Recent(ish) Links Recap 15th March - 10th April

Haven't done this for a while, and this is nowhere near comprehensive, but I wanted to share some amazing posts!

Kicking off with one of mine for a change as I'm quite proud of it, especially as it was written fairly quickly - I posted about what I do for self-care as part of the #ClaimYourDays hashtag.

This Storify from Justina Ireland on white people writing POC, and the importance of #ownvoices, is a must-read.

In addition, Justina has put together an amazing database of people willing to work as sensitivity readers, reading manuscripts to help authors writing outside their own experiences by picking up on problematic language, internalized bias. It's a stunning resource which can be found here. (On that topic, there's a brilliant post from Kayla Whaley on being a 'sensitivity reader' here.)

Awesome Malorie Blackman interview with The Bookseller here. I've just read Chasing The Stars and really enjoyed it!

And another great interview with an incredible author, Refinery29 talking to Louise O'Neill ahead of the US release of Asking For It.

Fantastic post from Grace on her tattoos and a brilliant recap of the Be True To Yourself event at Waterstones Piccadilly. And her open letter to 'the fatality' is deeply moving.

As ever, a ton of excellent posts by Caitlin! I especially loved her ones on managing insomnia, on Marvel vs DC on the small screen, and her love letter to technology. (Although she missed the MAIN great thing about technology which is that it lets all of her friends down here keep in touch with her!)

And completing my trio of my favourite blogs, along with Cait and Grace, some outstanding posts on Safe Space as always. I thought Jess's post on her mental health journey, focusing on medication, was superb and can't wait to read part 2 later this month on therapy. Another brilliant post was Jo's moving tribute to her nan. 

Lili's travel diary continues to be superb - I love this post, on her ten favourite British snacks, in particular! (Although I NEED to introduce her to Galaxy Caramel ASAP.)

If you're looking for bookish Tumblrs to follow, Stacey posted some great recs!

And for book recommendations, Daphne is always fantastic - I loved her post with 10 reasons to read the Winner's series by Marie Rutkoski!

Love this Maximum Pop quiz - can you match the tagline to the YA novel? (I got 10/12)

And some brilliant blog tours going on at the moment - a few favourite posts.On Minerva Reads, Emma Yarlett talks us through how to draw Nibbles The Book Monster! On Snuggling on the Sofa, Susin Nielsen talks about her high school experiences. And on this blog, I took part in the Create Your Own Spy Mission blog tour brilliantly organised by Faye Rogers!

Lots of great #6degrees posts here, from Keris Stainton, Debbie, Sofi Croft and me.

I'm hugely excited for the sold-out YA Salon on Tuesday featuring Ann M Martin and super-fans Holly Bourne and Laura Dockrill! This piece about a woman taking fashion inspiration from the Babysitters' Club is awesome.

I headed to Oxford, and Storified the two events I saw at the literary festival there - Nicolette Jones interviewing Katherine Rundell and Anna James chairing a fabulous Stars of YA panel!


Speaking of great Storifies, love this one from Stacey of #ChatClassics!

The first authors have been announced for YALC! David Levithan, Nina LaCour, VE Schwab and Maggie Stiefvater are four US authors I'm especially thrilled about seeing, and it's fantastic to see so many brilliant UK and Irish authors appearing (many of them returning to YALC, but also I'm excited for great debut author Alwyn Hamilton and the legendary Melvin Burgess!)

Reminder that you can buy tickets HERE!