The Rumpus interviews Clifford Thompson

Clifford Thompson, the author of Love for Sale: And Other Essays and Twin of Blackness: A Memoir, was recently interviewed by The Rumpus. The conversation between Thompson and Julie Marie Wade about art-making, genre, and activism is a delight to read.

I love your question about whether art-making is a way of reckoning, a refuge, a means of activism, or all three, and you are wise to include “all three,” because that is my answer. Groups including the WHO are working on a vaccine for Covid, but there is no vaccine for the erosion of mental health occurring in this era. (I started to write “in times like these,” but who alive today has ever seen times like these before?)

I don’t know where I would be right now without creative outlets. I know people who have creative outlets and are still struggling, but for me, being able to write and paint has saved me—it has been my vaccine.

We’re grateful to Julie Marie Wade at The Rumpus for taking the time to get to know Clifford Thompson. The full interview is available on The Rumpus’s website.