Olivia Wetzel
The Rumpus
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Past articles by Olivia:
Piles of Castoffs
For Signature, Rita Jacobs reflects on the importance and the role of Anne Frank’s diary, 72 years after it was written. She puts two recent works, Nathan Englander’s short story, “What We Talk Abo… → Read More
Writing for All
At The Stranger, Rich Smith describes the Till Writer’s Residency program at Smoke Farm in Arlington, Washington. Unlike most residency programs, which are expensive and require writers to pay for … → Read More
Appropriation without Acknowledgement
At Electric Literature, an anonymous writer shares her personal experience with a creative writing classmate who plagiarized other poets. The writer poses the question of when writing crosses the b… → Read More
A Spirit of Rebellion
Maddie Crum interviews Jacques Ferrandez, who adapted Albert Camus’s classic The Stranger into a graphic novel, on the importance of The Stranger, his personal connection to it, and more: The book … → Read More
Where Writers Rule
At Slate, Laura Miller discusses the TV showrunner as novelist, focusing specifically on Noah Hawley. Hawley, showrunner for the FX show Fargo, has also published multiple novels, including Before … → Read More
Writing a False Novel
I think once something is right, I know to leave it alone. It isn’t like I rewrite sentences. I don’t do that anymore. I don’t know what to say, really. That’s probably true. I guess when the words… → Read More
Who Cares Who Wrote Shakespeare?
At Guernica, Tana Wojczuk shares her personal story of seeing Shakespeare performed as a child and her eventual realization and understanding of Shakespeare’s humor, and defends the importance of s... → Read More
More Magic Than Movies
Books live in our collective unconscious as well as our individual imaginations. It’s best to air these stories occasionally so that we may examine the myths we hold dearly. Movies may be messy but... → Read More
Girly, Arty Angst
At the Atlantic, Amy Weiss-Meyer discusses debut authors Rebecca Schiff and Abigail Ulman, placing them, along with writer Lena Dunham, in a group of authors that critic Harold Rosenberg calls a “m... → Read More
Much Dying to Do
Jenna Le reviews Vi Khi Nao’s new book of poetry, The Old Philosopher. While calling it “experimental” poetry, Le claims that Nao’s works are “readable,” with an “informal voice,” unlike much exper... → Read More
A for Effort
Lit Hub has just released Book Marks, a book review aggregator which provides a grading system for books. At The Stranger, Rich Smith talks about what this means, grade inflation, and more: The poi... → Read More
Sleeping with Machetes
At the New York Times, Isabel Wilkerson reviews Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel, Homegoing. In this new novel, Gyasi explores the consequences of slavery in 18th-century America and West Africa: Throughout... → Read More
Lessons from Frog and Toad
At the Atlantic, Bert Clere reflects on Arnold Lobel’s children’s books, Frog and Toad and Owl at Home, the lessons these stories try to teach, and the representation of the self in each of them: A... → Read More
On the Auction Table
The supposedly lost letter from Neal Cassady to Jack Kerouac that inspired Kerouac’s novel, On the Road, was found in 2014. Now, the letter is being auctioned off: The 16,000-word typed letter, whi... → Read More
The Dreamer Gazing
Using examples like John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim Progress and Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, Laura Miller analyzes our modern concept of what an “allegory” is, in comparison to how the word has h... → Read More
Vast Questions About Our Humanity
Alexis Deacon and Vivian Schawrz’s " groundbreaking philosophy book for toddlers," I Am Henry Finch, just won the 2016 Little Rebels Children’s Book Award. The award recognizes children’s books tha... → Read More
Rooted Elsewhere
Most of the rest of the stories in What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours are linked, with major characters in one story later turning up as minor characters in another. This loose, multiracial, polymorpho... → Read More
Make Like Bunnies
BBC One and Netflix are joining forces to produce a four-part miniseries of Watership Down. The new series intends to give the female rabbits a more prevalent role: On the bright side, Aitken did a... → Read More
Censoring Censorship
Emma Garman discusses the ability of UK’s elite to pay lawyers to keep their names out of the press. She raises the topics of censorship, public interest, and the availability of these resources to... → Read More
Invention of Place
Aram Goudsouzian reviews Mitchell Duneier’s new book, Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea. In the book, Duneier explores how the term “ghetto” has evolved throughout history, a... → Read More