Alice Sebold has apologized to Anthony J. Broadwater, the man wrongfully convicted of the rape she describes in her memoir Lucky. Broadwater, who was exonerated last week, told the New York Times, “To make that statement, it’s a strong thing for her to do, understanding that she was a victim and I was a victim too.”
For the New Yorker, Bryan Washington tours some of the nation’s gay bars to see how they’ve been affected by the pandemic: “The crowd grew gradually. The mood felt familial. Groups of twos and threes merged and joined and broke off with one another, and on the patio a set of Christmas lights had been strung up, with a sign that blinked ‘Welcome Back.’ Hands brushed shoulders, patted backs. Wary nods gave way to looser smiles.”
Jewish Currents has published an epistolary essay by Helen Betya Rubinstein and Nicholas Muellner. They reflect on Jewishness and queerness in Ukraine. As Rubinstein writes: “I was searching for traces of the Jewish past, and you were searching for signs of what you’d call the queer future. Our trajectories would meet in Odessa: at a hotel called Geneva, on a street called Jewish, a few blocks from the gay bar called Libertine, across the street from the offices of the former KGB.”
CUNY’s Newmark School of Journalism is hosting a series of workshops that are open to the public. Among the January Academy program offerings: Jasmine Sanders will lead a class on working class cultural criticism, Constance White will teach a two-session course on fashion writing, Graham Lee Brewer will focus on reporting in Indigenous communities.
Shelf Awareness highlights Astra House and talks with one of their authors, Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, about her forthcoming book The Sex Lives of African Women. “I think one of the things that is very clear from my book is that African, African-American and Afro-descendant women are saving ourselves,” Sekyiamah said. “We’re pushing back against the societal norms that try to limit us and we’re expanding our understanding of our identities, and actively creating models of freedom that everyone else can learn from.”