Book Recommendations: Pride Month Edition – 12 Books with Sapphic and F/F Rep to Read During Pride Month!

Pride Month is a month-long event at The Quiet Pond, where during the month of June, queer authors and bookish content creators are invited to celebrate being queer, queer books, and their experiences of being a queer reader. Find the introduction post for Pride Month at The Quiet Pond here.

One of my favourite parts about these month-long celebratory events at the Pond is that I get to inundate all of you with book recommendations. And what better month than Pride Month?

For us at the Pond, Pride Month is an opportunity to spotlight and celebrate the incredible work done by queer authors. Moreover, it’s important to us that the work that we do when celebrating Pride Month is deserving of the intersectional Pride Month flag that we have proudly used in our banner. Therefore, the books that we recommend will include books by authors of colour and disabled authors – and we encourage all of our Pond friends to make their Pride reading intersectional and colourful. 🌈

Our Friend is Here! An Interview with Manuia Heinrich; On #APIpit, Pacific Islanders in Publishing, and a French Polynesian Book Recommendation

Our Friend is Here! is a guest feature at The Quiet Pond, where authors, creatives, and fellow readers, are invited to ‘visit’ the Pond! In Our Friend is Here! guest posts, our visitors (as their very own unique character!) have a friendly conversation about anything related to books or being a reader — and become friends with Xiaolong and friends.

Our Friend is Here: Asian and Pasifika Heritage Month Edition is a month-long event at The Quiet Pond during the month of May, where Asian and Pasifika authors are invited to celebrate being Asian and Pasifika work and literature! Find the introduction post for Asian and Pasifika Heritage Month here.

Today is a special and exciting day, for two awesome reasons. First, today is the day before #APIpit! #APIpit is a writing pitch event for Asian and Pacific Islander creators that takes place on the 4th of May (EST), and I am incredibly excited to see all the Asian and Pasifika writers pitching their work. All the best – we are cheering you on! Our other reason is that we have one of the co-founders for today’s #APIpit event, Manuia Heinrich, visiting us at the Pond today for Asian Pasifika Heritage Month!

Book Recommendations – 11 Stories in Verse (That Will Shatter Your Soul)

In case you’re new to the Pond’s book recommendation posts, the recommendation posts are brought to you by Varian, the Pond’s very own Toadshifter who is knowledgeable in all kinds of magic! One of Varian’s ambitions is to get better at sewing, hence why whenever Varian has come up with their latest costume, they will always recommend a few books that inspired them!

Stories in verse have a special place in my heart. I read a lot of books that move me, but stories in verse have a way of instilling that wondrous feeling of awe, that words can make me feel things so immense and deep. Almost always, the stories in verse that I have read find ways to captivate me. You don’t have to be a poetry lover to appreciate stories in verse (take it from me)! Therefore, I am so excited to be recommending to you all 8 stories in verse, as well as share 3 upcoming stories in verse that you all need to add to your to-read lists!

Book Recommendations: Black History Month Edition! 10 Black Middle Grade Books

Our Friend is Here: Black History Month Edition is a month-long event at The Quiet Pond during the month of February, where Black authors are invited to celebrate being Black and Black books! Find the introduction post for Black History Month here.

In case you’re new to the Pond’s book recommendation posts, the recommendation posts are brought to you by Varian, the Pond’s very own Toadshifter who is knowledgeable in all kinds of magic! One of Varian’s ambitions is to get better at sewing, hence why whenever Varian has come up with their latest costume, they will always recommend a few books that inspired them!

It’s the last weekend of Black History Month, and we hope that you have enjoyed our celebrations and commemorations of Black literature. To wrap up the week before our last post tomorrow – and it’s going to be an amazing post; we’re so excited about our guest – I want to share some of my favourite Black MG books for today’s weekly book recommendation post!

Let’s quickly recap our awesome week, this week. We were visited by Daven McQueen, who talked about her debut and friendships, Joce had the spectacular Synithia Williams on Black joy and romance, I had YA fantasy extraordinaire Sarah Raughley talk about her upcoming historical fantasy, L.L. McKinney on retellings, anime, and her latest release, Nubia: Real One, and Joce invited Julian Winters to talk about his spectacular books!

Book Recommendations: Black History Month Edition! 20 Black Science-Fiction and Fantasy Books

Our Friend is Here: Black History Month Edition is a month-long event at The Quiet Pond during the month of February, where Black authors are invited to celebrate being Black and Black books! Find the introduction post for Black History Month here.

In case you’re new to the Pond’s book recommendation posts, the recommendation posts are brought to you by Varian, the Pond’s very own Toadshifter who is knowledgeable in all kinds of magic! One of Varian’s ambitions is to get better at sewing, hence why whenever Varian has come up with their latest costume, they will always recommend a few books that inspired them!

Can you believe that February and Black History Month are almost over? Though we don’t have that many days left in February, I do, however, have a selection of incredible SFF books I’d like to recommend to you for Black History Month at the Pond.

But first, a quick recap: we had a spectacular week at Black History Month at the Pond this week. Skye and I interviewed Celeste Harte, who talked about her debut and indie publishing; Skye and Alexis Henderson worked together on a Pond-cation worldbuilding post that explored the village of Bethel; I interviewed Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and we talked about her stunning debut and dark academia; and Chrystal D. Giles also visited for an interview and talked about Take Back the Block and activism!