AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS
Our April book club selection is Lessons for Survival by Emily Raboteau. We will be in conversation with Emily on April 30th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is now open. I hope you can join us!
THE NEWSLETTER WEEK IN REVIEW
PERSONAL PROFESSIONAL NEWS
The Masters in Branding program at the School of Visual Arts is still accepting applications for the 24-25 school year. You’ll work with an incredible faculty, talented students and have the option of hybrid or in-person learning.
Congratulations to Ani Kayode Somtochukwu, who has won the 2024 Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, at the Triangle Publishing Awards, for his remarkable novel And Then He Sang a Lullaby. The novel is out in paperback on May 14th!
If you have a burning professional query, please do reach out to workfriend@nytimes.com.
June 7-9, I will be participating in The Loft’s 50th anniversary weekend, with intensive classes, a conversation with me and three Roxane Gay Books authors, and agent/editor consultations and pitches. Minneapolis is quite lovely in June.
My essay series, Roxane Gay Presents, with Everand has launched. First up: Julia Turshen with Built For This: The Quiet Strength of Powerlifting and in this video, you will learn about the queer powerlifting club she started. The second essay in this series is: You Are a Teen Mom: Instructions by Randa Jarrar. You can learn more about Randa in this video. The third essay in this series is My Year of Psychedelics: Lessons on Better Living by Gabrielle Bellot. Coming soon, Good Girls by Elaine Castillo.
Megan Pillow and I wrote a little book about power called Do The Work: A Guide About Power and Creating Change. It will be out in June of this year. Pre-order, now!
Greetings from CDMX, a city that is vast and wonderful and sometimes rainy.
A medical worker in Gaza shares what it is like in Gaza’s hospitals right now.
These people graduated from dentistry school just before the war started.
On the Columbia University campus students protesting the war in Gaza and a free Palestine have been arrested, had their encampment destroyed, been suspended from school, and then had the encampment rebuilt (for a week). One of the protestors, Isra Hirsi, is Ilhan Omar’s daughter.
Asna Tabassum, the valedictorian at USC had her speech cancelled because of “safety concerns.” Now, USC has hosted actual presidents so you’ve got to wonder (not really), what they’re afraid of. Anyway, it isn’t going particularly well for USC.
Google fired 28 employees for protesting a contract the company has with Israel.
Meanwhile, Sudan…
Debbie Millman speaks with Financial Times about the branding of it all. A conversation with Anne Carson. A conversation with Angela White aka Blac Chyna.
After the abrupt and unexpected shuttering of SPD, a small press book distributor, many small presses are struggling, to put it mildly. Rose Metal Press is currently fundraising to try and make up for the significant financial losses.
RIP Faith Ringgold, a remarkable artist who lived until the grand age of 93.
The youths are… dabbling in choking during sex. The adults spend such a strange amount of time thinking about the youths.
The New York Philharmonic has a sexual assault problem, and more.
In her newsletter, Anne Helen Peterson talks about something that has been driving me to DISTRACTION for the past couple years—people saying “I resonate with.” It has become so ubiquitous that I thought maybe I did not know what the word means or how to use it. But I do.
Applications for the Union Docs Undo Fellowship are open.
Sometimes, people simply lack taste.
In states banning abortions, ER doctors are afraid to treat pregnant patients, which is a travesty.
Taylor Swift released a new album. Also, she has a publicist.
A man in NYC self-immolated in front of the courthouse where Trump is on trial. Many things are sad about this, not the least of which is that Trump wouldn’t do a thing to help the man if it actually happened in front of him.
Meanwhile, Trump has been forced to listen to a lot of deeply unflattering memes about himself and it’s a small measure of comeuppance that is hopefully the harbinger of more.
Tesla has recalled the 3,878 ugly ass Cybertrucks it has released. I recently saw one in the wild and… whew.
The Sundance festival is looking for a potential new home. Yes! Anywhere but Park City, which is a nice city, I’m sure but difficult to get to.
The Wiz is coming back to Broadway and I cannot wait to see it.
Why are people trying to ruin Caesar salads?
The Senate did not waste time in dispatching the bogus articles of impeachment against the head of Homeland Security.
The Supreme Court decided to make protesting in the US nearly impossible.
It’s a pretty rough time to be a film & television writer.
A report on the Maui wildfires.
DeSantis had to modify is dystopian book banning laws because some people were asking for the bible to be banned. He’s an asshole.
Pretty much everyone involved knew that the Oceangate submersible was a disaster waiting to happen.
A woman who framed an innocent man is finally reaping what she sowed. WTF? WTAF?
Rachel Khong writes about her days creating websites to protect reputations online.
Interesting piece about the ships that repair deep underwater internet cables.
Kari Lake, gun obsessed freak.
An 81-year old man shot and killed his Uber driver after they were both scammed.
Young women are more liberal than young men and it’s making dating complicated for people who have, like, standards.
A St. Louis police officer in plain clothes was beaten by his colleagues who didn’t know he was a cop and he has been awarded $23.5 million.
Why are American roads so dangerous?
The exploitative pricing in prison commissaries.
How records are made. So interesting.
Volkswagen employees in Tennessee are unionizing!
Red Lobster is in trouble. They need Beyoncé to mention them in another song.
A 20-person polycule. I ask again…. who has this kind of time????
The "I resonate with.." thing has bugged me for YEARS. I try not to correct people, but I knew it was wrong and I knew why it was wrong and I just didn't get it. Thank you for the insightful (validating) article on it.
There are April showers again: rain on RAINN's reign. Employees of RAINN are calling for the resignation of the CEO. It's a deja vu of what happened two years ago. Please help get the word out about how an organization that is ostensibly helping victim-survivors of sexual violence is not. https://www.change.org/p/demand-resignation-of-scott-berkowitz-president-of-rainn-for-harming-survivors