The Library Coven

We’re coming at you with a super special bonus episode discussing all things about the first two seasons of Umbrella Academy! If you enjoy this episode, let us know, and let us know about any other bonus episode things you’d like to see in the future!! As always, we’d love to be in discussion with you, magical folx. Post or tweet about the show using #criticallyreading. Let us know what you think of the episode, anything we missed, or anything else you want us to know by dropping a line in the comments or reaching out to us on twitter or Instagram (@thelibrarycoven), or via email ([email protected]). You can also check out the show notes on our website, thelibrarycoven.com. We really appreciate ratings and reviews on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or any other platforms. Help us share the magic by spreading the word about the podcast! Please support our labor by leaving us a one-time tip on Ko-fi or purchasing books from our Bookshop! Even better yet, become a monthly patron via Patreon and you can unlock a bunch of exclusive perks like mini-sodes, bonus episodes, and access to our community of reader-listeners on Discord. The podcast theme song is “Unermerry Academy of Magics” by Augustin C from the album “Fantasy Music”, which you can download on FreeMusicArchive.com. JK, it’s magic is recorded and produced on stolen indigenous land: Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute (Kelly) and Chickasha, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Mascoutin, Miami, Mesquaki, Odawa, Ojibwe, Peankashaw, Peoria, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Wea (Jessie) You can support Indigenous communities by donating to Mitakuye Foundation, Native Women’s Wilderness, or the Navajo Water Project. These suggested places came from @lilnativeboy

Greetings to all you magical beings out there! This fortnight, we’re discussing A Curse so Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer. We immensely enjoyed Kemmerer’s spin on the whole Beauty and the Beast tradition, and we found Harper to be one of the most relatable and badass protagonists! There’s so much about this novel that we found relevant to our pandemic times– especially re: disability, medical debt, . Also, J & K happen to be on different ships this time! Hope you enjoy and learn things and teach us things! Content warning: terminal illness and parental death, rape and sexual assault (mins 20-22). Call to action: This week we’re encouraging y’all to “crip” your timelines on social media. Similar to the term “queer,” which was once a slur, crip is being reclaimed by disabled and chronically ill folx. Give some of the accounts below a follow, learn from them, and support them (including with your $$ if possible). *links below to instagram pages unless otherwise specified* Crutches&Spice (@Imani_Barbarin on twitter) disability.connect invalid__art hot.crip uadisabilityculture accesscenteredmovement disability_visability itswalela decolonizingtherapy mia.mingus blackdisabilitycollective queerfutures_ junipercameryn neuroqueerasian ablezine cwaitwaitwait Sami Schalk blackdisabledcreative emapathywarrior Sky Cubacub Johanna Hedva queernature access_guide_ coffeespoonie (on twitter) Also check out the work of Sins Invalid, a group based in Tongva territory (aka the Bay Area), and the Disability Visibility Podcast. Support local mutual aid efforts and the disabled ppl in your life!! Our education doesn’t stop there, of course. Reach out to share other sources you find along the way! We make a few SJM and ACOTAR comparisons throughout the episode. One that note, we’ve been enjoying the reaction posts by bookstagrammer @_litmedown. So funny!!! love love love. Some CP resources from the CDC and Mayo Clinic K recommends the documentary Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (on Netflix). Watch the Crip Camp trailer. We talk about how time travel is much more complicated when you aren’t cis-white-abled man. Like, what about chronic illness? and being a person of color? Here’s an informative interview about C. diff and Inflammatory Bowel Disease. So yeah, regency era medical treatment definitely wouldn’t have been able to keep up (or keep us alive). We’ll be setting our novels featuring sick characters some other time/place, thx. Time for our periodic reminder: Don’t call the f*cking cops! BLACK LIVES MATTER 12 Things to Do Instead of Calling the Cops [CW racist police violence ] “If you love me do not call the police” Watch this video by Angela C Styles if you want to know more about hair types and textures. Send us your other “Smells Like YA” moments!! K’s hot take is that compulsory heterosexuality is a curse. *insert prove me wrong meme* Transcript to come Spring 2021 As always, we’d love to be in discussion with you, magical folx. Post or tweet about the show using #criticallyreading. Let us know what you think of the episode, anything we missed, or anything else you want us to know by dropping a line in the comments or reaching out to us on twitter or Instagram (@thelibrarycoven), or via email ([email protected]). You can also check out the show notes on our website, thelibrarycoven.com. We really appreciate ratings and reviews on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or any other platforms. Help us share the magic by spreading the word about the podcast! Please support our labor by leaving us a one-time tip on Ko-fi or purchasing books from our Bookshop! Even better yet, become a monthly patron via Patreon and you can unlock a bunch of exclusive perks like mini-sodes, bonus episodes, and access to our community of reader-listeners on Discord. The podcast theme song is “Unermerry Academy of Magics” by Augustin C from the album “Fantasy Music”, which you can download on FreeMusicArchive.com. JK,

Hello, magical folx! This fortnight we’re discussing Crier’s War by Nina Varela! This book is fantasy adjacent, and leans a bit more toward science fiction, but we have lots of world building and robot things to talk about! Call to action: This week we’re educating ourselves on how the various technologies we use impact BIPOC and disabled people. Here are two books that can help with our collective education: Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code by Ruha Benjamin Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Umoja Noble This is just the start of our education. Please let us know any other sources you found helpful! We got started talking about the difference between science fiction, fantasy, and horror. This Masterclass article has a good overview of fantasy and science fiction, and you can see how something like horror could really fit under either. The Uncanny Valley Here’s more information on handfasting J recommends the tv show The Great  K recommends the book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff That Instagram post from badformreview about using food words to describe skin color “No Drums Allowed: Afro Rhythm Mutations in North America” by He Zhao – suggested by K about the use of the term “strange music” in the book “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health” – worth checking out how mental health has been treated in regards to women throughout history K couldn’t find an accessible description of the theory online, so she adapted this from the introduction to my dissertation“Assemblage” as a theory was originally articulated by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in Mille Plateaux (1980), published in English in 1987 with the title A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Assemblage is a rather clumsy translation of the original French term agencement, which “implies specific connections with other concepts. It is, in fact, the arrangements of these connections that gives the concepts their sense. […] Agencement designates the priority of neither the state of affairs nor the statement but of their connection, which implies the production of a sense that exceeds them” (Phillips 108, emphasis in original). Dianne Currier clarifies that assemblages are “functional conglomerations of elements, but, importantly, the component elements are not taken to be unified, stable or self-identical entities or objects, that is, they are not grounded on a prior unity. In each assemblage, the particles, intensities, forces and flows of components meet with and link with the forces and flows of other components: the resultant distribution of these meetings constitutes the assemblage” (“Feminist Technological Futures” 325) The metaphor of a constellation helps illustrate what Currier discusses here. The meaning of constellations comes from their connection, which arise out of stories humans grafted onto the stars during specific historical moments. Constellations are human constructs with empirical effects that produce emotions in the people witnessing them, in much the same way as race is a story, a shifting social construct that produces material consequences. Constellations themselves are made of component assemblages, multiplicities of objects (e.g., celestial bodies) and intensities (e.g., gravity) acting upon objects of any size. Finally, the parts of a constellation are always (and already) in motion—from the largest sense of the universe expanding to the smallest sub-atomic particles, and everything in between. Thinking assemblage theory through astronomy and astrophysics can help us focus on the intensities and linkages that give assemblages their meanings. If you’re not already, follow thevelocireader on Instagram. She is the kindest person and has great reviews! ACOMAF spoilers around 46 minutes Recommend if you like: Altered Carbon (which I just learn will not be getting a third season) Ex Machina We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia A...

Hello, magical friends! We’ve got a bonus episode for you! We recently celebrated 2 years of the podcast! We are so excited to have been in communication with you for the last two years! The time has really flown by. We just wanted to take this time to thank you all who have been here since the beginning, and thank you to those who have just discovered us, to the people who chat with us on Instagram, and to everyone who tells someone about the podcast. We are excited to to bring you new conversations about books each fortnight, and we’ll keep doing it for as long as is sustainable 🙂 Content Warning: at 17:15 we are talking about JKR and the harm she has caused with the trans community. If you aren’t up to listening to that, feel free to stop the episode at that point, and no that we do not support her and will no longer be publicizing her or her work in any way, shape or form. We are also thinking of a new name for the podcast so that people will stop associating the podcast with her.  In this episode we answered some questions from Instagram, check out booknerdnative for romance recs and just an absolutely fun and happy page, and if you’re looking for more information about people who are problematic within the YA book community, check out bookish.you.should.know. Transcript to come Spring 2021 As always, we’d love to be in discussion with you, magical folx. Post or tweet about the show using #criticallyreading. Let us know what you think of the episode, anything we missed, or anything else you want us to know by dropping a line in the comments or reaching out to us on twitter or Instagram (@thelibrarycoven), or via email ([email protected]). You can also check out the show notes on our website, thelibrarycoven.com. We really appreciate ratings and reviews on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or any other platforms. Help us share the magic by spreading the word about the podcast! Please support our labor by leaving us a one-time tip on Ko-fi or purchasing books from our Bookshop! Even better yet, become a monthly patron via Patreon and you can unlock a bunch of exclusive perks like mini-sodes, bonus episodes, and access to our community of reader-listeners on Discord. The podcast theme song is “Unermerry Academy of Magics” by Augustin C from the album “Fantasy Music”, which you can download on FreeMusicArchive.com. JK, it’s magic is recorded and produced on stolen indigenous land: Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute (Kelly) and Chickasha, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Mascoutin, Miami, Mesquaki, Odawa, Ojibwe, Peankashaw, Peoria, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Wea (Jessie) You can support Indigenous communities by donating to Mitakuye Foundation, Native Women’s Wilderness, or the Navajo Water Project. These suggested places came from @lilnativeboy

hello, everyone! We’re excited to bring you this episode about The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black, the final installment of the Folk of the Air series (after The Cruel Prince and The Wicked King– which we discuss in episode 8 and episode 16, respectively). In the novel, we finally get to find out what happens to Jude and Cardan, and we see everything that unfolds after Jude was banished to the mortal world. In the episode, J & K somehow both forget that Cardan turns into a giant snake. hope you enjoy (and add to) the conversation! *Call to action* J and K have feelings about our podcast name and the common association with she-who-shall-not-be-named (ahem, the author of one of our favorite series, Harry Potter). JKR is a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist’) and that is unacceptable. Consult this helpful series of posts on the JKR/TERF issues. Let’s all commit to making a consistent practice of dismantling the transphobia we learn from cis-normative societies. Something to donate $ to: The Okra Project, a collective that provides home-cooked meals and resources to Black Trans/gender non-conforming (GNC) people experiencing food insecurity. **This isn’t an exhaustive list! Please do research for your local area and share with us any resources you find in your journey. We will share those on Instagram and Twitter. We are often posting resources on social media as well, so check that out, too! Transcript below (or access the pdf transcript) ONWARD to the show notes! Grima and Madoc are redcaps. Redcaps, a type of goblin, come from Scottish/English folklore. They are associated with a region called the Borders, the site of numerous violent clashes between the Scottish and English. Learn more on the villains fandom wiki. video (3 min): “is the pandemic messing with how we perceive time?” the tl;dr is YES, bitch! I (K) learned that both anxiety and trauma are huge factors….so that’s…cool…. A debrief of sexism in the Game of Thrones series finales from The Mary Sue. Jessie speaks about tokenization of POC in the form of Heather, especially considering how the character is written using (outdated) AAVE. Why existing as a non-Black person in proximity to Blackness (i.e., as the partner/parent/friend of a Black person) doesn’t make someone “not-racist,” much less anti-racist. Here’s an article for you on why. RENT = SCAM. Let’s just CANCEL RENT (more on why rent cancellation crucial, especially given the COVID-19 pandemic) J recommends the Patriot Act episode on Rent Forgiveness K mentions the episode about rent strikes on the podcast Rebel Steps At one point, J describes how she imagines Locke as a “Wall Street Frat Bro Faerie” (à la Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in The Wolf of Wall Street) . Now whenever I (K) remember this, can’t stop laughing or get the image out of my head. HIGHLY recommend this excellent post “away with the faeries: the changeling dilemma” (on the blog Melusinian Musings) about changelings and their associations with ableism, autism, infanticide, and other myriad violences. Oh, did we hear you say you wanted #jurdan fics? Archive of Our Own (aka AO3) is ur friend <3. go forth and use that search feature! As always, we’d love to be in discussion with you, magical folx. Post or tweet about the show using #criticallyreading. Let us know what you think of the episode, anything we missed, or anything else you want us to know by dropping a line in the comments or reaching out to us on twitter or Instagram (@thelibrarycoven), or via email ([email protected]). You can also check out the show notes on our website, thelibrarycoven.com. We really appreciate ratings and reviews on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or any other platforms. Help us share the magic by spreading the word about the podcast! Please support our labor by leaving us a one-time tip on Ko-fi or purchasing books from our Bookshop! Even better yet, become a monthly patron via Patreon and you can unlock a bunch of exclusive perks like mini-...

Hello, magical friends! This fortnight we’re coming at you with a discussion of Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi, the second book in the Legacy of Orïsha series. If you need a recap of the story or what we talked about in the first book, check out episode 2 (so long ago!!!) about Children of Blood and Bone. First up, let me say there is a bit of a sound issue on my part (J), that I apologize for. I accidentally recorded from my webcam instead of my microphone, but hopefully, I wont let that happen again in the future! Call to action: this week we asked that you take the time to learn more about systems of oppression, and there are lots of ways you can do that. Check out the NPR podcast, Code Switch, purchase and read a book from our anti-racism book list, or check out Rachel Cargle’s The Great Unlearn. This isn’t an exhaustive list! Please share with us any resources you find in your journey, and we will share those on Instagram and Twitter. We are often sharing resources on social media as well, so check that out, too! We also introduced our Bookshop for the first time in this episode, but to find out more about how Bookshop works, check out their about page to learn more. And now on to the notes!: J & K both listened to this book as an audiobook. The narration is wonderful and definitely worth checking out. Check your local library to see if you can get it there; audiobooks are expensive!! If you’re interested, here’s more information about the fantasy subgenres Here are two videos about cultural appropriation vs cultural appreciation from CBC and Vice Asia Check out this Code Switch episode: “Why Now, White People?“ Here is a great article about colorism – In this episode I (J) talked a bit about my privilege as a light-skinned Black person, and it is really important that all of us recognize what privileges we are bringing with us to any given table. This was a weird thing to talk about in such a public manner, but I think it’s also a very important topic. Hit me up on social media or email if you want to talk about it more. Check out the data on the racial breakdown in children’s books. It is a sad state of affairs. Check out the episode of Vox’s Explained “Billionaires” Article from Buzzfeed “This is What Black Burnout Feels Like“ I (J) took out a whole segment where I said a lot of nice things about Sebastian Stan, who I do not know. You can just imagine it. But it was too embarrassing to keep in lol. But I felt I should be honest with ya’ll. Books mentioned in the episode: Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation Take a Hint, Dani Brown Kingdom of Souls The Cruel Prince King of Scars Transcript below or access the PDF version As always, we’d love to be in discussion with you, magical folx. Post or tweet about the show using #criticallyreading. Let us know what you think of the episode, anything we missed, or anything else you want us to know by dropping a line in the comments or reaching out to us on twitter or Instagram (@thelibrarycoven), or via email ([email protected]). You can also check out the show notes on our website thelibrarycoven.com. We really appreciate ratings and reviews on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or any other platforms. Help us share the magic by spreading the word about the podcast! Please support our labor by leaving us a one-time tip on Ko-fi or purchasing books from our Bookshop! Even better yet, become a monthly patron via Patreon and you can unlock a bunch of exclusive perks like mini-sodes, bonus episodes, and access to our community of reader-listeners on Discord. The podcast theme song is “Unermerry Academy of Magics” by Augustin C from the album “Fantasy Music”, which you can download on FreeMusicArchive.com. JK, it’s magic is recorded and produced on stolen indigenous land: Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute (Kelly) and Chickasha, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Mascoutin, Miami, Mesquaki, Odawa, Ojibwe, Peankashaw, Peoria, Potawatomi, Sauk,

Hey, magical folx! In this episode we discuss Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, which is *NOT* YA. We gotta say this at the top because its some sexist bs that women/femme adult fantasy writers get miscategorized as YA (read about how sexism impacts genre categorization). *Call to action* This fortnight, we’re urging our magical community to learn more about abolishing borders, abolishing ICE and migrant justice as well as to support organizations doing this work. Watch/listen to the final plenary from this year’s Allied Media Conference, “From Dreams to Practice: Abolition in Our Lifetimes”. The panel features a TON of rad ppl doing abolitionist work, including Miski Noor, Tawana “Honeycomb” Petty, Andrea Ritchie, Toni-Michelle Williams, Mariame Kaba and Rachel Herzing. Check out their work and learn learn learn and act act act [Note: I (K) attended the AMC virtually and I was BLOWN AWAY by the wisdom shared. Cannot recommend enough] Check out Harsha Walia’s Ted Talk “A World Without State Borders”. Her book Undoing Border Imperialism is definitely on my TBR! Abolish ICE Denver is just one of the groups doing the work. They have an encampment outside of the Aurora ICE detention facility run by the for-profit prison company GEO Group. Check out their instagram for updates and action items. And donate if you can! **This isn’t an exhaustive list! Please do research for your local area and share with us any resources you find in your journey. We will share those on Instagram and Twitter. We are often posting resources on social media as well, so check that out, too! Additionally, if you get a chance and are able, please consider becoming a patron on Patreon to get episodes early, access to our discord, and more. Or you can make a one time donation on ko-fi. Support feminist media, ppl! <3 Transcript below (or access the pdf version) And now onto notes, notes, and more notes: Y’all, I (K) was today years old when I found out we can read the entire Popul Vuh translated into English for free. An excellent article that traces the history of the Maya Quiché/Ki’che peoples of what-is-now-called Mesoamerica (Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Belize). And here’s a Khan Academy resource on the region – it’s a great introduction the MANY peoples who are indigenous to the area. A primer on the history of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917/20), including its antecedents and consequences – video en español and video in English. This PBS video explains why being poor costs more than being rich. An article on anti-Blackness in Latin American countries and how it is enshrined by specific policies. A resource for non-Black POC about how to have convos about anti-Blackness within various communities. J recommends the sci-fi tv show Altered Carbon  (available on netflix) If you’re interested, the New Yorker article “Affect Theory and the New Age of Anxiety” is a good read and includes a primer on affect theory (aka what and how we feel individually and collectively). I (K) am always nerding out about this stuff, so hmu if you want to discuss. The Maya were badass astronomers. Check out this interview with UC Santa Barbara professor Gerardo Aldana to learn more. Speaking of stars, I (K) talk a bit about how much I love space, astronomy, astrology or as I say in the episode, “that star shit” lol. One of my favorite astro-related resources that I use all the time is NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). It gives me some peace and perspective to see a nebula 70 million light years away. Books mentioned in the episode: Mexican Gothic, Silvia M-G’s new horror novel (also *NOT* YA) As always, we’d love to be in discussion with you, magical folx. Post or tweet about the show using #criticallyreading. Let us know what you think of the episode, anything we missed, or anything else you want us to know by dropping a line in the comments or reaching out to us on twitter or Instagram (@thelibrarycoven),

Hello, magical ppl! In this episode we dive into We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal, which J & K both enjoyed immensely. Join us for a conversation about how much we <3 enemies-to-lovers ships, badass protags like Zafira and Kifah, Faizal’s impressive world-building, and much more. Content Warning for discussions of child abuse. ChildHelp  – Call 1-800-422-4453 for assistance And now, links! The sequel, We Free the Stars, is scheduled for release on January 19, 2021. If you have some time, professor Edward Said teaches about Orientalism in this interview (appx. 40 minutes). If you are short on time, this video is a good primer about Orientalism and Said’s work on the concept. In the episode, we wax poetic about the character art: “Meet the Zumra” yourselves!  And while you’re at it, we highly recommend exploring Arawiya with the interactive map. Glossary and Pronunciation guide for We Hunt the Flame  We mention Sarah J. Maas’s new book, House of Earth and Blood. the first novel in the Crescent City series. Both of us have read it…and weren’t too enamored. Have you read it? Should we do an episode about it? Let us know 🙂 K swears by her SAD Lamp. J recommends this clip of Hassan Minhaj explaining the stories of ifrit and djinn he heard as a child (starts at 13:02). J mentions The Great, the Hulu show released in May 2020. This twitter thread explains why pre orders are so important in publishing. Here is the Goodreads Q & A in which Faizal clarifies that there is no “Muslim representation in the book. Rather, it is inspired by Ancient Arabia. Arab does not equal Muslim. Shoutout to Jen, our first patron!!!!! You are a magical being and we love you! Action Item: WEAR A MASK, and learn how to do so properly. Transcript below (or access the pdf version) As always, we’d love to be in discussion with you, magical folx. Post or tweet about the show using #criticallyreading. Let us know what you think of the episode, anything we missed, or anything else you want us to know by dropping a line in the comments or reaching out to us on twitter or Instagram (@thelibrarycoven), or via email ([email protected]). You can also check out the show notes on our website, thelibrarycoven.com. We really appreciate ratings and reviews on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or any other platforms. Help us share the magic by spreading the word about the podcast! Please support our labor by leaving us a one-time tip on Ko-fi or purchasing books from our Bookshop! Even better yet, become a monthly patron via Patreon and you can unlock a bunch of exclusive perks like mini-sodes, bonus episodes, and access to our community of reader-listeners on Discord. The podcast theme song is “Unermerry Academy of Magics” by Augustin C from the album “Fantasy Music”, which you can download on FreeMusicArchive.com. JK, it’s magic is recorded and produced on stolen indigenous land: Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute (Kelly) and Chickasha, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Mascoutin, Miami, Mesquaki, Odawa, Ojibwe, Peankashaw, Peoria, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Wea (Jessie) You can support Indigenous communities by donating to Mitakuye Foundation, Native Women’s Wilderness, or the Navajo Water Project. These suggested places came from @lilnativeboy “JK, it’s Magic” Episode 32: We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal transition [00:00:14] [bright, whimsical music plays. string instruments and lute]. kelly [00:00:14] Hello! And welcome to “JK, it’s magic”, A bi-weekly… kind of [laughs] podcast in which to bookish besties discuss mostly Y.A. fantasy through the lens of intersectional feminist criticism. Why? Because critique is our fangirl love language and because talking about books is pretty magical. jessie [00:00:33] I’m Jessie. kelly [00:00:35] And I’m Kelly. jessie [00:00:37] And this week, we will be talking about WE HUNT THE FLAME by Hafsah Faizal, all in this story, Zafira is pretending to be a man in order to hunt in the Arz for her starving community,

Hello, magical folx! This week we’re discussing A Dream so Dark by L.L. McKinney, the second book in the Nightmare-verse series! In this episode we’re making predictions about the future books in the series, talking about “urban” fantasy, and coming at you with some major Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker spoilers (you’ve been warned!). For a refresher for what happened in the last book, check out our episode on A Blade So Black. Here are all the things mentioned in this week’s episode! Let’s start with a question! What are you wearing when you feel your most powerful? We mentioned The Neverending Story Dr. Martens – the badass shoe of choice! Ship It by Britta Lundin AAVE Sex Education Season 2 – We highly recommend the show in general! Buffy the Vampire Slayer (tv show) The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (tv show) Throne of Glass tv show? Yes! ACOTAR movie? Also, yes! Action Item: Read Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad and check out Leesa Renee Hall’s Patreon. Transcript Below (or access the pdf version) As always, we’d love to be in discussion with you, magical folx. Post or tweet about the show using #criticallyreading. Let us know what you think of the episode, anything we missed, or anything else you want us to know by dropping a line in the comments or reaching out to us on twitter or Instagram (@thelibrarycoven), or via email ([email protected]). You can also check out the show notes on our website, thelibrarycoven.com. We really appreciate ratings and reviews on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or any other platforms. Help us share the magic by spreading the word about the podcast! Please support our labor by leaving us a one-time tip on Ko-fi or purchasing books from our Bookshop! Even better yet, become a monthly patron via Patreon and you can unlock a bunch of exclusive perks like mini-sodes, bonus episodes, and access to our community of reader-listeners on Discord. The podcast theme song is “Unermerry Academy of Magics” by Augustin C from the album “Fantasy Music”, which you can download on FreeMusicArchive.com. JK, it’s magic is recorded and produced on stolen indigenous land: Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Ute (Kelly) and Chickasha, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Mascoutin, Miami, Mesquaki, Odawa, Ojibwe, Peankashaw, Peoria, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Wea (Jessie) You can support Indigenous communities by donating to Mitakuye Foundation, Native Women’s Wilderness, or the Navajo Water Project. These suggested places came from @lilnativeboy Episode 31 A Dream so Dark transition [00:00:14] [Bright, whimsical music plays]. jessie [00:00:14] Hello! And welcome to “JK, It’s Magic,” a bi-weekly podcast in which two bookish besties discuss (mostly) YA fantasy through the lens of intersectional feminist criticism. Why? Because critique is our fangirl love language. And because talking about books is pretty magical. I’m Jesse. kelly [00:00:29] And I’m Kelly. And in this episode, we are discussing A Dream So Dark by L.L. McKinney, the second book in the Nightmareverse series. And I didn’t write a plot synopsis before recording. So fuck it, we’ll do it live. [laughs] The novel picks up right after the battle that ended the first book. Alice is grounded and people are in trouble. And lots of villains come out of the woodwork and Alice has to go into Wonderland. But she also accidentally goes to Japan. And then there’s large battles and that’s what happens. [laughs] jessie [00:01:09] Chaos ensues. There’s chaos. Lots and lots of chaos. transition [00:01:13] [bright, whimsical music plays] jessie [00:01:18] All right. Initial reactions, I think, as you all know at this point. I love L.L. McKinney. I follow her on Twitter and I just love everything about her. She’s great. So you have to know that I love this book, too. It was fast paced and super fun. I loved getting some additional POVs this time around. So I stan, I guess. Like, yeah, I really enjoyed it. kelly [00:01:41] No choice but to stan. jessie [00:01:43] Yeah. [chuckles].

Hey, magical folx! This fortnight we discuss The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline, a prolific author who is a member of the Georgian Bay Metis Community. Hope you enjoy and learn something(s). BLACK LIVES MATTER. Content warning for discussions of sexual violence and addiction. RAINN – Anti-sex violence assistance. Call 800-856-4619 or visit their website for assistance.  Calls to Action Follow, support, and learn from Indigenous peoples now and always! In the words of Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, “Decolonization is not a metaphor,” but rather requires return of stolen lands. If you have the resources to make financial contributions, here are some places to contribute: Indigenous Environmental Network‘s Mutual Aid fund Mitakuye Foundation, Native Women’s Wilderness Navajo Water Project Transcripts below (or access the pdf version) Alas, I could not find the tweet about the pace of YA novels (unsurprisingly, twitter might as well be a black hole) Resources about the history of residential schools in Turtle Island (so-called Canada and so-called United States) “Extractivism,” explained. The conference K mentions attending was “Imagined Borders, Epistemic Freedoms” held on CU Boulder’s campus in January 2020. Calculate your ecological footprint to find out how many planet Earths we would need if everyone lived like you. J mentions this CodeSwitch episode about Black republicans/conservatives. More about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Womxn, Girls and Two-Spirit (#MMIWG2S) from The Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women and Native Women’s Wilderness.  The book J references is Highway of Tears: A True Story of Racism, Indifference, and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls by Jessica McDiarmid Re: allyship, see this insta post by the incomparable Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Here’s a snippet: “Consider Harriet Tubman’s standards for white friends and collaborators. The only officer in the Union Army she trusted enough to collaborate with on the Combahee Uprising had ridden with John Brown on Harper’s Ferry. She refused to meet with Abraham Lincoln (even when he sent a special invitation for her to visit the White House through SOJOURNER TRUTH!) because she could see that he wavered on his commitment to Black freedom and she felt he had used her people as a pawn. She had standards. And these standards came out of necessity. For years Harriet Tubman was a fugitive. The ONLY white people she could safely associate with were people who were willing to use their privilege to literally stand between her and the law. They were active abolitionists who had already decided it was worthwhile to risk their lives, standing and livelihood in the service of Black freedom. She could not afford to be anywhere near white people who had not yet made their decision to live and die for her freedom and our collective freedom. She could not risk her life to politically educate them. She had to KNOW they were on the freedom side.” Recommended further reading/listening All My Relations (podcast) by Matika Wilbur and Adrienne Keene. Red Deal primer on (settler) colonialism by Unsettling America (check out their work!) How to Survive the End of the World (podcast) by adrienne maree brown and Autumn Brown – the series of episodes about “apocalypse survival skills” Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s article  “Decolonization is not a metaphor” mentioned above. It’s written in accessible language, so READ IT! Ppl and orgs to follow/support The Red Nation @riseindigenous on instagram Water Protector Legal Collective We can’t wait to read more #ownvoices by indigenous authors. We have our eye on titles from this list, and this one, oh and this one too. Hit us up with other recs! As always, we’d love to be in discussion with you, magical folx. Post or tweet about the show using #criticallyreading. Let us know what you think of the episode, anything we missed, or anything else you want us to know by dropping a line in the commen...