AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS
Our April book club selection is Lessons for Survival by Emily Raboteau. We will be in conversation with Emily on April 30th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is now open. I hope you can join us!
THE NEWSLETTER WEEK IN REVIEW
PERSONAL PROFESSIONAL NEWS
If you have a burning professional query, please do reach out to workfriend@nytimes.com.
Join Debbie and I along the path of totality in Austin, TX on Monday, April 8th! There will be a viewing party and we will talk about creating visual stories! It’s free! Fingers crossed that this time, we will actually see an eclipse despite the weather forecasts.
On April 15th, Soho Rep will be hosting their fun annual Spring Fete, which is the theater's most important fundraiser of the year. I am on their board and would love to see you there!
June 7-9, I will be participating in The Loft’s 50th anniversary weekend, with intensive classes, a conversation with me and three Roxane Gay Books authors, and agent/editor consultations and pitches. Minneapolis is quite lovely in June.
Megan Pillow and I wrote a little book about power called Do The Work: A Guide About Power and Creating Change. It will be out in June of this year. Pre-order, now!
My essay series, Roxane Gay Presents, with Everand has launched. First up: Julia Turshen with Built For This: The Quiet Strength of Powerlifting and in this video, you will learn about the queer powerlifting club she started. The second essay in this series is: You Are a Teen Mom: Instructions by Randa Jarrar. You can learn more about Randa in this video. The third essay in this series is My Year of Psychedelics: Lessons on Better Living by Gabrielle Bellot.
READING MATERIAL
In Gaza, al-Shifa Hospital was destroyed by Israeli bombs. Aid workers from World Central Kitchen were murdered by Israeli bombs. Now, because white people have been killed, the media is starting to pay attention and suggest that maybe, now would be a good time for a ceasefire. And Biden is tepidly trying to tell Israel to protect civilians which, turns out, a ceasefire would accomplish. But what do I know?
Meanwhile, PEN America, an organization that historically has done a lot of good, continues to disappoint on the war in Gaza when it really could be a leader here.
An excerpt from Steve Almond’s new book on the craft of writing.
Another thing for moms to be ashamed of (not really): smoking. I mean, if you want to roll the dice, I totally get it. I miss smoking so much. I do enjoy breathing, though.
In unfortunate news, Diddy’s son has been accused of sexual assault. Acorns, trees and all that.
In NYC, and along the Eastern seaboard, there was an earthquake! Things shook and rattled and rocked and rolled. And literally within a couple hours, there was a t-shirt for sale, because, New York. One man was getting a vasectomy during the tremors. And then there was an aftershock. Busy day!
This story about stolen identity is just so bizarre and it lasted for decades!
Leslie Jamison writes on the ubiquity of the term gaslighting as a diagnosis of, well, almost anything and everything.
Another tragic story highlighting why the police are, all too often, ill-equipped to respond to mental health emergencies.
A look at the twenty-year history of Post Secret and the man who started it all.
Pork buns are Taiwanese! Recognize!
No Labels spent like $80 million to find a third-party candidate to run against Biden and Trump and it was all for naught. Stop giving money to charlatans, I beg of you.
A woman discovers things about Fleetwood Mac while enjoying margs.
Gary Shteyngart took a cruise on the world’s largest cruise ship.
Sometimes, Frankenstein regrets making the monster.
On Twitter, some folks have been getting their blue checkmarks back, NON-CONSENSUALLY.
MacKenzie Scott, disrupting the nonprofit world.
Black women playing basketball (and really all Black women), deal with an inordinate amount of misogynoir. And LSU’s Angel Reese is a particular target of ire for some reason. Speaking of Reese, she’s taking her talents to the WNBA.
We now know more about Bubba Copeland, the Alabama politician who took his own life. It’s a tragedy. This is what bigotry does.
Seats are assigned for a reason! Hold the line! (Unless children are involved.)
What on earth is David Chang doing here???
As fascism continues its steady march across campuses, mostly in the South, the University of Texas fired its DEI-related staff. Cuz laws.
It’s pretty horrifying how the civil rights movement has been hijacked by racists.
Big Food and anti-diet dietitians.
Pro Publica is hiring five local reporting fellows.
A conversation with Hanif Abdurraqib. A review of Netflix’s Ripley. A conversation with Kirsten Dunst. A profile of Hunter Schafer. A review of Cowboy Carter that is interesting but I disagree! Respectfully! I might need to review the album myself. And Tressie on Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé’s legacy, and the void her silence to the public creates for fans to fill with their own interpretations of who she is and what he believes.
How the execs screwed over everyone at Vice .
A deeper look at Trader Joe’s and the company’s business practices.
About that interview where Eric Adams showed his ass, yet again…
Hermés really does try it, though. The amount of work you have to put in to spend absurd amounts of money… like… WHY? (They’re stuff is real nice though. I cannot lie.)
I’m tired of the rain. I really hate rain. Also, people not using headphones in public spaces and men who try to force their airplane seat backward even though it is a fixed object that can only recline so much and while they’re doing all this, they’re practically snapping my laptop in half but here the fuck we are.
PLEASE! REVIEW! COWBOY! CARTER!
RIP Taylor Ware. Avoidable tragedy. And the officer laughed at his realization that a threat to kill actually killed him? Yuck.