We’ll also be crafting a syllabus of supplementary reading for each book.
ROXANE GAY BOOK CLUB 2022 SERIES
During the week listed for each book, we will host a series of discussions, with prompts to get things started. The structure of the book club is simple. I will do whatever I can to shout out independent bookstores in this newsletter, and if they offer subscriptions for the book club, you will be able to find that information here. Eso Won Books is a black-owned bookstore in Los Angeles and could use your support. Gibson’s Bookstore has kindly assembled an order page featuring all the titles we’ll be reading. Please purchase the books from your favorite independent bookstore or check them out from your local library. And because there are so many amazing books being published every month, I will also be featuring other recommended reading. Paid subscribers will, when the authors are willing and able to join us, have the opportunity to join me in a live Zoom conversation with that writer. Each month we’ll read a great book and have online discussions. The Audacious Book Club is a monthly online book club. Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon, out in May 2021. Writing, recently.įor The New York Times, I wrote an essay about the coup-attempt, Democratic senate wins in Georgia, and how the Democrats should use the power they know have. Last but not least, the logo was designed by the one and only Chip Kidd who is the greatest. I am joined by two outstanding editors-Brooke Obie and Megan Pillow and my assistant, Kaitlyn Adams, who is the co-director of the Audacious Book Club. And I will be hosting The Audacious Book Club here, so we can talk about great books with passionate, intelligent people.Ī project like this takes a lot of work and I have a great time doing this work with me. If you are an emerging writer ( 3 publications for fewer, no books) you can submit your work at.
Twice a month I will feature essays from emerging writers. I am going to write audaciously or, at least, I am going to try. In this space, I am going to share some of that writing-the kinds of things I like to write when I am not writing toward a deadline or the limits of a given project. Over the past several months, I’ve been trying to write more for myself, the way I used to before I published books or opinion pieces or made a modest name for myself. It allowed me to think about what I really want to write, and for whom. It relieved some of the pressure, mostly self-induced. In some ways, the realization was freeing. The world will keep on turning with or without my work. I am not a delivery person or a grocery store clerk or a truck driver. I am not a medical doctor or a nurse or a radiology technician. When the reality of the pandemic finally hit me, when I realized this was going to last more than a year, maybe even more than two years, when we started to understand who in this world is truly essential, I found myself contemplating how inessential my work feels. I had plenty of work but it was hard to focus. All that preparation made me feel a semblance of control even though very little was in my control. I made sure we had cash on hand and a survival kit. I found masks and latex gloves and hand sanitizer. I stocked up on canned goods and water and searched, often vainly, for toilet paper. I finally had time to get to know my house, to take stock of how prepared we were or weren’t for calamity. After three weeks, it was the longest I had been in one place since 2014.
In March, most of my paying work disappeared indefinitely. I often find myself reciting these atrocities as I bear witness to their accumulation and it doesn’t feel real. Ignoring a pandemic and allowing thousands of people to die every single day, for months on end. Dismantling education and what remained of the social net. A relentless number of federal executions. The relentless confirmation of conservative judges. Withholding federal funding from blue states. Building an incomplete, failing border wall. Banning Muslims from entering the country. With each new atrocity, I wonder what terrible thing this administration is capable of, I tell myself things cannot get any worse and then they reveal themselves anew. I have been reminded of the limits of language, that sometimes, the state of the world is such that words cannot adequately express dismay, disgust, frustration, fury. As a writer, as a woman, I have struggled with what to says beyond expressing horror at the cruelty the Trump administration demonstrates at every opportunity. The past year… the past four years have been overwhelming.
Welcome to The Audacity, a newsletter and The Audacious Book Club.