All I do is talk about friendship lately, which is something I expected to happen as we promote this book. But I have been surprised by how interested I remain in the subject. I still find myself looking forward to all of these conversations.

Here are a few of them: Aminatou and I are on the Longform podcast talking about our book budget and collaborative process, and on a handful of other shows: On Point, First Draft, A Thing Or Two. You can also listen to me talk about inbox management on The Best Advice Show. 

"Defenses of 'free speech' have often been wielded by people in positions of power in response to critics who want to hold them accountable for the real-life harm their words might cause." The fall of the opinion class. The end of ambition. A skewering of Ivanka's website for unemployed Americans. A brief history of race and Los Angeles freeways. The amazing life of America's first full-time Black activist. Two old Friends on growing up Black and white in Lincoln, Nebraska. "It’s about replacing the images that have been washing over all of us for centuries." What it means to insist people pronounce your name correctly. On the intersection of racism and fatphobia. Who is excluded from "sustainable fashion"? Consider the jumpsuit. Frog and Toad are an iconic friendship. On pandemic cooking as a kind of healing and connection to culture. Over zoom, a daughter learns to make her mother's rogan josh, a rich Kashmiri lamb dish. Beneath the mold at Sqirl, a deeper story about how a supertrendy restaurant does business. Profiles of hosts Desus and Mero, actor Yara Shahidi, and Afropessimism author Frank B. Wilderson III. "There are horse girls and there are Internet horse girls." #FreeBritney.

A few excerpts from Big Friendship were published this week: You can read our words on interracial friendships in The Cut, fixing a friendship breakdown in The Observer, and the long-term benefits of friendship in The New York Times. 

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A mini documentary on the musical genius Sylvester. Saeed Jones reads his poem "A Stranger." How virtual classes and events have changed life in a small town. I love these kids: "Maybe you weren't educated properly enough about health and wellbeing."

Oh, and you can listen to a sample of the Big Friendship audiobook here.

Have you seen this weird meme of foods that appear to be savory (or, uh, not foods at all) but turn out to be cake? I want the inverse: It looks like a sweet dessert, but when the knife slices through the layer cake, it is revealed to be a wheel of cheese, or a dense pile of au gratin potatoes. 

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By The Books, a series of summer-reading conversations that Aminatou and I curated for Mailchimp. It was a dream to pair up these authors we love! You can read their dialogues:

• Laugh or You Might Not Make It: Samantha Irby & Michael Arceneaux
• We're All Creeps: Karolina Waclawiak & Zan Romanoff
• Internal Revolution: Danez Smith & Cathy Park Hong
• Memory, Anxiety, and Hot Tape: Carmen Maria Machado & Lulu Miller
• Untold Stories: Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross & Evette Dionne
• Don't Shy Away From the Mess of Life: Brandon Taylor & Kristen Arnett
• Peanut Butter on Toast: Curtis Sittenfeld & Fanny Singer

I know "Join us on zoom" is the world's least-enticing phrase at this stage of the pandemic, but really these events have been so much fun, and we're excited to announce a few more:

JULY 27 - King County Library, in conversation with Alicia Garza
JULY 29 - Source Booksellers, in conversation with Jia Tolentino
AUG 10 - Politics & Prose, in partnership with Girls’ Night In

Click through for time zone and ticket info!