Actor and writer Patricia Bosworth has died from complications caused by the coronavirus. She was eighty-six. Her books include the memoir Anything Your Little Heart Desires and biographies of Diane Arbus, Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, and Montgomery Clift.
Wild author Cheryl Strayed has started a great new weekly podcast called Sugar Calling. “Each week, Cheryl will call a writer she admires in search of insight and courage,” says the New York Times. “She’s turning to some of the most prolific writers of our time—all over the age of 60—to ask the questions on all our minds: How do we stay calm when everything has been upended? How do we muster courage when fear is all around us?” For her first episode, Strayed interviews her former professor and “guiding light” George Saunders, who reflects on how to face the current uncertainty and wonders how the younger generation will learn to make sense of the challenges and changes we face. “This is when the world needs our eyes and ears and minds.”
Hanif Abdurraqib—the author of Go Ahead in the Rain, a critical meditation on A Tribe Called Quest, and the new poetry collection A Fortune for Your Disaster—pays tribute to Bill Withers, who died last week.
The Bustle Digital Group, which owns a number of media outlets including Bustle itself, has laid off twenty-four employees, including the entire staff of the culture site The Outline.
On Friday, Bookshop.org, the online bookseller that aims to help indie bookstores, sent out an encouraging message: “Hello! Due to overwhelming traffic, our site is a bit slow right now. Our developers are working to scale it up as I write this post. Thank you for your patience!”
Actor Billy Dee Williams has sold his as-yet-untitled new memoir to Knopf. Among other things, the book will take on “his complex friendships with James Baldwin, Laurence Olivier, Duke Ellington, Gershwin, Brando, Sidney Poitier, Berry Gordy, Diana Ross, and George Lucas.” The book is scheduled for release in 2022.