Choosing Yourself When It's Easier to Stay Guarded, with Natalie Baszile Author of Queen Sugar

Why do Black women still pause before showing their truest selves, even in friendships that have lasted a decade? Natalie Baszile, author of Queen Sugar and the new novel Friends and Family, joins Charlie to talk about walking away from a life that was chosen for her, the night a neighbor called the police on her daughter's friends and five squad cars arrived with guns drawn for the only other Black teenager in the house, and how that night became a novel about two women whose twelve-year friendship can't survive what they each refuse to see.

Friends and Family is available October 6, 2026. Get your copy here: Friends and Family: A Novel: Baszile, Natalie: 9780593492161: : Books TOOLS FROM THIS EPISODE The Chosen Circle: A Guide to Building the Network That Holds You Up walks you through the five types of friends every self-authored woman needs, with steps to find and keep each one, so you know exactly who you can call first the way Babs calls Mecca and Logan. $37, and free for members of our private community.

Start Knowing Yourself Again is for the woman who, like Natalie in her family's business, has been living the life that was expected of her and is ready to figure out what she actually wants. The Single Woman Safeguard helps you build the friendship, community, and family infrastructure that holds you up when a relationship you counted on can't.

Pre-order Decentering Men: The Definitive Guide to Choosing Yourself (Abrams Press, March 16, 2027). CHAPTERS 0:00 Welcome Natalie Baszile 0:24 What choosing yourself means to Natalie 3:09 The real police call that inspired Friends and Family 6:36 Why the Bay Area was the right setting 8:25 Writing through George Floyd, empathy fatigue, and backlash 11:56 Collapsing the timeline into a pressure cooker 13:54 Babs, Nora, and the longing to be unburdened by race 17:14 Testing a twelve-year friendship 18:52 Why Babs goes to her sister and best friend first 19:33 Queen Sugar and what she asked Oprah and Ava to protect 21:06 The conversations Black women have with themselves 23:00 Novels, documentaries, and nonfiction, including HARVEST 26:25 Balancing three projects at once 28:15 What Natalie hopes readers carry from the book 32:19 Where to get Friends and Family Charlie's Toolbox is the institution for women choosing themselves.

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