The Audacious Roundup
For the week of May 4th
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. And if you missed our conversation with Jamilah Lemieux, it’s up now.
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
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
On Saturday, the eight children murdered by their father Shamar Elkins, were laid to rest. May they rest in tiny power.
The president is a blathering fool on social media. Such a grotesquerie.
Is anyone more delicate and sensitive than a billionaire? See also: mediocre white men. My goodness.
There’s a cruise ship off the coast of Spain that is a hotbed of the hantavirus. After weeks, the passengers are disembarking and being evacuated to their home countries. This is not the beginning of another pandemic BUT it’s always a good idea to maintain good hygiene practices, regardless. We cannot trust this raggedy ass government to protect us from a cold, let alone a deadly virus.
Tennessee Republicans did some malicious redistricting to essentially disenfranchise all the Black voters in the state. They did it proudly, in plain sight, because they do not give a fuck. Not to be outdone, the Virginia Supreme Court tossed out the new redistricting maps that were voted on by the people. But yes, let’s continue to evangelize about the importance of voting (which is, indeed, critically important), while forgoing any other type of resistance or aggression.
The Met Gala happened. Mayor Mamdani celebrated garment workers in NY with some gorgeous photos of gorgeous people. And there were a lot of protestors decrying the whole affair.
An Epstein museum in NYC?
Kash Patel, who is inexplicably still the FBI director, puts stickers on bourbon bottles to give away? He’s so… odd.
Another devotee of the law, Kim Kardashian, has decided to stop trying to pass the California bar exam without a proper law school education.
Canvas, the ubiquitous online teaching platform, experienced a massive outage because of a cyberattack. It was yet another reminder of the danger of tech monopolies and surrendering common sense for the promise of a bright tech future that will change education in some magical way.
The 2026 Pulitzer Prizes were announced. Congrats to the winners and finalists. I was sad I didn’t win one but then I remembered I hadn’t written an eligible book last year. Or the year before. Or the year before. I better get on that.
In case you were worried about AI surpassing human intelligence.
Rachel Entrekin won this year’s Cocodona 250, a trail running race where people run for 250 miles, voluntarily. No thanks. Nope. Nein. Congratulations to Entrekin, though. That’s incredible.
Van life is rising in popularity which tracks, given the state of the economy.
If you owe a lot of child support, you may have your passport revoked.
In Miami, four men were found guilty of an assassination plot against deceased Haitian president Jovenel Moïse.
A Mexican nightclub is charging Americans a $300 cover fee which, fair.
Airlines are generally pretty terrible but for some reason, Delta garners intense loyalty among many of its travelers.
An older but classic profile of Edna Lewis. A profile of Denyce Graves. A profile of the inimitable Betye Saar as she nears 100. A conversation with Caro Claire Burke, author of Yesteryear. This book is one people either love or hate and honestly, that’s a great way to have a book in the world. People have thoughts and opinions about it which is a lot more than we can say about too many books. I rather enjoyed Yesteryear. It was engrossing and I love an unreliable narrator. The book was clearly drawing from the most popular tradwives on social media, and the ending is absolutely unhinged. I was entertained! And I do recommend it if you want a fun, sharp, kind of alarming read.
Isaac Fitzgerald writes about his ma, St. Jude and prayer for People. On Tuesday, his memoir American Rambler will be out. It’s a wonderful, meandering book with so much gorgeous, dense prose. Truly a book to lose yourself in.
Also out now, Backtalker by Kimberlé Crenshaw. She appeared on Democracy Now to talk about the new book and her storied career. Crenshaw was also on Fresh Air.
Rage workout?
Kid Cudi had to fire MIA from his tour after she said wild, racist things about undocumented immigrants. What a disappointment she turned out to be.
Dominique Morgan, who I very much enjoy, is sitting at Rikers awaiting sentencing. A lot of people have opinions but all I will say is that justice matters BUT the carceral system only furthers harm. I hope she is able to participate in retorative justice, instead.
The tolls professional dancers must pay with their bodies.
Ahh, to be twelve again (no thank you).
Applications for the Geffen Playhouse Writer’s Room are now open. Speaking of the Geffen, I recently saw an excellent one-woman play there, Dragon Mama by Sara Porkalob.
The Soho Rep, which produces amazing, challenging, unique theatre, is holding it’s Spring Fete on June 8th! Come on through! I’ll be in Australia, so I won’t be able to make it this year, but it’s a really fun gala, as far as these things go. Or if you just want to skip the gala and make a contribution, you can do that too and thank you for your generosity.
I will read absolutely any story about informal restaurants and chefs.
The new WNBA season has started! Let’s goooooooooooooooooooooo.
Druski is hilarious.
Surrendering to the normcore of Costco.
Some amazing courtroom sketches from Ida Libby Dengrove.
You can watch Suffs, the Broadway musical, on YouTube until the end of July.
THE RUMPUS WEEK IN REVIEW
Essays:
Notes from the Playground by Elana Kupor
Fiction:
Sunday Scaries: The Lurking Kind by Devin James Leonard
Silent Nights by Vanessa Blakeslee
Lifesaving by Sarah Turner
Poetry:
Sound kept by Rachel Franklin Wood
Criticism:
What Holds: Manners and Memory in “The Summer We Ate Off the China” by Travis Alexander
Jennifer Sperry Steinorth’s “Boys Behind Glass” by Charlotte Pence
Interviews:
A Conversation with Preeti Vangani by Shlagha Borah
A Conversation with Rainbow Rowell by Madeline Thatcher
A Conversation with Brian Trapp by Ivy LongA Conversation with Amanda Quaid by Sarah Ruhl
A Conversation with Megha Majumdarby Sarah Anjum Bari
With you in spirit. Gotta play to win!
“The 2026 Pulitzer Prizes were announced. Congrats to the winners and finalists. I was sad I didn’t win one but then I remembered I hadn’t written an eligible book last year. Or the year before. Or the year before. I better get on that…”