Rich Text

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Rich Text is a reader-supported project — no ads or sponsors!

In Christine Pride and Jo Piazza’s new novel, We Are Not Like Them (out tomorrow at your finest book purveyors), lifelong friends Riley and Jen find their bond being tested in the most profound way possible. Riley, a Black TV news reporter recently returned to her hometown of Philadelphia, is assigned to cover a shocking police shooting of an unarmed teenage boy, Justin. Her childhood bestie Jen, a white woman who is late in her longed-for pregnancy, is also caught up in the case — because her husband, Kevin, was one of the two cops who shot the boy.

As Riley is drawn into covering the case, wrecked emotionally by yet another episode of anti-Black police brutality and developing a personal relationship with Justin’s grieving mother and uncle, she also must contend with Jen’s resentment that her best friend isn’t supportive of her husband, as he faces an investigation and public wrath. Both Riley and Jen ultimately have to face the reality of how race plays a role in both their lives, and in their friendship, after years of avoiding tough conversations about racism.

Pride and Piazza drew on their own perspectives as a Black woman and a white woman, as well as their own friendship, to tell Riley and Jen’s story in We Are Not Like Them. In our conversation, the four of us discussed the agony and ecstasy of creative partnership, the importance of Google Docs, how to build three-dimensional characters, storytelling for a cause, and all the tripwires that make interracial conversations about race so difficult (especially if you’re talking to your white friends!).

Give us feedback or suggest a topic for the pod • Subscribe • Request a free subscription

I may not have been an OG fan of “The Real Housewives of New York City,” but I was a dedicated one. I watched Countess Luann incessantly discuss her cabaret show, I knew all about the fish room and the lower level, and I couldn’t wait to watch the boat ride from hell.

And yet, in 2021, deep in pandemic-land, I found myself dre...

Editor’s Note: The audio quality on this episode is worse than normal because we had to use our backup Zoom recording. Apologies for this! Emma is running an operation of one while Claire is on leave.

Is “Love Is Blind” season 4 the most functional cast in LIB history? After watching the three-part “After The Altar” special w...

My main reaction to the first four episodes of “Love Is Blind” season 5? OY.

There are certain conventions of “Love Is Blind,” as there are with every dating show, that we’ve grown to understand and, in a sense, feel comforted by. There will be a Golden Couple who emerges as a sure thing from episode one. There will be at le...

Season 6 of Netflix’s “Love Is Blind” dropped its first six episodes on Valentine’s Day, and (obviously) we binged them all. The verdict? So far, so good.

After an absolutely disastrous season 5, which left multiple lawsuits in its wake, and two couples fully erased from the season, we were wary heading into season 6. But six...