The Audacious Roundup
For the week of May 11th
AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS
Our May bookclub selection is The Violence: My Family’s Colombian War by Adriana E. Ramirez. We will be in conversation with Adriana on May 27th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is open.
For newcomers, there is a bookclub FAQ if you have questions about how it all works. And this is what we will be reading for the rest of the year. We’re partnering with the lovely people at Allstora for the Audacious Book Club. Now, you can sign up to have the monthly selections delivered to your doorstep each month! Otherwise, I’ve put together an Audacious Book Club storefront if you want to buy current or forthcoming book club titles.
THE NEWSLETTER WEEK IN REVIEW
PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL NEWS
I had a busy week! I offered some thoughts on reality stars in politics for PBS Newshour. And then I was a Jeopardy clue on the 14th which is just… a delight. Every time this happens (every time???) I clap and squeal like I am still seven and wearing my hair in ringlets. Love that for me.
For my Australian readers, I will be back in Sydney on June 12th, in conversation with Narelda Jacobs! Tickets here!
On June 18th, I am joining Hope for Haiti in a fundraiser for their capital campaign to build a new medical campus in Haiti. They are a wonderful organization and my dad is on their board and I am so impressed with the work they do AND that all of their clinics and operations in Haiti are run by Haitians. If you want to support this campaign, please consider a ticket or table (if you have the scratch), and enjoy an evening of conversation, Haitian food, and music!
Book and project links: Books I’ve Written, RGB Imprint Titles, Rebind: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton; The Forgotten Occupation.
READING MATERIAL
The Democrats can be so spineless. I will never understand why Jared Polis pardoned Tina Peters. WHY?
Words that come to mind, with regard to this $1.7 billion slush fund for Trump’s criminal pals: outrageous, rancid, disgusting, disgraceful.
Mayor Mamdani restored the library funding, as he should have. Glad he course corrected on this.
In NYC, Jack Schlossberg is running on… clout?
Alex Murdaugh’s murder conviction was overturned by the South Carolina Supreme Court but he’s still in prison forever for fraud?
Spencer Pratt, still a prat.
Excellent news! Hotel housekeepers in NYC will earn more than $100,000 per year and that is deserved and also not nearly enough for the work they do.
This journalist REALLY seemed to like Ezra Klein in this profile.
Good news! Ben Shapiro’s “media empire” is collapsing. Love to see it.
There is trouble in paradise at Kevin Hart’s media company. Also… that roast? I refused to watch but man… get some dignity Kevin.
Ross Barkan has been accused of plagiarism. Looks like plagiarism!
Screenwriters who can’t find work in the industry are training AI to do their jobs? Dystopia, dystopia, dystopia.
Turks out Kars4Kids is a bit of a scam. Of course it is.
Sometimes a person goes viral and gets very famous very quickly but it’s not necessarily a fairy tale.
Like Puff Daddy became P. Diddy. Like Prince became SYMBOL. Like PCOS became PMOS.
Nami Mun offers a gorgeous, haunting essay about women, the way we are silenced and silence ourselves when it comes to our health, and ovarian cancer.
Swatch did a collab with Audemars Piguet and it was too too successful.
There are some exciting things happening with the San Francisco Ballet.
RIP Jason Collins. RIP Brian Lindstrom. RIP Mary Lovelace O’Neal.
A lot of families have secrets, and here is a story about siblings, one of whom left the South to pass as a white man in Chicago and the choices Black people are often forced to make to survive. If you want to read an excellent novel about something similar, check out Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half.
A conversation with Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. A profile of a guerilla artist in Los Angeles. A conversation with Kennedy Ryan. A profile of comic Gabby Hoffman. A conversation with Aleshea Harris. A conversation with Taraji P. Henson. A conversation with Julieta Venegas.
The phrase “optimize your vagina” should not exist. Absolutely the fuck not.
Here are the 100 best restaurants in New York City according to The New York Times.
A Wordle television show?
Tracy Lynne Oliver, author of Magician, offers a reading list about bad mothers.
Justice for Cirie!
Another entry in the annals of evidence that men really just hate women.
The Bard fiction prize is accepting applications.
I will always, always tolerate Drake slander. See also: Chris Brown.
Have you seen Is God Is? I’m going this week and have been taking in the reviews.
After the flood for the Parsley family in Texas.
James Charles is one of those people I only learn about unwillingly but he is really annoying, inexplicably popular, and always doing inappropriate or terrible things.
So there I was, walking through Times Square, the most crowded I’ve ever seen it, to meet Debbie at The Palace Theatre to see The Lost Boys musical and turns out, Gucci was getting ready to have a fashion show, right there. Absolute chaos. The show was pretty good and Shoshona Bean was amazing. Never ever thought that movie would get the musical treatment, but here we are.
I love a good story about a rent-stabilized apartment.
As you know, it’s a difficult time for independent media (has it ever not been?) and Hammer and Hope, an excellent magazine to which I subscribe, could use your support. The Spring 2026 issue is particularly strong with its focus on the Minnesota uprising, including a raw, searing diary by a Somali mom during the ICE invasion; a video of dream hampton and Jason Moran discussing D'Angelo's musicality; and a reported piece by Natalie Moore on Black women federal workers who were purged under DOGE. You can become a member HERE. And if you’re interested in making a significant multi-year gifts you can e-mail hello@hammerandhope.org.
My former, very talented student Meghana Mysore has a forthcoming short story collection, Let All Our Ghosts Depart, out on September 1. You can pre-order now! Until then, you can read her story “Repair Shop” in the Yalousha Review.
THE RUMPUS WEEK IN REVIEW
Essays:
Pinayrish American by Kimberley Nelson
Fiction:
Tyler by June Glass
Poetry:
Two Poems by Jeff Stumpo
Four Poems by Caleb Curtiss
prognosis of sound by Sloan Asakura
Reviews:
Obliteration and Authorship: On Hamid Ismailov’s “We Computers” by Anu Khosla
Meaning in The Ice and “A Violence” by Paula Bohince by Christos Kalli
A Backyard of One’s Own: The Meticulous Ecology of Cecily Parks’ “The Seeds” by Melanie Robinson
Interviews:
A Conversation with Anna Lena Phillips Bell by Amanda Hawkins
A Conversation with Emily Nemens by Nimarta Narang
A Conversation with Jonathan Miles by Denise S. Robbins
A Conversation with Ashley M. Jones by Annelies Zijderveld
A Conversation with Scott Broker by Stephanie Feldman
Other:
The AWP Flash Fiction Contest Winners by Roxane Gay
Amazeballs!
(And I would’ve gotten it right!)
Roxane. Seriously.
How are you so hilarious?
Reading The Audacious Roundup with your meta commentary has ME giggling and clapping like a schoolgirl with ringlets!
(When I was a school girl my hair was tied in boulles go-go hair ties and plaited in braids, but I got your drift!!) lol!