Is there a place that changed your life? Think of someplace, any location at all, that has a lot of meaning for you. Maybe it was part of your childhood, and it brings you comfort whenever you think about it. Maybe you haven’t been there yet, and thinking about going …
How do you handle loss? I’ve read Kelly Barnhill’s 2016 Newbery Medal-winning book The Girl Who Drank the Moon twice now, once for pleasure and once for this review. The first time I read it, I was fixated on the storyline of the Day of Sacrifice, and the people being …
How do you build a life for yourself from scratch? Full disclosure: Studio Ghibli’s Kiki’s Delivery Service is one of my favorite comfort movies. It’s the perfect film to have playing when I’m feeling down or when I want to work on a crafting project. So when I found out …
What do you do when your life doesn’t follow the plan you had in mind? A common theme in queer media is coming to terms with a piece of your identity that doesn’t fit the life manual you were given. And that looks different for everyone, even those who aren’t …
How do you make peace with the past so you can enjoy the present? Okay, here’s an embarrassing admission: I didn’t read the premise of A Very Merry Bromance before buying it. I saw the title, assumed it was about a bromance, and got excited. We get a lot of …
How do you do things your own way when the rest of the world expects you to conform? Moniquill Blackgoose has been writing science fiction and fantasy since the age of twelve. According to Fantasy Cafe, she loved reading stories from the two genres growing up, but any representation of …
Can you trust information at face value when it’s being given to you? While working on a separate book, author Sulari Gentill consulted with a beta reader for fact-checking and other notes on how to improve her work. Among the research he sent her was a video of a crime …
What are the benefits of creating and consuming art? Funny story: A few days before writing this review, I stumbled on J.R.R. Talkin’s video essay What Was The Office All About? I thought Michael Schur’s sitcom The Office was fine, if too cringe for me, but out of curiosity I …
“What was it like for authors growing up?” This is the question author Kevin Henkes asked. He then wrote a book in response to that question, the story of young Martha Boyle who wants to be a writer. Olive’s Ocean would later be published in 2003, and go on to …
How do you modernize a story from a hundred years ago? In 1908, Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery published Anne of Green Gables. The novel would later become a beloved classic, garnering sequels, film and TV adaptations, and tourist attractions. Eventually, HarperCollins editor Tessa Woodward put a call out on …
