The Audacious Roundup
For the week of February 9th
AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS
Our February selection is The Age of Calamaties by Senaa Ahmad. We will have a live book club discussion with Senaa on February 25th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is open! I hope to see many of you there.
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
PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL NEWS
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 2026 Olympics are still happening. Ilia Malinin had a pretty rough go of the men’s competition.
An ice dancer shares why she left the sport. (Hint: largely against her will.) Like many fields, ice dancing is rife with abuse. Also, her former partner has a new partner and is still skating.
The LA 2028 Olympics are being spearheaded by Epstein pal Casey Wasserman who refuses to step down. His entertainment firm is losing clients but that is not a deterrent.
Supposedly the ICE surge (such stupid language for terrorism) in Minnesota is ending but they have said that before and it was not true and this is probably not true either.
The regime has decided to embrace greenhouse gasses. In further pandering to the president’s ridiculous ego, people from the coal industry (?!) gave him an award for beautiful clean coal (!?).
Trump is also on some bullshit about a bridge.
The MAGA folks are exactly as horrible as you might guess.
Pam Bondi testified in front of Congress; it was a shitshow, she was unapologetic, and she is a pestilence. She also claimed that Culver City (CULVER CITY?!?!?) was crime-ridden. It’s just so absurd. Of all the places in LA she picks the… bucolic neighborhood?
The FDA, in their infinite lack of wisdom, refuses to consider Moderna’s mRna flu shot. Sure this is going to bode well for vaccines writ large.
This was an odd piece that reads like nonfiction but is basically hypothetical musing about measles.
Nikole Hannah Jones examines what happens when white people put their bodies on the line for social justice.
Conservatives have a weird little ecosystem of entertainers, influencers and generally annoying and/or odious people.
The challenges of working multiple jobs.
Ring tried to soft launch a surveillance system using our doorbells but are now backtracking after universal disgust for the idea.
Communities can reject data centers and crypto mining. Here’s one such example.
Nancy Guthrie is still missing and the FBI doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing.
PEN America has new co-CEOs.
A look at the tenure of Will Lewis at the Washington Post.
Mira Nair, an absolute film legend, has also raised a mayor. And she’s working on a new film!
Speaking of said mayor, he is taking on the storage industry.
Speaking of the storage industry, this was a painful story about what happens when an artist loses their archive.
Something, something Clavicular??? Also, having read this piece and learned about looksmaxxing, it’s clear that we are not working from a common understanding of hotness. To each their own!
This one time, a guy won an Olympic medal and spontaneously confessed to infidelity and begged his ex to take him back.
A conversation with Gisèle Pelicot. A conversation with the creative director of the Bad Bunny concert.
RIP James Van der Beek of Dawson’s Creek fame and also that one super creepy SVU episode.
Angelenos! The city is looking for its next poet laureate.
An ode to Black Brooklyn, a community being erased by gentrification.
Speaking of Brooklyn… wrestling speed dating? It really is rough out there!
Side quest: buying a Switch 2 via using Citibikes.
The Studio Museum has announced this year’s artists in residence.
A profile Jeremy O’Harris, as he debuts Egmont, a new project with Cate Blanchett and Gustavo Dudamel.
There’s a new Wuthering Heights movie starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi. The discourse is fretting over whether or not Heathcliff is supposed to be white.
Over at LitHub, you can read “Let’s Play Dead,” a short story from Senaa Ahmad, this month’s Audacious Book Club author.
Girls Who Like Girls is going to be a movie. The trailer is out!
Is there anything cuter than this puppy getting a breathing treatment?
THE RUMPUS WEEK IN REVIEW
Essays:
Stick A Clock In Me I’m Pregnant by Sasha Bortnik
Harpooning The Self: Moby-Dick, Fatphobia, and the Monomaniacal Pursuit of Control by Candice M. Kelsey
More Human: On Science Fairs, Artificial Intelligence, and Science Experiments by Erika Luckert
Comics:
Halloween with George by Audrey Larson
Fiction:
Garth Drunk by Kasey Peters
Poetry:
Four Poems by Dylan Harbison
Two Poems by Andreea Ciobanu
Two Poems by Constantino Toth
Reviews:
Clutching To Community Over Contemporary Culture by Katrina Ray-Saulis
Poems Are Really For People Who Don’t Read Them: On Patricia Smith’s “The Intentions of
Thunder by Jet Toomer
The Four Spent The Day Together by Abby Lacelle
Interviews:
A Conversation with Eshani Suryaby Ursula Villarreal-Moura
CACKLING about Culver City. Oh, Pam.