The Audacious Round Up
For the week of May 30th
Keep up with the Joel Gay Creative Fellows, Jet Toomer, Jesus Rodriguez, and Elspeth Michaels.
The June selection for The Audacious Book Club is Trust by Hernan Diaz. We will be in conversation with Hernan on June 23rd. Register now!
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.
If you’re looking for a nice notebook, check out my new Draft Writing Journal from Baron Fig. It’s pretty swank if I do say so myself.
On The Roxane Gay Agenda this week, the season finale, I am in conversation with lawyer, activist and leader Sherilynn Ifill.
The Public is looking for submissions on civil rights, the legal system, and social justice. They even put together a brief document on how to pitch them.
I am so tired of hearing about Elon Musk. I don’t have anything to link. I just felt like saying this. He says the most basic nonsense and people treat it as wisdom.
Sometimes you randomly find out someone has you blocked on Twitter and you have no idea why. But anyway, Valerie Complex wrote about her experiences at Cannes in the past few years. Racism, racisme, racism. It gets old, man. Black people have to tolerate so much aggression aggression to just do our jobs and live our lives.
I’m a real fan of Morgan Parker’s and she has written a really moving essay about being alone.
A profile of Joel Kim Booster. I can’t wait to see Fire Island. The trailer was very enjoyable.
This is very specific, but I Y K Y K. The way I cackled.
The Depp Heard trial is over and there has been a verdict and it is a terrible precedent and so misogynistic. Throughout the trial I have been stunned by how people treated it like a spectator sport, or a video game. Jessica Valenti writers incredibly well on how bizarre and disturbing it was.
The New York Times discovered roommates.
There have been more than 20 mass shootings since the mass shooting in Uvalde, TX. In Tulsa, a man bought an AR-15, went to a medical clinic and killed five people. He was in pain, and angry with his surgeon. The way men treat guns as a solution for… anything, is astonishing.
A review of Sloane Crosley’s Cult Classic.
The one and only Saeed Jones has a short story in Oxford American.
Sheryl Sandberg is leaving Facebook. I mean, Meta.
A profile of Elliot Page in Esquire.
Netflix has decided to go from quantity over quality to quality over quantity.
Aunjanue Ellis is FINE (and bisexual).
There is a black character, Reva, played by Moses Ingram, in the new Obi-Wan Kenobi show on Disney +, so of course (some of) the franchise’s incredibly toxic, racist fans have decided to make the actor’s life miserable. This time, though, the franchise is standing behind her, unequivocally.
Emily Gould is looking for a new apartment.
Activists threw cream on the Mona Lisa in Paris. She’s fine.
Let’s stop with letters of recommendation.


Moses Ingram is SO good in Kenobi. So much expression and really good "eye-acting".
And yeah, the British royal family falderal--when will stop obsessing over things that inhibit our progress toward an equitable society? Abolish the monarchy. And the police. And gun sales. And shady campaign contributions.
How do you submit work for the Emerging Writer Series?