Recent Links Recap

(Wow, I made it three weeks in a row and haven't flaked out yet!)

Kicking off with non-bookish links, a brilliant post from my friend Grace on being kind to your brain.

And another wonderful one from Caitlin on being realistic, and how the road to recovery being paved with pain and compromise. Although this one nearly made me cry, and also made me feel terrible for not realising how much pain one of my close friends has been in.

As someone who's apparently slightly too old to be a millennial, but who's completely blown away when I see the amazing things my talented younger friends are doing, I thought this Emma Gannon post on why millennials are working harder than ever, was great!

Also on the subject of hard-working people, fascinating post here on How Kat Cole Went From Hooters Girl to Running a Billion-Dollar Brand.

And an awesome post here by Julianne on getting older and eating salmon!

Onto books, and fantastic awards news, as Alex Gino's wonderful George won the Stonewall 2016 Children's Literature Award and Becky Albertalli's brilliant Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda won the William C Morris Award for best debut! An amazing week for Becky, with Simon Vs also on the YALSA list of best YA, along with Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo which I loved and Daniel Jose Older's Shadowshaper and Laura Ruby's Bone Gap which I can't wait to read.

Also the Amelia Bloomer list - best feminist YA and children's books - looks superb!

I'll probably plug this a lot over the next six weeks - sorry! - but speaking of lists, remember voting's open for Bookish Peeps Book of 2015!

Another great list - Shira Glassman's put together a list of SFF YA in 2016 involving f/f romance. I adored The Abyss Surrounds Us and am very excited for everything else on this list.

There've been so many fabulous Twitter chats in January, with others upcoming - I LOVED the first #ChatClassics, which Stacey from Pretty Books is running as part of the 2016 Classics Challenge, yesterday! For more chats, check out the Bookish Peeps calendar. (Don't miss #SundayYA tonight at 6pm GMT!)  On the subject of the challenge, Hannah had a great TBR post 

I have some recommendations for the challenge myself, and TBR books as well! My LGBT TBR is here and my children's classics recommendations and TBR here. I also got Perdita and Honor Cargill to post about PG Wodehouse here - they have differing views, but it made for a hugely entertaining post! Stacey also came up with an awesome idea for a feature, Shelf Swap (thanks Charlie for coming up with the brilliant name!) and I was really delighted to be the first person to take part!

I love the idea of Swoon Reads, the Pan Macmillan site where authors can submit their work and readers get to read, rate and comment on it. I adored Hanna Nowinski's Meg and Linus last year and was incredibly happy to see it get picked up to be published. I assumed that once it had been selected, it would be removed from the site - but for a limited time, it IS still there! It's on sale April 2017 and you REALLY don't want to have to wait that long to read this super-cute LGBT contemporary, so check it out now!

Having become friendly with quite a few recent/upcoming debut authors, I'm often asked for advice on social media from them. I always refer them to the outstanding Dahlia Adler, who's an expert on that and numerous other aspects of being an up-and-coming writer. She's updated her site guide to take you through the path to, and beyond, publication step by step - read EVERYTHING linked to here!

Another industry figure who's superb at social media is Juliet Mushens, agent to so many fabulous clients. Her Twitter tips here are a must-read. (Also you can vote for that post in the Book Machine blogging awards!)

Also in the great advice section, Chuck Wendig on self-care for writers, and in advice for bloggers, fab blogging commandments from Carly Bennett!

Going back to Dahlia, loved this cover for her upcoming Right of First Refusal, designed by super-talented Maggie Hall!

I'm a big fan of Marianne Levy's YA Accidental Superstar, released earlier this week, and loved the trailer and the playlist!

Anna James is new to Booktube but probably familiar to most of my readers (she's Elle's literary editor and used to work for the Bookseller, and is frequently to be found at top bookish events - like this one on feminism, with CJ Daugherty, Holly Bourne and Holly Smale, which she's chairing - see you there?) She filmed a really wonderful Top Five Books To Look Out For in January. The Portable Veblen, by Elizabeth McKenzie, sounds especially great! I was intrigued when Anna said of it "It's the sort of book that I think Katherine [Rundell] would write if she was writing adult fiction"

At Queer YA, Caro's put together a brilliant calendar of LGBTQIA+ cultural events in the UK!

Also, I loved this Buzzfeed list of upcoming novels with LGBT characters to look forward to! In particular it's great to see Riley Redgate's Seven Ways We Lie, and Nina LaCour/David Levithan's You Know Me Well there - I've read and loved the first, and can't wait for the second. Others that look especially interesting are Julia Ember's Unicorn Tracks, Meredith Russo's If I Was Your Girl, and South of Sunshine by Dana Elmendorf.

Al Kitching asked Twitter for advice on books for his two daughters, aged 13 and 15, who are reluctant readers. So many fabulous recommendations flooded in, and he was kind enough to Storify so others could benefit too.

Huge news for the fabulous Tristina Wright, as 27 Hours - better known to her followers as #queerteensinspace - was picked up by Entangled Teen for release in 2017. Lots of excitement over this one! Another big deal announced, as Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain will be writing a kids' book for Hodder, with a collection of recipes and stories with a modern twist! It sounds fabulous. And there's an American deal for a UKYA favourite! Will be thrilled to see Lauren James's wonderful The Next Together make it across the Atlantic, great acquisition Sky Horse!

Phil Earle's fabulous JustGiving to raise money for the flood-damaged Riverside School, which I tweeted about last week, has hit a huge £3630. If you'd like to donate, though, they're definitely hoping to make it to £4000.

Another fundraiser well worth checking out is the one for Bare Lit, the first literary festival focused entirely on writers of colour. Support - including pre-booking tickets - this February event here.

One of my aims for this year's to read more short fiction, so I've decided to support Fireside Fiction via Patreon - hopefully it'll remind me to check out their brilliant website more often! 

I think I've mentioned this event before, but definitely worth doing so again! Anyone in the North West who can get to St Anne's on Sea shouldn't miss Storytellers' Inc's Spinster Sunday - superb line-up of Holly Bourne, Non Pratt, Natasha Farrant, Sara Barnard, Jenny McLachlan and Keris Stainton.

Non is one of my very favourite authors; she's also one of the most knowledgeable people I know when it comes to YA. This piece for the Guardian, explaining why she feels no taboo should be off limits when writing for teens, is fantastic.

The awesome Tom Ellen & Lucy Ivison blog tour continues! They selected dinner guests at Serendipity Reviews, took part in Daphne's awesome Bookish Firsts, and chose their best literary school trips on Pretty Books. Maura Brickell, who's organised the tour, has done a really superb job! More guest posts - over on Teens, we hosted Will Hill and Cat Doyle for 5-4-3-2-1

Maximum Pop posted about my friend Daphne's brilliant subscription box, Illumicrate. Remember there is a MAXIMUM of two weeks left to sign up for this - and that's assuming it doesn't sell out (it did last time!) Sign up here if you want to get the February box!

I am FINALLY getting better at Instagram (in fairness, getting worse would have been significantly more difficult.) However Bookstagram tips are hard to come by so this post by Word Revel is awesome! Can't wait for the rest of the series of tips.

Also I'm aiming for a blog post on music at some point soon, but in case I don't get round to it, want to leave a link for you to check out - Rosie Tee and Bryony Rose's gorgeous folk/electronica Infinite Home EP, which is free to download here and is wonderful.

Also on music - fascinating interview with Ron Chernow, who wrote the Hamilton biography which inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to write his amazing musical, talking about his work consulting with Lin-Manuel on the show.  And I loved this post by Hayley Sprout on Hamilton's brilliance!

And finishing off with films, on this blog, I posted about my top 12 films of 2015 inspired by Caitlin's year in review post last week.

Are there any brilliant posts you've written/read this week that I've missed? Leave me a comment with a link please!