News & Notes – 6/13/2020

June 13, 2020 Lark_Bookwyrm News & Notes 1

News & Notes is a weekly Saturday post featuring book- and publishing-related news, links to interesting articles and opinion pieces, and other cool stuff

Bookish News

[American] Bookstores Go It Alone in Reopening. (Publishers Weekly) Many are being more cautious than their state guidelines require.
‘We’re so nervous’: England’s bookshops prepare to reopen on Monday. (The Guardian)
RWA Announces the Vivian — and Cans the RITAs (Jessica Pryde, Book Riot) Note: The article is both news and commentary.

Worth Reading/Viewing/Checking Out

(not all book-related)

Black authors knew they were being paid less. This hashtag [#PublishingPaidMe] revealed how large the gap really is. And it’s an eye-opener. Yet another area where change is badly needed.
Have Race Issues in Publishing Reached a Tipping Point? (Jim Milliot, John Maher & Ed Nawotka, Publishers Weekly) Let’s hope so.
I just discovered this Diversity Reading Challenge hosted by Curly Carla and lenoreo on their Celebrity Readers blog. The only reason I’m still hesitating is because I’m already doing more challenges than I planned to this year. On the other hand… it would be a great way of keeping track of my rekindled determination to read more diversely.
How You as a Reader Can Help: Read Black Authors (The Bookwyrm’s Hoard)
Independent Publishing in a Post-Covid World (Peter Goodman, Publishers Weekly) He shares some interesting speculations, though I don’t agree with all of them.
Overcoming fears, discovering nature … what I have learned from lockdown (The Guardian) Seven British and Irish authors reflect on the varied lessons of lockdown. Some of the essays are thought-provoking; Sebastian Barry’s depiction of a wood is beautifully written.
Guest Post with Laurie R. King: Keeping Your Series Fresh (Writer Unboxed) The author of two series, a historical/Sherlock Holmes pastiche (Mary Russell) and a modern police procedural (Kate Martinelli), talks about how to keep your series, and your writing mojo, fresh and appealing… and what happens when you stray too far from readers’ expectations.

For Bloggers

Tips For Book Blogging On Free WordPress (Clo @ Cuppa Clo) Not only does Clo offer good tips for bloggers using the free WordPress.com, she links to a number of other useful posts, including some to help you decide if free or self-hosted WordPress is better for you.
Guide: Formatting Posts Using Templates, Classic + Reusable Blocks [on WordPress] is one of those useful links I referred to. (Nine Tale Vixen) The tips in this post apply whether you use free or self-hosted WordPress.
A Tutorial on HTML for Book Bloggers is another really useful post I found through Cuppa Clo’s post.(Jei @ A Novel Idea)
This blog is on self-hosted WordPress, in part so I can use the Ultimate Book Blogger plugin from NozeGraze. But if self-hosting on another platform isn’t in your budget, or you don’t want the hassle of self-hosting, WordPress.com is a good choice.

Movies & Shows

Racism In America. PBS is streaming a number of films and specials on race. You can watch most of them right on the webpage linked here.

Lists

A Teacher Tweeted Her Favorite Children’s Books On Racism And It Went Viral (Brittany Smith, by way of BuzzFeed). A great collection of picture books. I wish they had been around when I was raising my child.
You can order today from these black-owned independent bookstores (LitHub)
Queer science fiction and fantasy books by authors of color, in case you love fantasy and want to support authors of color and Pride month at the same time. (Sarah @ Cool Curry books tumblr) The same blogger also has excellent posts on Adult fantasy books not by straight white men (so basically anyone and everyone else) and Adult science fiction books not by straight white men (although she left out one of my favorites, The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal.) Warning: the blogger uses salty language.
Take to the Sky With These 8 Epic Dragon Books for Young Adults (The Portalist) Not by black authors, for the most part, but as you know, I’m… rather fond of dragons.