Drew Broussard

@drewsof.bsky.social

2712 Followers 858 Following

he/him writer of stories and such professional bookman for Rough Draft Bar & Books contributing editor at Literary Hub occasional guitarist and singer

A screenshot from Strong Bad email #10, of Strong Bad from torso up to almost top of mask on the left side of the screen and Bubs' torso on the right side of the screen.
on a faux wood-grain table, two bookmarks. on the left, the 'front' of the bookmark which has the ROUGH DRAFT BAR & BOOKS logo (that text over an open book). on the right, the 'back' of the bookmark which has a block of text that runs basically the whole thing and is a stream-of-consciousness dialogue ramble that I didn't copy-edit but seemed fun at the time.
a photo (or is it an illustration or is it both?) of a manor house with a fountain or something in front of it, but its all upside down so the sky (which is full of very impressionistic clouds) is at the bottom of the image with the chopped up text that reads MISS ARCHER, Jordan Harrison
THE EDEN BOOK SOCIETY (that we know of) 1919 A Vase of Black Roses, Thomas Cowan His Orchard, C. Ashwood Burbidge A Year of Plague, ?? Broken Cradle, ?? The Blood Month, ?? Thine is the Kingdom, ?? Pre-1927 Lightless Water, ?? 1952 The Predator’s Legacy, Barbara Livesey Not for Charity, Christopher Greene 1972 Holt House, L. G. Vey Judderman, D. A. Northwood A Dedicated Friend, Shirley Longford The Castle, Chuck Valentine Plunge Hill: A Case Study, J. M. McVulpin Starve Acre, Jonathan Buckley 1988 Her Hands, Caitlin T. Vale 1993 An Attempted Bibliography of the Works of Barbara Livesey, Stephen George Wallace The Drain, Caitlin T. Vale Our Little Group, Patricia Rivers On Fridays, We Eat Meat, A.S. Hopewell The Rednexorcist, Frank Sloane Jackie's Ghost, Norman Keane How to Mend the Sky, Ivy Liu Servants to the King, Marion Scott ??? The Beach House, ??
A hand holding a sandwich of books, spines towards the camera over a wooden desk. The books are small matte paperbacks, colorful and glorious. I love them.
But his instinct toward humanism, admirable as it is, can lead to oversimplified generalizations about the technology itself. “Practically everyone who falls for the A.I. hype is dreaming of getting a human need fulfilled without having to extend moral consideration,” he writes. “That’s as true of the A.I. girlfriend weirdos as it is of the bosses hoping to use A.I. to replace half their workers and terrorize the remainder.” I’m not sure you can call them “A.I. girlfriend weirdos” when, by some estimates, one in five young adults in America have engaged romantically with A.I.
On a faded wood picnic table sits a small stuffed giraffe with a ROUGH DRAFT BAR & BOOKS bandana. In its right hand, sorta, is a full cortado in a blue cup. Before them both sits the pastel pink Olive Edition of Muriel Spark's THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE from Harper Perennial.
A Hell of a Tale By Drew Broussard | June 13, 2026 Addie hurried through the still-foggy morning streets towards the harbor, following the thick brine on the air. She’d overslept, which was rare enough in a house full of noises like hers—but today, of all days! She gritted her teeth and hustled on. Only when she turned the corner onto Dodson Street, with its falling slope and rolling cobble, did she allow herself to slow. She could see the quay now and, thankfully, she wasn’t so late as she’d feared. Only familiar faces, the same dedicated readers. She waved to Mrs. Henshaw, the washerwoman, who waved back and gestured that she was holding a spot for them both. Their camaraderie had grown strong over this print run. “Morning, young Addie,” said Mr. Dischock as she came to his window. He always called her ‘young Addie,’ as though there was an older one to whom she was in constant comparison.
An unsolicited DM from a probably-bot profile asking if I'd like to help an AI company build a team of writers to train their models.
The Two Lines Press Fall 2026 catalogue, announced via sticker sheet. There are four books represented (two of their covers, two illustrations inspired by) plus other stickers with the Two Lines/Calico cats and the Two Lines logo and it's all SO FRICKIN COOL
ep title slide from Star Trek: The Next Generation showing the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) against a starfield with blue text above that reads "The Gang Violates the Prime Directive"
Matt Berry, as Steven Toast, in a white tuxedo jacket, walks into an audition room saying "The name's Bond, James Bond" before doing a little jump, pulling out a pistol, and shooting blanks(?) into the room. The casting directors dive for cover, but it's funny and not frightening/bad.
Daisy Buchanan on a couch, sitting on top of her baby, smoking, saying "what baby"
my to-read shelf, which is actually a to-read bookcase six shelves tall with probably twenty-five books per shelf, give or take. I shan't list them all here, and for that I am sorry.
the season-announcement graphic for The Public Theater's 26-27 season, which looks like it takes inspo from the scratchy-text horror novel cover trend from several years back. It also looks like it was lazily dashed off on an iPad in 2014? It looks bad, is what I'm saying.
Kevin Barry, Jeff VanderMeer, Marie-Helene Bertino, Alix E Harrow, Kelly Link, Hazel Jane Plante, John Langan, Tana French, Samantha Hunt, Colson Whitehead, GennaRose Nethercott, Annie Hartnett, Bret Easton Ellis, Chris Holm, Sara Gran, César Aira, Ann Patchett, Lauren Groff, Jasper Fforde, Julia Armfield, Eliza Clark, John Darnielle
Mariqueen Maandig Reznor and Trent Reznor singing in black leather and latex on a red-washed stage while creepy bodysuited forms move up a large staircase behind them. Aka mom and dad decided to have a fun night out at the club.
The cover of Adam Wilson's FAIL SONS: A NOVEL that features the title in big bubble letters over a broken-down U-haul scene with the flat, vaguely graphic-novel-ish (or maybe Tumblr-comic-ish) style that made THE ROAD TO TENDER HEARTS so instantly iconic on a bookshelf.
a prompt and answer from yourAIslopboresme I asked "I'm looking for a book recommendation, something short and weird and cool and strange, but fair warning I read a lot because I run a bookstore and also talk about books professionally" and the "AI" answered: Read KIMMY by Alyson Greaves (and then below: when the LLM so ahh you lowk take over its job https://youraislopbores.me)
a photo of a medium-sized Irish terrier in increasingly-desperate need of grooming sitting on the back of a couch behind my head, having not only put one arm over my shoulder, but leaning to get up in my face.
the graphic for The Public Theater's (VERY HAMILTON-CODED) "The People's Filibuster" which reads.... NEW YORK CITY A PROTEST FOR HUMANITY THE PEOPLE'S FILIBUSTER holding the floor for justice THE PUBLIC • Jan 31 • 11AM-7pm The Public Theater 425 Lafayette Street
on a wooden table sits a copy of Aoife Josie Clements' PERSONA in paperback. on top of that paperback is a CHARIOT branded lanyard with a "default persona" ID bage clipped to it. Next to the book/badge situation is a CHARIOT branded uhhhhh stress ball I guess but it's shaped like a coffin? There's also a credit-card-sized CHARIOT card on the table as well, split red and white. It holds secrets I have not dug into yet.
Trump then claims that the US has got “nothing out of Nato”, apart from protecting Europe from Russia. [This is, frankly, offensive. Nato’s collective defence pledge, Article 5, has only been activated once, after 9/11].
a screenshot from The Journeyman Project
Newsom Vows to Stop Proposed Billionaire Tax in California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he was working behind the scenes to block a proposed tax on billionaires’ wealth and was committed to defeating the measure if it reached the ballot.
dictator who held onto power after losing his 2024 reelection bid in a landslide, Trump has blithely dismissed Maduro’s main political opponent, Nobel Peace Prize winner Carmen María Machado, as “a very nice woman” who lacks “support or respect within the country.” Instead, Trump and Rubio have propped up Maduro’s vice-president
2025 in review BOOKS READ: 140 * - 13 ++ - 46 + - 36 ✓ - 28 ~ - 17 ☹️ - 1 2025 Releases: 71 Olde Releases: 62 2026 Releases: 7
The 2025 Fiction Bestsellers from Rough Draft Bar & Books ("displayed" in four rows of five, backdropped by one of the brick arches inside the store) 1-5: LITTLE MYSTERIES, Sara Gran; HOW TO BE EATEN, Maria Adelmann; ULTRAMARINE, Mariette Navarro, tr. Eve Hill-Agnus; THE ROAD TO TENDER HEARTS, Annie Hartnett; ALL FOURS, Miranda July 6-10: THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS, Ocean Vuong; ATMOSPHERE, Taylor Jenkins Reid; THE ONCE AND FUTURE WITCHES, Alix E. Harrow; PEW, Catherine Lacey; THE GOD OF THE WOODS, Liz Moore 11-15: I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN, Jacquline Harpman, tr. Ros Schwartz; MR SALARY, Sally Rooney; DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: PARTYPOOPER, Jeff Kinney; JAMES, Percival Everett; UNIVERSAL HARVESTER, John Darnielle 16-20: MARTYR!, Kaveh Akbar; A DIFFERENT KIND OF TENSION, Jonathan Lethem; HEART THE LOVER, Lily King; NORTH SUN, Ethan Rutherford; EVERYONE IS LYING TO YOU, Jo Piazza
An iMessage text exchange that begins with the cover of Pope Leo XIV's forthcoming book (it's a dark brown cover, thin gold border, POPE LEO XIV in white text then, under that, PEACE BE WITH YOU! in gold text, with smaller white text beneath reading "MY WORDS TO THE CHURCH AND TO THE WORLD" and then there's the man, the myth, the American pope raising his hands and looking fly. Then there are the following texts: (blue)—just impossible to not read this with the thickest accent (blue)—ayyyy i'm da pope (gray)—He's raisin da roof (blue)—hahahaha (blue)—god bless us, every one (blue)—except the cubs (blue)—*spits*
It’s almost about what it doesn’t say. A lot of them are not a book for women, but they are a book about a woman rediscovering life after divorce. No thank you. Or there’s a whole genre of women solving mysteries where I was able to say, “No thank you.” But a lot of the books I’ve recommended are by female authors, and I would not say that my list is just books for guys. But they don’t hit that Lifetime Movie of the Week vibe. One of my favorites of last year was The Safekeep about a lesbian romance. It’s one of the best books of the year. I wouldn’t say that’s a book for guys, but I wouldn’t say it’s a book for women either in the way that the women’s marketplace is a lot of romantic fantasy and romantic mystery — more of those buzzwords that make me stay away from a book.
a screenshot of just the homepage center text of an article in The Atlantic, which reads... The Neocons Were Right Not about Iraq. But the moral tenor of their political writings could be an antidote to Trumpism. David Brooks
In a wide-ranging interview with the BBC's Big Boss Interview podcast, Daunt said while Waterstones uses AI for logistics they currently try to keep AI-generated content out of the shops. "As a bookseller, we sell what publishers publish, but I can say that instinctively that is something that we would recoil [from]," he said.
The Rockwell painting, you know the one, from the Four Freedoms, with the blue-collar guy standing up in his dusty work jacket with suited guys looking up at him as he proudly starts to speak his mind
A sign paperclipped to a Rough Draft tote bag (washable-brown-paper, looks kinda like leather but isn't, with festive tissue paper sticking out) The sign says HOLIDAY BOOK BAGS A personally curated bag of books from Drew and the books team! Perfect for the reader(s) in your life this holiday season! 3 hardcover books - $120 3 paperback books - $75 kids bag (3-5 books) - $75 ask the books desk for more details! in-person curation takes ~30mins and is subject to availability orders can be placed online with survey for in-store pick-up ONLY (but as I said, if you want something and you aren't local, reach out and we'll see what we can do)
a dark-mauve book on a pink background. at the top of the book in thin sans serif font, it reads FIXER CHAO HAN ONG over a pink line-drawing of a key hole. It's the first book out from this Doubleday "outsider editions" imprint, out 7.14.26
a screenshot of the bookmatch quiz with the question, in an brown-orange-ish box: Crazy out there. And the three choices below, in blue ovals: "Boy, I'll say." "whooo-eeee." "Eh, it'll blow over." And I chose "Boy, I'll say" because that's genuinely a conversation I have like once a day.
under the book desk at Rough Draft, at this exact moment, is a box — the box shown in a photograph here, a box filled with signed copies of Alix E. Harrow's THE EVERLASTING, which is a shiny black hardcover with a sorta stained glass Venn diagram that has a bastard sword straight down through it through which you can see a face. This book rocks.
the IG ad from Penguin Random House for the "hardcover deluxe" edition of Andy Weir's THE MARTIAN, with text reading: FEATURING: * Sprayed Edges * New Cover Art on a Deluxe Jacket * Full-color Illustrated Endpapers * A Custom-Stamped Case and below that, the book itself, looking admittedly beautiful but utterly and in every way unnecessary
You need to stop putting your work into these platforms, immediately. [HIGHLIGHTED]I could get up on a high horse and give you a million reasons why you should not ever, under any circumstances be doing this when it comes to the greater collective (theft of others work and effort and time, the fact that it depletes our natural resources). But I only need tell you that you are ruining your chance at creative happiness. It’s ruining your brain. I know this because it’s making you bleed joy.[END HIGHLIGHTING] Your letter troubled me, friend. I worry that you have decided to just let go of all thought and let a computer think for you. That’s not what writing and passion and creativity is about. It’s not art. You do not need generative AI to give you story ideas. You do not need a robot to tell you whether your work is good. Only you can do that. Stop roadblocking your own writing life.
Perhaps the funniest moment in all of Trek, from STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME, when Scotty is told to use the computer and he starts talking to it, is instructed to use the mouse, and then he speaks into the mouse like it's a com unit. The guy helping them looks confused, while Bones looks patronizingly on at the old computer.
As interesting as the book sounds, the fact that it has an obviously AI-generated cover means I not only have to pass, but feel compelled to write and tell you that that's why. It's an insult to the author, and to all the other authors, illustrators, and artists on the HC list, and I wish I could say I was shocked that it got past the initial design meeting let alone every successive conversation somebody had to have about it. I hope HC makes a different decision in the future, although I can't say I'm holding out hope.
october 1 2025. my front yard, where the trees are thinning and turning and also not!
it's that dril tweet, you know the one: "and another thing: im not mad. please dont put in the newspaper that i got mad."
Rough Draft There’s something about Rough Draft that calms your soul. Maybe it’s the surroundings, both inside and out: housed in an old stone building that pre-dates the Revolutionary War, the interiors feature wood-beamed ceilings and exposed bricks. Or maybe just because it’s a fantastic indie bookstore in an age where fantastic indie bookstores feel few and far between. Order a latte—or even a cider—from their café and peruse the latest titles on its historic shelves.
from today's Shelf Awareness, an excerpt of the remarks that Jon Meacham gave at the NEIBA Fall Conference yesterday: "Booksellers "didn't sign up" to fight for democracy "in wartime, but it's wartime," he went on. "You are soldiers in a cause of enlightenment, democracy, dissent, and in the classical sense, liberalism.""
I'd love to come do an author event at your store this October, if I may. I'll be in the Kingston area the week of October 15-22, when I see there is indeed space on your calendar. I'd be able to do any of your currently open dates from the 16-20th (inclusive). ("space on your calendar" is hyper-linked to... my store's events calendar.)
An Instagram caption on a post from @postclimate: A single Q&A session with a large language model can consume more than a half-liter of fresh water to cool servers. Asking ChatGPT one question reportedly consumes 10 times as much electricity as a conventional Google search. And generating an image is equivalent to charging a smartphone. But if you want to lower your emissions, you’d be better off changing your commute or eating less meat than stopping your AI use.
Hi John — Thanks very much for reaching out. I'm assuming you've used AI to generate the art here, just based on a quick look through the attached PDF — we will not stock AI-generated works of any kind, as currently available AI tools are not only environmentally disastrous but also trained largely off the backs of stolen creative labor. I can't imagine we'll be the only store to respond in this manner, but even if we are, we'll be holding firm to this line. Better luck with your next, hopefully all-human, book.
one of the best tweets that ever tweeted, from Rachael Stott (@RachaelAtWork) Star Trek TNG episodes are called like 'Explosion' and the episode is about a big explosion. TOS episodes are called 'What yonder soul doth go hence... a brother??" and are about an omnipotent space frog who makes everyone take their clothes off
Broadway Isn't Overpriced, It's Undervalued: New Study Finds Gen Z & Millennials Will Spend More Than Triple When They See What's Behind the Curtain
a hot-pink show poster with nine red suns-with-a-face-on-them in the middle. On the top: "EVELYN and friends" and on the sides, "join us for a 1st birthday party for SOMEDAY WE WILL EAT A FEAST OF LIGHT" (that was the name of the record) and at the bottom, "with TJ Douglas" Then, beneath all that, the important info: August 3, 7pm, Unicorn Bar (in Kingston NY) — tix are $15 in advance, $20 at the door! This show is gonna be tight!!
from the latest absolute bullshit printed in the NYT opinion section, another "we talked to a bunch of democrats about how to fix the party and win again" piece written by Jonathan Rauch and Peter Wehner that features this gem of a section suggesting that: "Democrats should also be welcoming to people of faith and willing to accommodate their reasonable needs, even if that sometimes means compromising on things like L.G.B.T. rights." Gods, I hate these fucking people and their logical fallacies and their unnecessary cruelties and the fact that they get to spout their bullshit wherever and for however long they'd like when the simplest answer! is right in front of everyone! and that's to just be good to one another!! You win elections by showing that you care for people and you aren't a crazy goddamn sorta-fascist who is willing to throw any and all groups under the bus simply to gain power—or at least that's not how anybody who *isn't* a fascist *should* function. But nooooo, Rahm Emanuel is gonna try to run for president. Fuck this noise.
A copy of César Aira's ARTFORUM, open to page 55 on a brown faux-wood table. The photographers index finger is just visible at the bottom of the book and a stack of pink post-its in the top right corner of the frame. The page reads: "Conjectures After my subscription was sorted out, my problems weren't over: new ones were created. Because such things are never fully sorted. The first two weeks of each month was the approximate span of time when one could reasonably expect the magazine to arrive. But it was more reasonable to wait a few days more. The truly reasonable thing would have been not to wait at all, but this was completely beyond my capabilities. I waited with fury, day after day, and within each day, hour after hour. I will not dwell on the vast number of suspenseful anecdotes, though they are all seared into my memory. Nor on the infinite conjectures I indulged in. I will tell only two." There's a bit more after that but it isn't relevant to the post, so you can pick up a copy at your nearest indie bookstore, available in English from New Directions.
the cover of Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen, which shows a blond young man in a tunic carrying a small gold dragon and raising a lantern in his other hand, while a red bird-like dragon is behind him.
A paperback ARC of Oliver Darkshire’s ISABELLA NAGG AND THE POT OF BASIL, propped up on my knee and backdropped by a window out on blue sky
the error message I get every time I try to read a piece from the NYT, which reads "You have been blocked from The New York Times because we suspect that you're a robot"
tumblr post from classically-lit-memes4u: RIP to everyone killed by the gods for their hubris but im different. and better. maybe even better than the gods 105,116 notes airplane speech bubble reblog trash pencil
The first issue of 13Tracks Magazine sits square on a wooden table. The magazine is densely designed, with 13tracks on top in an italic font, with 13 black bars staggered below, each with a musician/band’s name in bold followed by the names of two respondents. At the bottom, MUSIC - ART - WRITING. The backdrop is a glitchy orange/blue/red illustration.
I found a CAA agent sitting in a mostly empty row of vintage wooden theater seats. At CAA, she said, the subject of AI comes up every day. Back in 2023, the agency had launched a project, called the CAA Vault, to capture the likeness of all its clients so it could own and control the rights to their images. “Everyone’s using it,” the agent said. “They just don’t talk about it.”