Leanne (L. A.) Schwartz

Um, ICE just coldly shot an unarmed PRIEST in the head w a pepper ball when he (and everyone around him) clearly posed no threat.

For the crime of … complaining about government policy.

Core 1A speech.

With cameras rolling, they’re sniping priests for sport.

Greta in a frog hat and life jacket

Inflatable frog costume facing down ice agents

anti-fascist frogs of the week

Happy book birthday!!!!

My new book, Dealing With A Desperate Demon, is out today! Cheery curvy bookseller, grumpy curvy demon, dating lessons, a beauty and the beast style curse, lots of horniness. Perfect to curl up to for spooky season! You can grab it these places!

read.macmillan.com/lp/dealing-w...

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AABB Author Sign-Up Form Hello! We're Authors Against Book Bans, a group of authors who’ve come together to protect and promote the freedom to read on both the national and local levels. We’re creating a network of authors to...

It's banned books week and so I'm legally obligated to bully you, a person who has ever had their name on a book, into joining @authorsabb.bsky.social.

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

We fight the source of book bans with calls to action, partnership w everyone in the game, and offer training.

I’m still on semi-hiatus, and I’ll only be able to post a few things and reshare the big research-heavy posts I did last year, but everyone can do their small part to make a big impact. Fight for your freedom to read!

So this week and always, please support libraries, those librarians risking everything to stand up against book bans, and living marginalized authors.

The passive book banning we’re already seeing as promises for better support of diversity evaporate under the current administration (people! are not! trends!!) is scary as heck.

by a vanishingly small number of people who nevertheless have an outside impact on what books get carried in school and public libraries, and even bookstores and publishers.

The book ban crisis is a movement spearheaded by bigots targeting these already most vulnerable authors and their readers who most need books with this representation, and astroturfed across the country

(And you don’t even want to know which book I hid with My Kind of Trouble; my book-ban fighting librarian Preston would never feature a TERF’s book in any display😤)

My kind of trouble held up before a banned books display reading “have you read these banned books?” With to kill a mockingbird and Matilda.

What’s wrong with this picture? While I’m a longtime supporter of Banned Books Week, I’d love to see more displays in libraries and bookstores showcasing the actually most commonly banned books—BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and other marginalized books. Decades-old bestsellers aren’t truly in danger.

My calendar showing banned books week (plus a cat sticker)

I don’t have the same kind of time this year to prepare a week of posts, but reminder as Banned Books Week starts to support libraries, librarians standing up against book bans, and living marginalized authors! This week and always!

Cats AND libraries💯💯💯

Need resources for Banned Books Week? Check out our @la-cac.org resources curated by the fabulous Lynette Mejia! It includes this “The Attacks on Our Libraries” graphic and ways to help combat censorship. www.la-cac.org/resources

Alibi Brandi Carlile If you're good at telling lies You could be my alibi And I won't have to atone for my sins If you're good at telling lies You could be my alibi And I won't take the fall for where I've been You done some bad, bad things The kind that don't bare to mention Something inside you died

く Hold out Your Hand Brandi Carlile Hold out your hand Take hold of mine and then 'Round and 'round we go Don't you wanna dance? I'm a dying man From the moment we began Hold out your hand

I listened to these five thousand times drafting those liars and plant nerds. Lots of Italian music and then American folk—early on I was aiming for this whole theme of folk knowledge vs the academy which I think ended up in there if you squint

And I was born to love you I love you and you and you Oh, returning to myself is such a lonely thing to do Returning to myself is just returning me to you And that's the only thing I want to do

can’t wait to cry about Vita and Leo to this

Is there some freewheeling watcher Shooting marbles in the sky? Holding your years between their fingers Watching it burn till the fire dies Why is it heroic to untether? How is alone some holy grail? And if we really come and go unknown Couldn't I find myself in jail? Oh, keeper how I love you I love you and you and you And returning to myself is such a lonely thing to do But it's the only thing to do Is it evolving turning inward? Oh, what an easy way to be Only kneeling at the altar of The great and mighty me Let me break myself apart Instead and scatter to my birds Like a burial at sea To be the gospel without words Oh, my darlings how I love you I love you and you and you And returning to myself is such a lonely thing to do But it's the only thing to do There's no honor in the pilgrimage Until a soul returns To hold another's hand and then And only then it learns That life is like a stone Only skipping for a time Oh, it never really holds its own It'll never see the other side

this is like when I was cracking open my edit letter for TADS, which I wrote to a lot of Hozier, and Andrew said hold up here’s Francesca

Brandi thank you for writing this just in time for FiascoWIP edits

I made this joke when Trouble came out, but if I end up selling FiascoWIP and then PunchWIP, my YA books are really going to be like “harrowing, dark—now let’s do a silly one—okay back to the horrors”

history teacher in 50 years: So in September, that’s when the president signed an executive order criminalizing anti-fascism and saying all resistance would be crushed

student: oh so that’s when the whole country realized they were living under fascism

teacher: haha what? oh no lol not at all. no.

(that I’m not currently writing into another book about an autistic refusing to look away or repeat lies getting tortured by fascists)

I don’t even know what to say

Add a few Tylenol and you got yourself a proper food pyramid.

Holyyyy this was made just for me💕💕

Gonna put this on a sandwich board and wear it on the street while ringing a bell like a town crier:

“AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations,” he continued.”

Most of my students won’t be English majors but they can read for pleasure all their lives.

This is why we have independent reading time in class, and book talks/visit the library. Yes we analyze texts together but I want to give time to emphasize that reading is something where you can choose what you like and have fun!

On a grayscale background of a stack of books are the Banned Books Week Coalition, Unite Against Book Bans, and Let Freedom Read Day logos. Text reads: October 11, 2025. Banned Books Week. Oct. 5 - 11, 2025. UniteAgainstBookBans.org/let-freedom-read-day

#LetFreedomReadDay is in ONE WEEK! On 10/11, take at least ONE action to help defend books from censorship and speak up for those who make them available. Find resources/tools + actions you can take in just 5 mins: uniteagainstbookbans.org/let-freedom-read-day #BannedBooksWeek #UniteAgainstBookBans

Yessss🔥