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Nov 8, 2024 | 
womenwriteaboutcomics.com | Emily Lauer |Emily Lauer lives
In my quest to read all of Diana Wynne Jones’s books in one year, this month I read Charmed Life, Drowned Ammet, and The Spellcoats!Charmed Life is the first in the Chrestomanci series, and I found it fun to revisit the introduction to that world and family. Drowned Ammet and The Spellcoats are the middle books in the Dalemark Quartet and both are pretty intense!Charmed Life, (1977)In Charmed Life, Cat Chant is in his older sister’s shadow.
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
womenwriteaboutcomics.com | Emily Lauer |Emily Lauer lives
WWAC is thrilled to present an exclusive preview of Katie the Catsitter: The Purrfect Plan by Colleen AF Venable and Stephanie Yue, coming out from Random House Graphics on October 8th!In the Katie the Catsitter books, our title character starts catsitting for an upstairs neighbor’s many, many cats, only to discover that she is a notorious supervillain. However, her neighbor is really an unsung hero, using “villainous” tactics to expose corruption in powerful corporations and institutions.
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Sep 27, 2024 | 
womenwriteaboutcomics.com | Emily Lauer |Emily Lauer lives
In my quest to read all of Diana Wynne Jones’s books in one year, this month I read Dogsbody, Cart and Cwidder, and The Power of Three!Of these, I think my favorite is The Power of Three, a standalone fantasy with a thought-provoking premise and some believably messed up family and friendship dynamics. Dogsbody (1975)In Dogsbody, the personified Dog Star is reborn into a literal dog’s body and forms a strong bond with a young girl who is used by her unfeeling aunt as a sort of dogsbody.
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Aug 22, 2024 | 
womenwriteaboutcomics.com | Emily Lauer |Emily Lauer lives
These are three fun standalone books aimed at ages 8-12. Of them, my favorite is probably Witch’s Business for the way it shows children working together.
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Jul 16, 2024 | 
womenwriteaboutcomics.com | Emily Lauer |Emily Lauer lives
This summer, whether you want a young adult murder mystery set at a summer job, engrossing sci-fi full of future tech, or a bad girl hell-bent on revenge, there are great options headed your way. Maureen Johnson’s Death at Morning House; Codie Crowley’s Here Lies a Vengeful Bitch; a new edition of The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed; and North Continent Ribbon, a collection of linked stories by Ursula Whitcher, are all worth getting excited about ahead of time.
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Jul 12, 2024 | 
womenwriteaboutcomics.com | Emily Lauer |Emily Lauer lives
Diana Wynne Jones was a prolific and celebrated author of British fantasy novels, writing about kids with magic powers in boarding schools before that was cool. Starting in mid-July, I am going to read all of her books. In one year. And write about them here!Diana Wynne Jones is probably now best known for her 1986 novel Howl’s Moving Castle, since that was adapted into a beautiful animated film by Studio Ghibli in 2004. Howl’s Moving Castle is only one of her many books in many series, however.
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Jun 26, 2024 | 
womenwriteaboutcomics.com | Emily Lauer |Emily Lauer lives
Here at WWAC, we’ve been delving into some meaty explorations of how societies work recently, from Kathryn and Paige’s nonfiction recommendations of Ryokan: Mobilizing Hospitality in Rural Japan and Extremely Online – The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, And Power on the Internet; to Masha’s appreciation of Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, and my own anthropologically-inflected speculative fiction interests with Long Live Evil and Those Beyond the Wall.
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Jun 13, 2024 | 
womenwriteaboutcomics.com | Emily Lauer |Emily Lauer lives
If you’re a fan of T. Kingfisher a.k.a. Ursula Vernon, you may have noticed some motifs showing up repeatedly in her work. Is there a knightly character wracked with guilt? Is there an animal made out of bones? Are you pretty sure the housepet in the horror novel will be absolutely fine? With these recurring elements in mind, I made you a present.
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May 10, 2024 | 
womenwriteaboutcomics.com | Emily Lauer |Emily Lauer lives
This year, New York Comic Con will return to the Javits Center in Manhattan the weekend of October 17-20!Here’s a rundown of everything I did there last year, from getting absorbed in Artists Alley, confused on the mail floor, and popping into a crafts room. In October of 2023, on Friday the 13th, I headed to the Javits Center for New York Comic Con.
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Apr 2, 2024 | 
womenwriteaboutcomics.com | Emily Lauer |Emily Lauer lives
Club Microbe by Elise Gravel is an adorable and informative look at the microbial world. Elise GravelTranslated by Montana KaneDrawn & QuarterlyApril 2, 2024My kid and I are both big fans of Elise Gravel’s wonderful 2018 book, The Mushroom Fan Club. When that one came out, it turned me into a confirmed fan, and I was ready and waiting when Gravel came out with The Bug Club in 2021.
