The Audacious Roundup

For the week of May 29th

Our conversation with Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is now up on YouTube. Our June bookclub selection is Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. We’re still trying to schedule to author chat, so stay tuned for that.

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.

If you’re looking for a nice notebook, check out my Draft Writing Journal from Baron Fig. It’s pretty swank if I do say so myself. To accompany my Draft Writing Journal, there is now a pen! It’s beautiful and satisfying to hold. And if you’re looking for some writing instruction, you might want to check out my Masterclass. Debbie Millman’s Remarkable Life Deck is a useful tool for taking stock and looking forward.

---

As your Work Friend, I answer questions about group photos, diet talk in the office, an employee looking for new work after being mentored, and asking for a raise after receiving tuition reimbursement for an advanced degree.

The debut title from Roxane Gay Books is And Then He Sang a Lullaby by Ani Kayode Somtochukwu and it will be published on June 6th. You can see Kayode and I in conversation in Boston, New York, Washington D.C., and Pittsburgh! I hope you all read and love this novel as much as I do!

Good news! Chuck Todd is leaving Meet the Press. Maybe the new host will press when given inadequate answers to rigorous questions.

Here is a long piece about Chris Licht, who runs CNN (for now, anyway). It is very revealing in multiple ways. Licht comes off as a total douchebag but the writer still seems to sympathize and why wouldn’t he? They’re both of a kind.

Remember that weird Elizabeth Holmes profile in the Times that came out a while back? Here’s how that came about. Hint: nepotism.

A mountaineer was rescued by a man named Gelje Sherpa and then tried to erase his savior from the narrative because… arrogance, I guess? Also, it always cracks me up when mountain climbers get froggy about mountain climbing given that Sherpas haul all that gear up the mountain for them. Truly, I know mountain climbing is a huge accomplishment. Couldn’t be me. But still, like, let’s qualify the endeavor.

Tyler James Williams has something to say about toxic masculinity and the way people try to weaponize sexuality as a means of policing masculinity.

Gen Z has…. renamed spending the day in bed. It’s called bed rotting, or as my wife and I like to call it, Sunday.

A profile of Eliot Page who has a memoir coming out very soon.

Looks like the DGA has reached a deal with the AMPTP. So much for solidarity. The WGA says this changes nothing. Our strike continues!

An important question about orgies.

Whales really have had it. We better stop playing in their faces.

A thoughtful essay from Megan Abbott as we near the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision.

This is interesting—Delta is developing a new airplane seat that would allow travelers in wheelchairs to remain in their wheelchairs while they fly.

Mark Zuckerberg has been working out and I guess that’s news.

Always, there are heroes among us.

The Idol is a new show on HBO. I thought it was boring and ejaculatory and the version that aired was clearly based on how men understand women and sexuality. The show isn’t provocative or subversive. It is beautifully shot and Lily Rose Depp is interesting. On paper, this show is exactly the kind of thing I would love, but my GOD, it is such a mess. The writing is stiff and one-dimensional. Sometimes, it is very stupid. Abel is just… not great at acting and the jump from when he and Depp meet to their second dalliance is so abrupt it feels like there are like twelve minutes of show missing. There are some great veteran actors who do their very best to make the show watchable but man, when I see schlock like this, I wonder, truly, how it makes it on air.

Hannah Gadsby curated an exhibition at The Brooklyn Museum of Art that is supposed to be a feminist response to Picasso. The reviews have been absolutely brutal. I haven’t seen the show yet and it does sound like it was… ill-conceived but the museum stands by the exhibition. I’m all for a robust critical culture but it would be great to see what women critics have to say about the show. I don’t think, given what I’ve read, that women critics will laud the show, but I do think they will bring more nuance to their criticism. It is curious that people are now coming out of the woodwork to say they’ve always hated Gadsby’s work and blah blah blah. It’s funny how people have all kinds of things to say once they deem it safe to air certain opinions. Hate whatever you want, but damn, have some courage of conviction.

Chika seems to not have good advisors. She had some mean things to say about babies in first class, as is her right but then it turns out the babies were literal nepo babies.

A proverb.

Like a good neighbor…..

Sometimes, you have to take the long way around to get results.

How the art world tries to hide Yayoi Kusama’s anti-blackness. So disappointing.

How literary prizes can help writers!

Padma Lakshmi is leaving Top Chef.

There is a new documentary out about the Duggar family and their general religious leanings (think: cult). The Duggars aren’t happy but they wouldn’t be given that their dirty secrets are being laid bare.

Kristen Arnett has written a beautiful essay about being queer and getting married in Florida.

A review of S.A. Cosby’s excellent novel All Sinners Bleed, which I highly recommend. Cosby also did a “By the Book.”

Apparently arranging summer camp is a real stressor for parents.

An op-ed about the way forward for Haiti.

Netflix holders declined to give execs ridiculous compensation packages which won’t necessarily stop them from receiving ridiculous compensation packages.

The Lost writers room was a toxic shit show. (This is the case for too many writers’ rooms.) A writer who was in the room for two seasons, confirms that it is all true.

A profile of SZA. And a profile of Ryan Gosling, the new Ken. And a profile of Kim Petras. So many profiles, so little time.

A perfect tweet.

Incredible news… like, in the truest sense of the word. Kim Cattrall is coming back to the Sex and the City reboot, at least briefly.

At long last, Danny Masterson has been convicted on two counts of rape.

Uhhh… Al Pacino, 82, is expecting a human baby with his girlfriend who is young enough to bear children.

This is a… difficult piece about Alice Sebold and the man she identified as her rapist, who was not, in fact, her rapist.

For many writers, they must grapple with the question of if their writing is a hobby or a career.

Elizabeth Holmes has reported to prison.

A look at the radio station that is the voice of the Lakota Nation.

An evening with rich Republicans reveals the state of the current GOP. (So do many other things, tbh.)

A conversation with Meg White.