fresh, and uniquely yours. In other words, send us work only you can craft. Surprise us, enthrall us, delight us.
As a reminder, The Rumpus does not accept work that was written, edited, or created with A.I. in any way. By submitting your work to us, you are acknowledging that your work was written without the use of A.I. We hate that we have to say this but given some of the submissions we are receiving, we have to say this.

The Rumpus

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