The Audacious Round Up
For the week of January 24th
Why Design Matters by Debbie Millman is available for pre-order. Yes, this link will be available in this newsletter until it goes on sale on on 2/22/22, four months after its original publishing date (damn supply chain).
For T Magazine, I made some grilled cheese and tomato soup for you. Let’s get cosy! And new week, new Work Friend.
The February selection for The Audacious Book Club is To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara. We will be in conversation with Hanya on Sunday, February 27th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Register now.
Tressie, Debbie Millman and I are hosting a writing workshop retreat in July 2022. You can also register for this if you want to spend a weekend with us. We hope to see you there! It will be fun and more.
Roxane Gay Books is closed to unagented submissions until 6/15/2022. I’ve found, I think, my first few books! I am open to agented submissions so please send me great books! I am also open, again, for submissions to The Audacity’s Emerging Writer Series. Read the guidelines and submit your best writing. Submissions will be open until I have 24 essays.
This week in the Emerging Writer Series, Serena Burman's Juno's House Rules about love and ambivalences toward commitment and traditional relationships.
In other personal news, the podcast I co-hosted with Tressie, Hear to Slay, will now be The Roxane Gay Agenda. Tressie is taking time to focus on her writing and NYT column so I am going solo. I will definitely miss her. She’s an amazing producing/hosting partner, but I am looking forward to this new adventure. The first two episodes dropped 1/25, and moving forward, each episode will be available exclusively on Luminary for the first week, and will be available wherever you enjoy podcasts from the following week onward.
To kick things off, my first episode is with the one and only Tressie McMillan Cottom and we talk, among other things, about how Morgan Wallen has not earned his mullet. And in the second episode, a lively conversation with Terri McMillan, a writer I have long admired, and who has been a chronicler of black women’s lives for nearly three decades. Listen in and let me know what you think, and who I should be talking to in the future.
I cannot begin to wrap my mind around this story about a studio building a film studio and sports arena in… space? WHAT? And by 2024? Sure, Jan.
Here is a grant opportunity for storytelling about the power of collective labor.
What women are dealing with in Poland is a painful preview of what lies ahead of Roe v. Wade is overturned.
The 2022 Whitney Biennial has been announced.
The screenplay for Zola is available from Deadline for your reading delectation. So are other award-nominated screenplays from the past year.
Sheryl Lee Ralph, one of my favorite actors, is wonderful in the new ABC sitcom Abbott Elementary which is, itself, also wonderful—smart, absolutely hilarious and so warm-hearted without being treacly. You won’t regret spending some time with the show.
Amy Schneider’s incredible run on Jeopardy! has come to an end but we will definitely be seeing more of her.
Little Debbie snack cakes are venturing into ice creams which is… interesting. Sometimes I call my wife a snack cake. Because her name is Debbie. And she is diminutive in height. And she is a delicious snack cake.
Lauren Smith Fields was found dead after a Bumble date in December 2021. Her case has not received nearly the attention of, say, Gabby Petito, and it’s a travesty. I hope her family can find some measure of justice as they mourn. Speaking of.
Girl, I guess…
Fran Drescher is now the president of SAG-AFTRA. The Nanny is doing quite well for herself!
A conversation with the incomparable Mary J. Blige.
There are some problems with the UCLA gymnastics team that began, of course, with racism.
The black manosphere, just as toxic as the white manosphere.
I’m sure this will end well.
Tayari Jones reviews Imani Perry’s new book South to America.
The New Yorker is hiring an editorial assistant.
Neil Young takes a stand.
This video had me IN TEARS. I was literally weeping.
A contagion of quitting.
I don’t fully understand who Julia Fox is but she likes dressing up.
Regina King’s son Alexander died from suicide. It’s just very sad.
RIP to André Leon Talley. He was a beacon of style, flair and elegance.
RIP to Louie Anderson.
Filling a void in black beauty products.
I loved loved loved One Tree Hill, and the three lead actresses have come together to talk about their experiences on the show. Yes, there is a lousy man at the root of all of it.
The opening to this article on families sharing COVID tests… is just a lot and it made me quite unhappy to read it. Also nauseated.
Best of the Net 2022 is now up.
Egregious abuses of power in Alabama.
Zadie Smith on Toni Morrison’s only short story.
The paper of record learned that there are some great restaurants in the suburbs!
The first unionized distillery. In Tennessee!
The racists in the Real Housewives franchises are shaking in their boots!
I dont know if I missed it somewhere, but will the 2022 book club books be listed somewhere all at once (for the whole year) like last year? I have more time some months than others and it was really motivating to be able to read ‘ahead’
Thanks!
Well, another issue that delivers a great array of stories, tidbits, news, tweets, videos (the snow video was funny as heck). I look forward for that kind of concise information, I can take in smaller dosage like that. So, so sad about Regina King's son death. As a mother, it hits deep. My favorite dish on this buffet is the dissection of Recitatif.
I've read many of Toni Morrison's books, but not this short story. Now my curiosity is piqued to the sky. I'm getting pronto and having read this "analysis" is the appetizer, and I shall enjoy the entree soon. Be Audacious!!