Author: Jamie Canaves

Avengers Cast Unites For Fundraiser

The Russo Brothers are hosting a virtual grassroots fundraiser on October 20th, Voters Assemble, which will have Sen. Kamala Harris joined by Avengers’ actors Chris Evans, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Zoe Saldana, Mark Ruffalo, and Scarlett Johansson. The fundraiser will support Joe Biden’s presidential campaign with the goal to “unite for democracy.” You can expect fun as there will be a Q&A and a trivia game.

Lindy West & Samantha Irby In Virtual Chat

This is bound to be hilarious, informative, and perfectly snarky: Women & Children First’s Crowdcast Channel is hosting a chat on October 20th with authors Lindy West and Samantha Irby. A purchased ticket will also get you a copy of West’s essay collection Shit, Actually. And, for anyone who finds themselves unable to afford a ticket, there is an offer for “a limited number of scholarship tickets to those who are experiencing financial hardship.”

Voting For Not The Booker Now Open

If you want to help pick the winner of the Not The Booker award, you can vote between the six finalists now. If you have a favorite amongst Hashim & Family by Shahnaz Ahsan, Underdogs: Tooth and Nail by Chris Bonnello, The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Daré, Akin by Emma Donoghue, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, or Hello Friend We Missed You by Richard Owain Roberts, just go on over and leave a comment with your choice on The Guardian’s post. Haven’t read them yet? How confident are you in reading six books by Sunday?

Lesbian Manga and Yuri Manga: What’s the Difference and Where Should You Start?

What’s the difference between lesbian manga and yuri? Here are 14 F/F manga titles and series a new reader should start with.

Stacey Abrams Wrote A Political Thriller

You may already know that lawyer, voting rights activist, and politician Stacey Abrams is an author, having published a handful of romantic suspense novels under the pen name Selena Montgomery as well as three nonfiction titles. Now we can look forward to a political thriller from Abrams in 2021: While Justice Sleeps.

Interior Chinatown To Be Adapted Into TV Series

Charles Yu’s National Book Award finalist novel Interior Chinatown will be adapted into a Hulu series. Being that Yu had already written television episodes for the shows Legion and Westworld, his novel seemed destined for the adaptation treatment.

Gabrielle Union Adapting The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls Into Series

Gabrielle Union keeps buying up all the adaptation rights under her I’ll Have Another Productions, most recently The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray. Erika L. Johnson (Queen Sugar, The Good Lord Bird) will write the series adaptation. Speaking of their work together on Being Mary Jane, Union said about Johnson: “One of my goals with starting my own production company was to be able to create work for people I know and respect.”

The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special Is Coming To Disney+

On November 17th, The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special will stream on Disney+, as a successor maybe (?) of the one-time-only Star Wars Holiday Special that aired on CBS in 1978. You can look forward to Kelly Marie Tran voicing Rose Tico, Anthony Daniels voicing C-3PO, and Billy Dee Williams voicing Lando Calrissian.

Author Bill Bryson Discusses Retiring From Writing

Nonfiction author of travel, science, and language Bill Bryson recently discussed in an interview that his experiment with retirement this year was going really well. For fans of the author, you may have to stick to only rereading his work from now on, and for those who have never read his work, enjoy: A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail; A Short History of Nearly Everything; In a Sunburned Country.

Disability Futures Fellows Awards $50,000 Grants To 20 Artists

A new initiative funded by the Andrew W. Mellon and Ford Foundations, Disability Futures Fellows, has awarded 20 artists $50,000 grants: “Born out of a year-long effort with disabled artists across the United States, Disability Futures aims to shed light on the dearth of visibility of disabled creatives and position these creatives as leaders for accessibility, language, and care.” Included among the inaugural class: DeafBlind poet and essayist John Lee Clark; activist and editor of Disability Visibility Alice Wong; poet, essayist and activist Eli Clare; Two Spirit, Disabled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of OK journalist Jen Deerinwater; poet, author, and social activist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha.

I’ve Got to Talk to Someone About This! A History of Book Clubs

A deep dive into the history of book clubs, including Black and Queer book club spaces.

Thriller Authors Unite For Trick-Or-Treat For Democracy

Ten award winning thriller authors–including Steph Cha, David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Andrea Bartz–have joined together with the nonprofit organization Field Team 6 for Trick or Treat for Democracy. You can join the text banking party Wednesday, October 28th, at 5 PM PT/6-8 PM ET (they’ll train you and hold tech newbies hands) to help register democrats to “help DEMS Win Big November 3!”

Ava DuVernay Will Direct Caste

Ava DuVernay, who directed A Wrinkle In Time and When They See Us, will now be in the director chair to adapt Caste by Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson. DuVernay will also be writing and producing the feature film for Netflix, which takes a look at how the US is still affected by an unspoken caste system that shaped the country.

Dexter Returning In New Episodes To Showtime

Return of the serial killer: Showtime’s Dexter, based on Jeff Lindsay’s series, may have ended in 2013, but do shows really end anymore? It’s getting a revival, limited series run on Showtime with Michael C. Hall returning as lead. The production and return dates are, of course, tentative because of the pandemic, but they’re aiming for a fall 2021 return.

11 Books on the Bias Against Women in Healthcare and Medicine

These authors cover intersectional issues, present solutions, and share their experiences of sexism in healthcare, research, and the ER in books like Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology by Deirdre Cooper Owens.

Arizona State University’s Rare Books Digitized & Available For Public

Libraries digitizing materials for public accessibility continues to be an amazing thing. Arizona State University’s Civic Classics Collection–which contains The Federalist Papers and rare books and manuscripts related to first peoples, civil rights history and activism, and the founding of America–are available online through a virtual guide.

Poet & Star of Insecure To Adapt Pride

Poet Aziza Barnes and Insecure star Nastasha Rothwell will be adapting Ibi Zoboi’s Pride (a reimagining of Jane Austen’s novel) into an HBO series. Both Barnes and Rothwell adapted the story and will executive produce while Barnes will write the script.

Batman And Wonder Woman Will Get New Serial Box Stories

Serial Box, a publisher of audio and reading material that is released in serialized installments, will continue its deal with Warner Bros.’ DC Entertainment to bring two more superheroes to the format. Batman: The Blind Cut and Wonder Woman: Heartless will be brand new stories that see Diana Prince dealing with high profile murders in a divided nation, and Batman will deal with being part of the 1%, which L O L.

What Are The Most Cited Poems?

Want to know where some of those famous poetic quotes came from? Take a peek at the most cited poems at weddings, funerals, and in pop culture.

Queer Celebrity Trailblazers Celebrated In New Book

Celebrity fashion stylist Andrew Gelwicks wrote The Queer Advantage: Conversations with LGBTQ+ Leaders on the Power of Identity to celebrate LGBTQ athletes, artists, musicians, and actors after realizing “…my queerness was neither weakness nor an obstacle, but actually an advantage.” A few of the celebrities interviewed in the book include George Takei, Billie Jean King, and Adam Rippon.

PRH Launches Book The Vote To Increase Voter Turnout And Fight Disinformation

Penguin Random House, PEN America, Out of Print (OOP), and When We All Vote have joined forces to launch Book the Vote. The nonpartisan initiative has created a website, bookthevote.com, with resources to understand current topics, voter registration information, and more with the goal of protecting voter’s rights and free speech.

Libro.fm Launches #ShopLocalBookstores

Libro.fm has launched #ShopLocalBookstores with a website that will help book lovers find ways to support local bookstores. The site offers tips and links to help you buy books (including audiobooks) from local bookstores and also how to share the campaign, use the hashtag, donate, and lists Black-owned bookstores and Latinx-owned bookstores.

Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month With These 8 Books

This Hispanic Heritage month, pick up these books by Hispanic authors writing about feminism, immigration, heroism, and more, including titles like A Spy in the Struggle by Aya de León.

Hear Me Out Launched At Pennsylvania Libraries

The Free Library of Philadelphia, in collaboration with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and partnered with other libraries, has a new initiative: Hear Me Out. The new program’s goal is for people in Pennsylvania from different backgrounds to speak to one another through moderated online sessions. The first discussed topic, on October 27th, will be “Does my vote count?”, focusing on personal experiences.

The New Magic School Bus Trailer

Netflix is dropping a new 45-minute special for The Magic School Bus Rides Again–based on the popular children’s books by Joanna Cole–The Frizz Connection. The special will have the school bus split in three, sending the class to different places around the globe with different versions of Ms. Frizzle aboard! And you can watch the trailer here while we wait for it to stream on Netflix beginning October 20th.

I Can Read! Comics From HarperCollins

HarperCollins’ I Can Read! line is expanding with the launching in 2021 of I Can Read! Comics. The graphic novels will have three reading levels for kids 4-8 and each will include a page that teaches kids how to read a comic. Four titles will start the line next summer releasing in hardcover and paperback.

10 Native North American Women Writers to Read This Fall

It’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day! Explore poetry, nonfiction, plays, and more by these excellent Native North American Women writers.

Fundraiser For Books By Student Led Organization

A student led organization at an Arizona university, Once Upon a Time (OUAT), has created a fundraiser to help get books to low-income families who on average own between 0 to 4 children’s books. There’s a GoFundMe page for donations and a long list of what your dollars can do: “$3 donation = One good, used book, handpicked by a bookseller; $10 donation = Two paperback books for young readers, perhaps the first book of their own; $25 donation = One hardcover and one paperback book, or five paperbacks to own and share…”

Doctor Strange Will Be In Spider-Man 3

Spider-Man 3 looks to be bringing in a new mentor for Spidey (Tom Holland) in the form of Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange. How will Doctor Strange play into the already announced Jamie Foxx as Electro?

A Look At Stanley Crouch’s Life And Work

At 74, author, jazz critic, columnist, and novelist Stanley Crouch passed away leaving behind an impressive life and body of work, including iconoclastic critics. You can learn about his novel Don’t the Moon Look Lonesome?, life, and work in this great article by Publisher’s Weekly.