The Audacious Roundup
For the week of January 27th
AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS
Our February selection is Homeseeking by Karissa Chen. We will have a live book club discussion with the author on February 25th at 8pm EST/5 am PST. Registration is open! I hope to see many of you there. If you missed our conversation with Julia Armfield, look no further.
THE NEWSLETTER WEEK IN REVIEW
PERSONAL PROFESSIONAL NEWS
The Portable Feminist Reader is coming out on March 25th, 2025. Pre-orders are now open and it is always a huge help when you pre-order. Stay tuned for tour dates in New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and maybe Washington D.C.
Debbie and I gave some dating and relationship advice for Hinge.
Debbie Millman has a new book, Love Letter to a Garden, out on April 15th, 2025. Also included in the book are 10 recipes by me—a mini cookbook if you will.
Book and project buying links: The Portable Feminist Reader, Opinions, Do the Work, Stand Your Ground, Bad Feminist: Tenth Anniversary Edition, Hunger, Difficult Women, An Untamed State, Not That Bad, Rebind: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.
New semester! I am teaching Writing the Body, a writing workshop about how to write the body into fiction and nonfiction. It’s a great group of students so I am looking forward to the next many weeks.
Look. There was too much news this week and all of it was disastrous to one degree or another.
Confirmation hearings continue apace. RFK Jr is a liar and CLEARLY a serial killer. His own cousin was like, yeah, no he is a terrifying creep.
Federal workers are being tormented by Trump/Musk threats, purges, vendettas, and other nonsense. It’s all part of Project 2025, which is being followed to the letter, as many of us said would be the case. And, all of their plans are backfiring because, well, some people are not interested in fascism.
Trump is firing anyone at the FBI who was involved with the Jan. 6 investigations. They aren’t just laying down, though.
Musk has access to the federal payment system. He and his minions also have access to other important computer systems that run the country. To say that is terrifying is the understatement of the year. The engineers doing Musk’s bidding as they stage this coup are like, zygotes.
The Trump administration is carrying out immigration raids and deportations. They are ending the humanitarian parole program. Basically, if there is a way for them to be cruel, they will find it. Chicago is keeping it real, though, and not making it easy for ICE. Everyone needs to employ this tactic.
He tried to freeze all federal spending and student loans and grants but a judge blocked him and then he rescinded the order. For now. The chaos is intentional. Remember that.
Greenlanders voted overwhelmingly to stay far away from Trump.
Google Maps was like, yeah okay for Americans we’ll call it the Gulf of America. NONSENSE!
Speaking of Idiocracy…
Trump has a vendetta against trans people so he is doing terrible things to restrict transition, force de-transition for imprisoned trans people and worse.
The Trump administration is from the federal government buuut the Internet Archive has got our backs.
TIP: If you don’t act racist, you won’t be called racist.
Black Nazi Mark Robinson is, LOL, exiting politics which…. ya think????
We are going to be hearing a lot about tariffs so here is an explanation of what they are.
In D.C., an American Airlines flight collided with an Army helicopter over the Potomac. Everyone died including several figure skaters and a civl rights attorney, Kiah Duggins. Trump is blaming DEI, of course even though he is gutting all of the systems meant to prevent this sort of thing. It’s too stupid and insulting and grotesque to even engage with. A United engine caught fire just before takeoff in HOU. And in PHL, a medflight plane crashed, killing everyone on board.
The administration opened up two California dams for a photo op, wasting water that was supposed to go to farmers. ITS FUCKING CRAZY.
The FCC is investigating NPR and PBS for bullshit reasons.
Paramount is going to settle with the president aka give him a bribe. Meta is giving the prez $25 million, also a bribe. Eric Adams wants the Justice Department to drop charges against him.
Paul Krugman left the New York Times. Jim Acosta left CNN. Chuck Todd left MSNBC.
If you want somewhere to start in making your voice heard, the 5 calls app is pretty great.
Democrat politicians have been mostly useless, but Jasmine Crockett never disappoints (and neither does AOC).
Passport bros are an absolute menace.
Zuck is sad that everything he says is leaked because he’s a total asshole having a crisis that has lasted decades at this point.
A cop shot himself for attention and, as you might expect, blamed a Black man.
School shooters from two different cities may have crossed online paths.
Republican state AGs are trying to pressure Costco to be racist. So much for the free market.
The Palisades and Eaton fires have been contained. But when disasters happen, and people donate clothes, they often donate their raggedy ass shit that should be thrown away, not given to people having the worst time of their lives. If you won’t wear it, don’t donate it. How does this need to be said?
Starbucks is trying to make changes to bring customers back. Maybe they should stop taking out all the furniture from their cafés, keeping their bathrooms locked, and making mediocre coffee. But I’m no MBA.
It’s kind of funny that Open AI and the other American AI companies are over-inflated environment killers and they got completely undercut by a Chinese AI company, DeepSeek which also has a better name. This move by Open AI, is like the plot of Terminator. And now, all of a sudden, Open AI cares about intellectual property.
Turns out video games can help anxiety and stress.
Bookshop.org is going to finally be able to sell e-books!
Some interesting publishing news—Simon & Schuster isn’t going to require blurbs anymore. Now, I don’t mind giving blurbs. I enjoy reading new work. I am, however, overwhelmed by the sheer number of requests. It’s just so much. I am curious to see how this goes.
You can’t copyright AI generated art.
Karla Sofia Gascón, the star of Emilia Perez, has written hella racist tweets but wants you to know she is not racist.
Meghan Daum on the difficulty of accepting help.
A dispatch from the Asian South.
A writer goes to the real Twin Peaks in search of… something.
Lots of people who should know better are complying in advance, to the detriment of vulnerable communities like trans kids. Raquel Willis reminds us that trans kids don’t need the government’s permission to exist.
Hmmm…. a profile of the owner of McNally Jackson books. Choices were certainly made.
I’ve been loving Doechii’s music lately and so I appreciated this Vulture profile.
Beyoncé is taking Cowboy Carter on tour. That’s all we really need to know.
(She also won Album of the Year. Finally.)
I was SO thrilled for Beyoncé and Doechii at the Grammys! Both absolutely brilliant.
I thought of you, Roxane, when I read Beyoncé won!