The Audacious Round Up
For the week of May 2nd
I am raising money for Hope for Haiti, a wonderful non-profit I work with. My dad is the vice-president of the board and helps them build schools and hospitals and other kinds of infrastructure in Haiti. I could not be prouder of how he chooses to spend his time and energy. If you would like to contribute to our annual fundraising drive, the Hike for Haiti Challenge, you can do so online. I would be so grateful.
Keep up with the Joel Gay Creative Fellows, Jet Toomer, Jesus Rodriguez, and Elspeth Michaels.
The first Roxane Gay Books have been announced—And Then He Sang a Lullaby by Ani Kayode Somtochukwu, Lush Lives by J.V. Lyon, and Hot Springs Drive by Lindsay Hunter.
The May selection for The Audacious Book Club is Memphis by Tara Stringfellow. We will be in conversation with Tara on May 24th. Registration is open.
I am reading 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.
Don’t Forget: Why Design Matters by Debbie Millman.
On The Roxane Gay Agenda this week, I speak with Cameron Esposito about their new role on A Million Little Things and a whole lot more.
I am thrilled to share that an essay published in The Audacity, “If You Ever Find Yourself” by Erika J. Simpson, will be included in Best American Essays 2022 edited by Alexander Chee. This was her first publication!
I have a new Work Friend column up. And for the Opinion section I wrote about the impending overturn of Roe v. Wade and how now is the time to RAGE.
I was featured in a “Brief but Spectacular,” on PBS Newshour talking about using our voices.
ENOUGH ABOUT ME!
We’re all feeling a lot of different feelings around abortion access and the erosion of our civil rights in the wake of Alito’s draft of the court’s decision being leaked. In many ways, Alito is trying to roll back all of the progress of the past century. Here are some ways to help. And this is also a good resource on what you can do. It’s important to note that this is just the beginning. Already conservatives are suggesting they will ban things like IUDs, condoms, and IVF. And then of course we have to worry about marriage equality and, INEXPLICABLY, interracial marriage in some states. Mitch McConnell has said he is considering a federal abortion ban, which, so much for state rights.
Meanwhile, here is some information about Plan B and weight limits.
More on why Justin Lin left Fast & Furious 10.
This weekend, Steve Schmidt decided to tell some stories of working on the McCain campaign and his primary target is Megan McCain. Whew. Burning it all down, I guess.
Frank Langella was fired for not respecting boundaries, even after working with an intimacy coordinator.
Kim Cattrall on the power of saying no.
We all have our hobbies.
The MET Ball happened. The theme was the Gilded Age but most attendees did not seem to understand the assignment, and it’s fine. I don’t really care but it’s a pleasant distraction to comment on celebrities and their costume parties. But Kim Kardashian wore Marilyn Monroe’s dress. She supposedly lost 16 pounds in three weeks which, please, do not ever attempt. For someone her size to do so means she did not eat for three weeks. Anyway, from a conservation perspective, conservators think it’s pretty appalling that she wore the dress and that she was allowed to. I don’t really care about the dress nor do I think it’s historically important.
Danny Roberts is back on the Real World!
There is a book influencer doing really interesting things on Instagram.
Dana Owens stays flawless.
Here’s a house without a kitchen for sale in North Carolina. Nothing to worry about. Everything is juuuuuust fine.
Tressie on Black Twitter, which is not for sale and cannot be bought.
Jia Tolentino looks at Angela Garbes’s Essential Labor and motherhood as rebellion.
A profile of the luminous Ada Limón.
Streaming has created a lot more opportunities for TV writing but it has changed the apprenticeship trajectory for showrunning and now, that has created something of a crisis.
Booksellers are organizing!
Some teenagers in Texas are taking on the tampon tax. The kids ARE alright!
Hari Kunzru has written a beautiful essay on the transitive nature of what we know online.
Congratulations to Karine Jean-Pierre who will be the next White House press secretary.
This is quite a story about a television writer who claimed she was putting her own stories into her work. Turns out it was someone else’s stories.
Minnie Driver has a memoir out.
Kim Cattrall is alright. I stan Samantha Jones forever.
NOW IS THE TIME TO RAGE!!
I’ve been raging since the draft was leaked. Well, no, actually I’d been raging about many things that affect me as a woman, a Caribbean-immigrant, (there’s a difference) a black person…for many years, but the abortion issue had always been one that bothered me at my very core. People may decide to not live where I live, not send their children to school with mine, not share workspace with me, we all have choices, opinions, beliefs…I mean, this is America, right. BUT no one has the right to tell women what to do with their bodies. NO ONE!!
The hypocrisy is too much to bear. Black and brown children “age out” of the foster care system because no one wants them as their little Johnnys and Marys, but they feed the pipeline to prison. Too often, their marginalized lives destabilize whole communities, perpetuating poverty, violence, teen pregnancy, despair, dysfunction.
Roxane and Debbie, I’m sorry you suffered such heinous childhood abuse. I’m glad you weren’t victims of unwanted pregnancies, many of which have altered the trajectory of many lives.
And now MEN want to send us back into the dark ages again when all we want is to be freaking free to be. Just let us BE!!