Issa Rae’s office in South Los Angeles overflows with trinkets from her many successes: a Peabody award; pillows from her HBO show Insecure, which ran for five seasons; boxes of President Barbie dolls, her character from last year’s biggest blockbuster. But at the moment, the item Rae is most excited about is her new Moleskine notebook. She buys one every year and fills it with personal reflections, creative ideas, and tasks to complete for her many businesses. “I love Mondays, and the first of the year is like a super Monday for me,” she says. “To be able to open a new journal was very exciting in the nerdiest way possible.”
Rae, 39, is especially determined to turn the page because last year was “not fun at all,” she admits. In public, she was crushing it: she stole scenes in two of the and and released the second season of her critically acclaimed Max show
