Links: Beverly Jenkins, General Leia, & Podcasts

Wednesday links are here!

Essentially, the crop of links today are strictly romance and Carrie Fisher related, and I don’t think anyone will mind too terribly about that. I’ve been in South Florida for a week, dealing with family things, and I’ll be returning to the Northeast today to sleep in my own bed and cuddle my ornery senior cat.

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Three cheers for Beverly Jenkins talking about romance and diversity over at Shondaland:

Shondaland: For a lot of people, the outside perception of romance has been that it’s this very white space, which can make it feel inaccessible for a lot of minorities. But I think that’s changing, and it’s in large part thanks to amazing writers like you. So, just to start, thank you for your work, and for normalizing people of color in romance.

Beverly Jenkins: You’re very welcome. Love is love. We all love. And the industry should reflect everyone. Like you said, things are getting better — [but] every industry can do more, or needs to do more. I think romance, along with Romance Writers of America, have made tremendous strides in the last four or five years in trying to bring that normalcy to the genre. And it’s been great.

I also recommend looking over the Shondaland site from time to time for more great interviews.

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A note from Sarah:  A quick reminder – pardon the interruption.

I am days away from opening registration for the inaugural Organization Academy online course, Menu Planning Mastery. 

If you feel overwhelmed by the question, “What’s for dinner tonight?” when you don’t know the answer, this course is for you. Each lesson will teach you how to harness the power of Google Calendar to manage and automate your meal planning, and save you time, energy, and money.

You’ll know what’s for dinner, you’ll have more time and money to buy books – what could be better?

If you’d like to be among the first to know when registration opens, please enter your email address below!  I’ll also send you weekly tips and step-by-step instructions with specific organization and time management strategies:

Please sign up if you’d like information about the course when registration opens.

Thank you in advance, and now back to your regularly scheduled link-a-palooza!

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These next couple links regarding Carrie Fisher are from Elizabeth. Thank you, Elizabeth!

First up, The Mary Sue has an article about Fisher stressing the importance of Leia in pop culture:

“She was so conscious of the place that Leia had,” Johnson said, “not just broadly in the culture, but very specifically in terms of girls who grew up watching Star Wars, when Leia was the only female hero on the screen. She really wanted to do right by that, drawing the character forward. That was something that she would always be pulling us back to.”.

Here are some of Elizabeth’s additional comments: “Apparently when filming The Last Jedi, Carrie Fisher had a lot of input into the script. She wanted to make it the best it could be for all the girls who grew up watching Star Wars and for whom she was a hero.”

There’s also a #LeiaIsWithUs hashtag gaining momentum, which is calling for fans to honor Fisher during The Last Jedi‘s opening night by wearing or bringing an object that is Leia-related.

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The Bacon Free Library is having a romance swag bag auction! The auction will officially launch October 22, but you can preview the items available now.

Bid to win swag from any of these award winning, best-selling, beloved, classic romance authors. Swag can include anything from signed books to having your name in one of the authors’ next book – how exciting!

There are a ton of authors participating, so please check it out!

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Lastly, I’m dismayed to just hear about the Werk It Festival, which highlights women in podcasting:

Werk It’s first iteration, in 2015, was comprised of a crowd of 100 women, who met in WNYC’s Greene Space. This year the festival drew 600 pass-holding attendees and presenters, who all wore assertive smiles while mingling over coffee in the dimly lit Spanish Gothic Theatre and lobby, where the men‘s room had temporarily been labeled unisex. (The hotel was a uniquely fitting setting, based in the renovated headquarters of United Artists, a company co-founded in 1919 by one of the most powerful women in Hollywood history, Mary Pickford). Later, guests attended panels with names such as Creativity Doesn’t Just Happen and Extreme Engagement, and watched live tapings of shows such as Death, Sex & Money with Anna Sale, and 2 Dope Queens with Jessica Williams and guest co-host Naomi Ekperigin.

I would love to attend next year, as I pretty much exclusively listen to podcasts now.

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Don’t forget to share what super cool things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!