Amy Lloyd

Searched my photos for selfies. It threw up a screenshot id taken of Gladys…

Also though, also, also - I just don’t see this problem in my context. Manga is HUGE. Graphic novels are HUGE. We are discounting divergent reading and doing boys a disservice. Plus ACCESS! Boys like manga but if they can’t get there hands on it they can’t read it.

Diversify the workforce please. This is the one area where hiring a man would count as a diversity hire - yes indeed, I am a part of the problem.

Right? If I go to the cinema or theatre and it’s GREAT and there are kids in the audience I get really choked - go make something amazing little humans!

Oh my goodness this is WILD at the moment! Also running red lights - central London is a stressful mess.

Joan Aiken celebrates her debt to a fantastic forerunner, the much loved E.Nesbit... Happy Birthday...🪶🪶
Buy it here and support the Nesbit Society:
www.edithnesbit.co.uk/society-publ...

You ARE a decent person!

Awesome!

Wholesome.

I don’t think Nigel makes the plans. That’s us. We do that.

Made me snort laugh. Thank you for sharing this absolute wonder.

I’m Captain Ahab and I Say We Must Never Transition Away from a Whale-Based Energy Industry When I heard that the globalist oligarchs and fat cats in the Washington marshland were conspiring to invest in alternative, non-whale-based energy...

"Whale blubber, whalebone, and whale ambergris are all essential products that could never, ever be replaced by more humane or sustainable alternatives. What sort of backward, savage land would we be without a steady supply of hundred-ton whale carcasses?"

I witness things like this all the time - it totally doesn’t square with the handwringing and lamenting ‘oh the children! We simply must make them watch adolescence’

Excellent news!

Reading it right now!

Well done for doing all the right things - it’s hard! And as for apologising for not getting back to people - well that’s just silly. Also there’s a tendency to think once you’re ’on your journey’ the story ends - you are hereby ‘granted permission’ to meltdown publicly whenever needed

I use this and Whale of a Time CONSTANTLY! The kids shout out their birthday and I read the poem and we try and work out of it bears any relation to who they are - easily one of the most popular library sessions I do and takes zero prep so thank you!

Be clear that is affecting your ability to function. If you happen to be feeling kind of OK tomorrow, still be clear how bad you have been. If medication feels right ask for it explicitly and clearly and as many times as you need to.

Also you don’t have to right now. Sounds like you’re going through a lot, so your goal can be ‘I will get through the day’ and then later it can be ‘I will get through the day and get x done’ and then ‘I will solve a problem this week’ - you don’t have to magically solve everything at once.

I use them at secondary - if I ever get push back I describe them as illustrated poems.

If ever a publisher is willing to get involved with a school on this - drop me a line! I’m working with several schools in Tower Hamlets and very up for having this conversation and involving students! (Primary and secondary).

The classic trajectory in a school for me:

I come in and ask ‘who likes B v M?’.

A few or maybe no hands go up.

I buy a bunch, they go wild and start giving me grief because there’s not enough copies.

‘Who likes B v M?’

Every hand goes up.

B v M here standing in for a bunch of stuff

School Librarian Perspective:

Parents and teachers who don’t understand them or think they’re ’not good reading’ are a barrier - I still come across kids who haven’t heard of B v M. As soon as I introduce it they love it - so the market is way, way bigger than it seems.

Finally, try not to ‘live in it’ - right now it is impossible mud that you can’t escape, but there’s a whole bunch of stuff on the otherside - I find the word ‘nevertheless’ impossibly powerful. As in - right now I can’t get out of bed, nevertheless tomorrow I’ll go to my favourite bookshop.

Go easy on yourself, don’t try and skip bits, surrender to the process a little and indulge yourself in your favourite things occasionally. Know that if you’re feeling like ‘nothing matters’ that also affords great freedom. When it starts to be manageable know that you are basically a superhuman.

Hey - I can’t talk to therapy so much but sounds like you’re going through some stuff and that I CAN speak to. Coming out the other side is unpredictable and it takes a long time and you think you understand it and then it throws you a loop again, but it’s also sort of miraculous and amazing.

Cast of It with Pennywise looking confused at the back

Cast of It staring intently at the camera while Pennywise looks off distracted

The promotional photos for It (1990) make Pennywise seem like the least threatening thing in it.

Also my Loki readers also tend to go for Last Kids on Earth and Skullduggery. They are also obsessed with Dr Proctor but I don’t really ‘get’ that one somehow

My go tos are pretty obvious but I’ve experienced book rec blindness so gonna do it anyway - Tom Vaughan and Max Evans

Akram is epic!