Book Release Date
Pure Innocent Fun updates and summer book recs
After selling my first essay collection Pure Innocent Fun in July 2021, I have officially turned in the first full draft of the book to my editor Jamia Wilson at Random House. There’s a lot of work to do, but I’m celebrating the milestone with Beyoncé’s birthday show tonight. I can’t wait to talk more about the whole process soon, once the editing is done and we have a cover to reveal, tour dates to announce, etc
But we do have a tentative release date and that is June 25, 2024.
PURE INNOCENT FUN is a collection of essays that explores popular culture of the 1990s and early 2000s through my experiences growing up Black and gay in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
I have barely read anything this year and the couple books I have started this summer I haven’t finished. So now while I have a bit of a break, I’m going to be finishing Emma Cline’s The Guest and Bret Easton Ellis’ The Shards.
What else have you been reading this summer that you’d recommend?
CONGRATS! I can't wait to read your book.
Best book of the summer and the year for me came out exactly two years ago: Monica Byrne's The Actual Star. I don't want to say too much about it except that it's entrancing and so, so imaginative. Wonderful character arcs and world building. One comparison would be Station Eleven; the world building also reminds me of NK Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. Anyway. A huge recommend from me. I have not stopped thinking about it since I finished it -- and no doubt I'll re-read it soon.
Congratulations on your manuscript! Excited to read it! For book recommendations I am a fan of my upcoming book, For the Culture: Phenomenal Black Women and Femmes in Food. Out 9/19. I also love Yellowface by R. F. Kuang. Perfect satire.