Having written this column since mid-2021, I sometimes forget what I’ve covered. In some ways, I haven’t written anything new in the world of book censorship because the tactics, goals, and outcomes have not changed much at all over the course of this significant era of censorship. The guide to 56 tasks you can take to end book censorship? It’s literally the same guide as every other “how to fight book bans” guide since 2021, but it’s repackaged as a more granular checklist to make attending to those tasks easier. You’re still ultimately showing up to board meetings, voting, and sharing verified information about the latest news in book censorship.

This week, rather than drafting something fresh, let’s take the time to look back at some of the Literary Activism columns you may have missed from the previous several Januarys and Februarys. Catch up on what you may have missed, and remember that there is nothing new in the book—just different names and faces trying to get their 15 minutes of manufactured outrage fame. We are seeing the results of these actions play out and if you’ve been watching or engaged, nothing is surprising. That doesn’t mean it isn’t infuriating, disgusting, or not in need to pushback. It just means that the groundwork’s been being laid so it is simply not surprising in the least.

Be Your Own Library Advocate (2024)

“Public libraries are not play places. They are not cooling centers or warming centers or mental health clinics. Public libraries are not bars, nor are they essential services. Public libraries are places of information and access to information. They are places that ardently defend the rights of every person to seek out that information. This is fundamental and yet not highlighted or underlined enough. Public libraries are cornerstones of democratic and civic engagement, not safety nets for broken systems elsewhere. They might take on those roles, but that’s not their purpose.

No one else can raise your social value for you. You have to do it yourself. You have the data here to support it.”

Been too busy to keep up with all the comic book news lately? I’ve got you covered!

News From DC and Marvel

A hearty and heartfelt congratulations to Jenny Blake Isabella, best known for co-creating Black Lightning, who came out as trans earlier this month.Captain America: Brave New World opened to mixed reviews and massive receipts.Rob Liefeld did not have a marvel-ous time at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere and is now making it Marvel’s problem — namely, by cutting all ties with them.The Thunderbolts* trailer debuted during some football game earlier this month.Michael B. Jordan’s position on Jonathan Majors’ domestic violence conviction is deeply unfortunate, to say the least.Variety ranked its 100 greatest TV performances of the 21st century (so far). I won’t spoil it entirely, but superhero fans should definitely check out Numbers 71, 64, and 13.If you’re a fan of both Marvel and My Hero Academia, you’re going to want to check out these Japanese promotional posters that combine both franchises.

News From the Wider Comics World

Akio Iyoku, one of Dragon Ball‘s executive producers, recently did an interview about the role that franchise creator Akira Toriyama had in the anime’s development.ND Stevenson, best known for creating such popular graphic novels as Lumberjanes and Nimona, is venturing into prose novels. Scarlet Morning, the first of an illustrated duology, will be released this September.Book Riot’s Megan Mabee has thoughtfully rounded up some great teen sci-fi comics for your reading pleasure.The Binc Foundation has awarded scholarships to four comic book retailers to be put towards attending the ComicsPRO comic industry meeting later this month.

Been too busy to keep up with all the comic book news lately? I’ve got you covered!

News From DC and Marvel

A hearty and heartfelt congratulations to Jenny Blake Isabella, best known for co-creating Black Lightning, who came out as trans earlier this month.Captain America: Brave New World opened to mixed reviews and massive receipts.Rob Liefeld did not have a marvel-ous time at the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere and is now making it Marvel’s problem — namely, by cutting all ties with them.The Thunderbolts* trailer debuted during some football game earlier this month.Michael B. Jordan’s position on Jonathan Majors’ domestic violence conviction is deeply unfortunate, to say the least.Variety ranked its 100 greatest TV performances of the 21st century (so far). I won’t spoil it entirely, but superhero fans should definitely check out Numbers 71, 64, and 13.If you’re a fan of both Marvel and My Hero Academia, you’re going to want to check out these Japanese promotional posters that combine both franchises.

News From the Wider Comics World

Akio Iyoku, one of Dragon Ball‘s executive producers, recently did an interview about the role that franchise creator Akira Toriyama had in the anime’s development.ND Stevenson, best known for creating such popular graphic novels as Lumberjanes and Nimona, is venturing into prose novels. Scarlet Morning, the first of an illustrated duology, will be released this September.Book Riot’s Megan Mabee has thoughtfully rounded up some great teen sci-fi comics for your reading pleasure.The Binc Foundation has awarded scholarships to four comic book retailers to be put towards attending the ComicsPRO comic industry meeting later this month.

People often say that life imitates art, but sometimes art imitates reality television shows. It make sense that reality TV has crept into so many of our favorite horror novels. After all, these unscripted TV series have become such a huge part of our lives. Who isn’t watching The Traitors, the campy and suspensive reality competition show where contestants murder each other to win? Sounds like the perfect setting for a horror story, does it not?

Here are three horror novels that turn the world of reality TV into a dark, twisted place. Or at least…slightly more dark and twisted than it is usually.

Enjoying what you’re reading? Support the work we do as an independent media resource by becoming an All Access member, and unlock our entire library of articles and a growing catalog of community features. Sign up now for only $6/month!

Grim Root by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam Two of the books on this list are inspired by one of the biggest mainstays in reality TV, The Bachelor. Who can blame authors for wanting to write horror based on that show? What’s more horrifying than agreeing to marry a man you barely know after only, like, two dates? Especially when he’s been dating 20ish other women at the same time? In Grim Root, a Bachelor-like TV show gets ghosty when the contestants find themselves spending a week in a haunted house. But when the bachelor dies, all bets are off.

Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen This novel is about a reality TV dating series called The Catch which is definitely not anything like The Bachelor (except it totally is). The bachelor is down to his final four ladies, and the crew heads to a remote island in the Pacific Northwest to film their next round of dates. What could possibly go wrong, right? Little does the cast and crew of The Catch know what awaits them on the island. Patricia might be a little furry and a little violent. But mostly she’s just misunderstood. All she really wants to do is cuddle.

People often say that life imitates art, but sometimes art imitates reality television shows. It make sense that reality TV has crept into so many of our favorite horror novels. After all, these unscripted TV series have become such a huge part of our lives. Who isn’t watching The Traitors, the campy and suspensive reality competition show where contestants murder each other to win? Sounds like the perfect setting for a horror story, does it not?

Here are three horror novels that turn the world of reality TV into a dark, twisted place. Or at least…slightly more dark and twisted than it is usually.

Enjoying what you’re reading? Support the work we do as an independent media resource by becoming an All Access member, and unlock our entire library of articles and a growing catalog of community features. Sign up now for only $6/month!

Grim Root by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam Two of the books on this list are inspired by one of the biggest mainstays in reality TV, The Bachelor. Who can blame authors for wanting to write horror based on that show? What’s more horrifying than agreeing to marry a man you barely know after only, like, two dates? Especially when he’s been dating 20ish other women at the same time? In Grim Root, a Bachelor-like TV show gets ghosty when the contestants find themselves spending a week in a haunted house. But when the bachelor dies, all bets are off.

Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen This novel is about a reality TV dating series called The Catch which is definitely not anything like The Bachelor (except it totally is). The bachelor is down to his final four ladies, and the crew heads to a remote island in the Pacific Northwest to film their next round of dates. What could possibly go wrong, right? Little does the cast and crew of The Catch know what awaits them on the island. Patricia might be a little furry and a little violent. But mostly she’s just misunderstood. All she really wants to do is cuddle.

I love everything Billy-Ray Belcourt has ever written, so it’s no big surprise that his latest, a collection of short stories, blew me out of the water. I had a rare experience while reading this book where I kept putting it down, thinking, “I cannot possibly read another sentence as beautiful as this one.” And then, a paragraph later, another sentence so utterly alive and breathtaking that, once again, I’d have to pause for a moment before continuing. If you are looking for stories that will make you feel alive, stories that confront Canada’s colonial violence but never center it, stories that are animated, always, by deep love—you need to read this book ASAP.

Enjoying what you’re reading? Support the work we do as an independent media resource by becoming an All Access member, and unlock our entire library of articles and a growing catalog of community features. Sign up now for only $6/month!

Coexistence by Billy-Ray Belcourt These stories are mostly (though not exclusively) set in and around Edmonton. Belcourt’s narrators are mostly queer Cree men—artists, poets, professors, and students—struggling with how to live and love and how to use language to describe and make sense of their living. One story details the beginning of a relationship; another a different relationship’s end. They take place at literary festivals and in drab motel rooms, on highways and in living rooms. Every story is pulsing and clattering with aliveness. Every story is a beautiful and specific expression of Indigenous love. I’ve always admired the way Belcourt writes theory into his fiction. His characters take thinking seriously but they also belly laugh. They use theory and scholarship as a way to remake language and remake the world, but they wrestle just as meaningfully with the systems of oppression that affect their material realities. In these stories sex and poetry are equally important; the life of the mind and the life of the body are not separate. It makes for incredibly intimate reading. How do you make a poem? How do you fall in love in the wake of ongoing colonial violence? What does it mean to listen well—to your mother, your students, your lover, yourself? Does art matter? How do you rebuild your life after being released from prison? What about the prairies and the ghosts that live there, the Alberta wind, your childhood home? What are they telling you about how to live? These questions are not abstract, as they live in the bodies of Belcourt’s characters and in the language they use to make sense of the world.

I love everything Billy-Ray Belcourt has ever written, so it’s no big surprise that his latest, a collection of short stories, blew me out of the water. I had a rare experience while reading this book where I kept putting it down, thinking, “I cannot possibly read another sentence as beautiful as this one.” And then, a paragraph later, another sentence so utterly alive and breathtaking that, once again, I’d have to pause for a moment before continuing. If you are looking for stories that will make you feel alive, stories that confront Canada’s colonial violence but never center it, stories that are animated, always, by deep love—you need to read this book ASAP.

Enjoying what you’re reading? Support the work we do as an independent media resource by becoming an All Access member, and unlock our entire library of articles and a growing catalog of community features. Sign up now for only $6/month!

Coexistence by Billy-Ray Belcourt These stories are mostly (though not exclusively) set in and around Edmonton. Belcourt’s narrators are mostly queer Cree men—artists, poets, professors, and students—struggling with how to live and love and how to use language to describe and make sense of their living. One story details the beginning of a relationship; another a different relationship’s end. They take place at literary festivals and in drab motel rooms, on highways and in living rooms. Every story is pulsing and clattering with aliveness. Every story is a beautiful and specific expression of Indigenous love. I’ve always admired the way Belcourt writes theory into his fiction. His characters take thinking seriously but they also belly laugh. They use theory and scholarship as a way to remake language and remake the world, but they wrestle just as meaningfully with the systems of oppression that affect their material realities. In these stories sex and poetry are equally important; the life of the mind and the life of the body are not separate. It makes for incredibly intimate reading. How do you make a poem? How do you fall in love in the wake of ongoing colonial violence? What does it mean to listen well—to your mother, your students, your lover, yourself? Does art matter? How do you rebuild your life after being released from prison? What about the prairies and the ghosts that live there, the Alberta wind, your childhood home? What are they telling you about how to live? These questions are not abstract, as they live in the bodies of Belcourt’s characters and in the language they use to make sense of the world.

From Disney's Snow White to Mickey 17

This story was originally published on Judd Legum’s Substack, Popular Information, to which you can subscribe here.

In December, Popular Information reported that Chinese crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun purchased $30 million in crypto tokens from World Liberty Financial (WLF), a new venture backed by President Donald Trump and his family. Sun’s purchase resulted in a cash windfall for Trump. On Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Sun sent a joint letter to a federal judge, asking for a stay of Sun’s case. Today, the judge granted the SEC’s request.

In March 2023, the SEC charged Sun and three of his companies, accusing him of marketing unregistered securities and “fraudulently manipulating the secondary market” for a crypto token. The SEC accused Sun of wash trading, which involves buying and selling a token quickly to fraudulently manufacture artificial interest. Sun was also charged with paying celebrities, including Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, and Soulja Boy, for endorsing his crypto “without disclosing their compensation,” which violates federal law.

A few weeks after Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Sun publicly announced that he had become WLF’s largest investor, buying $30 million of its tokens. Sun added that his company, TRON, was “committed to making America great again.”