The Audacious Roundup
For the week of January 5th
AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS
Our January selection is Hitch by Sara Levine. We will have a live book club discussion with Sara on January 22nd at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is open! I hope to see many of you there. If you missed our conversation with Oyinkan Braithwaite, you can watch it here.
For newcomers, there is a bookclub FAQ if you have questions about how it all works. 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
On the Nose
Every two weeks or so I am publishing an essay from an emerging writer. This week, we are publishing “On the Nose” by Muskan Nagpal. Muskan is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from India, she studied literature at the University of Delhi and is a graduate of NYU’s MFA in Literary Reportage. Shewrites reportage, essays, and fiction. When …
PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL NEWS
Here is a trailer for a documentary I executive produced. It’s called The Forgotten Occupation. We just had a screening in L.A., and there will be one in NY and eventually (soon), it will be on streaming.
If you have an interest, I’m judging the Craft Literary essay contest. Submissions are open until January 25th.
Thanks to you guys and other readers, The Portable Feminist Reader is a NYT bestseller! So thank you! And if you haven’t gotten a copy yet, there’s still time! (And there will always be time, it’s a book.) And check out Love Letter to a Garden, by Debbie Millman.
Book and project buying links: Books I’ve Written, RGB Imprint Titles, Rebind: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.
READING MATERIAL
The president of the U.S. (dictatorish) kidnapped the president (dictator) of Venezuela, and his wife, and brought them to the U.S. for a “trial” and Debbie Millman wrote a brilliant essay about the visual language of power. Maduro remains defiant. The woman who was, by all accounts, the elected leader of Venezuela, Maria Corina Machado, isn’t even being considered to lead the country because she won the Nobel Peace Prize and Trump is mad that he didn’t win and she dared to accept the prize he wanted. Literal toddler shit. She tried to give it to him but the Nobel Committee was like, um, no, that’s not how this works. Now Trump is saber rattling about taking over other countries including Greenland. This is an absurd, obscene timeline.
In Minneapolis, an ICE agent named Jonathan Ross murdered Renee Nicole Good, who was unarmed, and slowly driving away from the officer but she wasn’t scared of him so he decided to give her something to fear. She was a wife, a mother, a daughter, a poet, a person. Danez Smith memorializes her for Harper’s Bazaar. The Department of Homeland Security keeps trying to make it seem like it was a justified shooting but WE HAVE ALL SEEN THE VIDEO. IT WAS MURDER.
Not to be outdone, ICE agents in Portland also fired their weapons at two civilians.
Here are some “How to Report ICE” zines you can print out on your own.
Because resistance and protest do work, Avelo Airlines is going to stop doing deportation flights.
JD Vance remains a human stain, a moral stain, a shit stain. Catholics don’t want him at all.
Iranians have taken to the streets! The oppressive regime is killing protestors, cutting off the internet, and otherwise trying to stop a revolution. May they fail in their efforts. Isaac Chotiner gets into what makes these protests different.
MAGA people are trying to appropriate Norman Rockwell’s art for their aesthetic but Rockwell, his granddaughter says, was antifa.
In NYC, Mamdani gave out some free theater tickets, which is such a nice idea.
Women reflect on the homes they lost in the Eaton Fire in Alatadena.
The Washington National Opera is joining the stampede of artists leaving the Kennedy Center.
Here’s something that should terrify you—ChatGPT Health. Like, people, please. DO NOT share your personal health information with a for-profit entity without a moral compass.
A professor has found a way to get his students reading again.
Timothy Busfield, aka Half Pint’s husband, has been accused of the sexual abuse of minors.
RIP Bob Weir, cofounder of the Grateful Dead. RIP T.K. Carter. Also, RIP to the young son of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. He was 21 months old.
Rapper Fetty Wap was released from prison early.
When a woman goes missing, the husband generally did it. It’s kind of a rule.
Vivek Ramaswamy’s bodyguard was arrested on drug charges. That’s… interesting.
This was an interesting, difficult essay about how a parent deals with one of their children sexually abusing a sibling.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner has become a superfan of Operation Mincemeat, so as a writer does, she has explored what it means to be part of a fandom.
An interview with Hélène Cixous. A profile of Noah Wyle who will always be Dr. John Carter. Chef Daniel Humm’s Grubstreet diet.
Here’s what happens when a trans, genderqueer writer’s nephew joins the military.
CES 2026 happened and there were some interesting/weird/interesting products on display. Most of it involves AI. Over that.
What’s going on with Rosalia’s lyrics? This was a really interesting engagement with her work.
On January 27th, there will be a staged reading in NYC of Andrea Ambam’s play Twelve Angry Black Women.
Hard agree that Debbie Millman is brilliant! (Her words decorate my office, actually) 😍