Things I've Read This Week

Best thing I’ve read all week HAS to be this Jolene-inspired f/f short story by Suleikha Snyder, Jesse's Girl! Huge thanks Olivia Waite for tweeting about it.

Great post from Reading The End on her 13 favourite reads of 2019.

Kali Wallace’s Your Heart Is A Moving Target is a superb piece on the pressures of the publishing industry for writers.

Anyone unsure about the double standards applied to Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton can see a ton of proof in this great Buzzfeed piece.

I may have shared this before, but definitely worth signal-boosting because it’s an INCREDIBLE list – Jan-Jun 2020 LGBTQIAP YA Preview on LGBTQ Reads.

Another great list – Reads Rainbow has 2020 books with non-cis protagonists and/or love interests. And another! Pop Goes The Reader’s 50 Most-Anticipated MG Novels from Jan – June 2020

Going back to LGBTQ Reads, they have an extract from Moontangled by Stephanie Burgis; Stephanie is one of my absolute favourite authors and I love what I’ve read of the Harwood Spellbook series, which this is part of!

Clarisha Kent’s 45 Black Actresses To Watch Who Fail The Paper Bag Test is another excellent list – I’ll definitely be checking out films starring the people here.

Jennifer Prokop wrote about the RWA fiasco for Kirkus, as did Kelly Faircloth for Jezebel while there’s also a SorryWatch post on it. I love this fabulous PitchWars interview with Kate Dylan, whose Mindwalker sounds AWESOME, and her mentor Kat Dunn, my super-talented friend who wrote the upcoming Dangerous Remedy (which is INCREDIBLE.)

Another fabulous interview – Word Wonders talks to Anna-Marie McLemore about their new release, Dark And Deepest Red.

Also on Word Wonders, excellent Mike Chen piece on the importance of found family for children of immigrants.

Buzzfeed’s 28 YA books they’re looking forward to in 2020 has tons of fab titles on, as does Perpetual Page Turner’s list on the same topic, and also Double A Reads’s.

Tropics of Meta’s review of American Dirt is phenomenal.

Alisha Rai, author of The Right Swipe, has a fab piece on dating apps.

Samantha Puc and Jey Barnes have created a pay-what-you-can digital zine with tips for speaking up against fatphobia.

Firefly announced the acquisition of Asking For A Friend, by Kate Mallinder, which sounds fabulous (and is being published in May this year, so not THAT long to wait!)

Over at Library Lady, Anne Thompson has her second weekly round-up of news from the world of children’s books.

Zoë Hu has a really thought-provoking piece on the new Little Women adaptation here.

Finally, Transworld announced the launch of a volunteer award to honour the memory of their former senior publicity manager, and co-founder of the Flip, Sophie Christopher. I know Sophie is massively missed by all of her many friends in publishing.

The Sophie Christopher Volunteer Award will see Penguin Random House partner with volunteering organisation People & Places to sponsor a two-week programme–open to anyone working in publishing and bookselling–in support of the work of the Treak Community Centre, close to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Further details can be found on www.bemoreSophie.com.