@zfletcher.bsky.social
journalist, book reviewer (publishersweekly.com), bookseller, “librarian” (@thestorygraph.com), syracusian/seattleite fletcherzachary.weebly.com he/him
Two new pieces up in @seattletimes.com this week!
-I chatted with Shigeko Ito about her debut memoir and how writing is a way to untangle childhood trauma
-Rae Rose's 'The Sacred Stone Camp' tells the story of LaDonna BraveBull Allard organizing against the Dakota Access Pipeline
(links below)
wrote my first art book review for PW with BANKSY: PRINTS. this collection brings together the artist's screen prints, many of which first appeared on streets throughout the UK, and dives into the inspiration behind some of Banksy's most iconic works.
www.publishersweekly.com/9780500028582
WHEN CAESAR WAS KING goes deep into the life of Sid Caesar, a talented comedian who was an early television star and served as an inspiration for future generations of comics.
www.publishersweekly.com/9780805242553
Cover image of THE SUMMER BOOK, by Tove Jansson, Translated by Thomas Teal, Introduction by Kathryn Davis
AUGUST EVERY year, the bright Scandinavian summer nights fade away without anyones noticing. One evening in August you have an errand outdoors, and all of a sudden it's pitch-black. A great warm, dark silence surrounds the house. It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive. It has come to a standstill; nothing withers, and fall is not ready to begin. There are no stars yet, just darkness. The can of kerosene is brought up from the cellar and left in the hall, and the flashlight is hung up on its peg beside the door. Not right away, but little by little and incidentally, things begin to shift position in order to follow the progress of the seasons. Day by day, everything moves closer to the house. Sophias father takes in the tent and the water pump. He removes the buoy and attaches the cable to a cork float. The boat is pulled ashore on a cradle, and the dory is hung upside down behind the woodyard. And so fall begins. A few days later, they dig the potatoes and roll the water barrel up against the wall of the house. Buckets and garden tools move in toward the house, ornamental pots disappear, Grandmother's parasol and 164 nor tensitory and attractine Ts tic cuinguisher and the ane stored, appear on the veranda. And ar t want kandrape is tansformed. liked th Gandmother had always logus, mast of all, perhaps, maid a place for everything and e Now was the time for the traces of h and, as far as possible, for the islan aal condition. The exhausted Alo with banks of seaweed. The lon and rinsing. All the flowers still or yellow, strong patches of co the woods were a few enorm somed and lived for one day i Grandmothe's legs ached to the rain, and she could much as she wanted to. Bu every day just before dark, picked up everything tha She gathered nails and bi pieces of lumber covere bottle top. She went where everything bur burn, and all the time and deaner, and mor shaking us off, she th Almost.
A (digitally) highlighted passage that reads: “A person can find anything if he takes the time, that is, if he can afford to look. And while he's looking, he's free, and he finds things he never expected.” (p.71)
31.08.2025 18:10 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0finally got around to reading Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book. and I’ve somehow managed to finish it on the last day of August, and on the final day in our home before moving out. what a gem!
31.08.2025 18:10 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
discovered this piece from @kwistent.bsky.social’s recent (and incredible) post about the true value of book reviews and why they (and books) are more than just ads and products.
open.substack.com/pub/american...
“The heart of the review is emotion, the stirrings of the soul, receptiveness to the life-changing power of art…” @newyorker.com
www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
Federal agents showed up northeast of Lake Cushman to check identification of crew members fighting Washington's largest active wildfire.
28.08.2025 02:25 — 👍 90 🔁 67 💬 13 📌 31
A dot plot titled '"nthropomorphized Animals in Popular Children's Books (*Animals That Appear in 10+ Books)" showing the proportion of animals depicted with gendered pronouns. Animals toward the left side are more often represented as male (he/him), and those toward the right are more often represented as female (she/her). Birds, ducks, and cats lean female. Bears, monkeys, dogs, elephants, foxes, wolves, and frogs lean male. Each animal is represented by a colorful, illustrated face.
Screenshot of Publishers Weekly article titled "The Sneaky Gender Bias in Picture Books: Animal Characters" that includes photo of the author, a woman with brown hair and glasses. Text reads: "Melanie Walsh is an assistant professor in the Information School and an adjunct assistant professor in the English department at the University of Washington. She uses data to analyze contemporary culture, especially literature and publishing. She is currently at work on a book, When Postwar American Fiction Went Viral: Protest, Profit, and Popular Readers in the 21st Century, which follows the surprising social media afterlives of five iconic American authors. Here she shares her investigations into the subtle gender imbalance often at play in picture books featuring animal characters. I recently published a data analysis with The Pudding, a digital publication known for data-driven storytelling, about animal characters in picture books. We read approximately 300 popular English-language picture books from the past 70+ years and noted the gender of any anthropomorphized animal character that was important to the story. We found that male animal characters were twice as common as female characters across all the books. Some strong animal stereotypes also emerged: frogs and dogs were boys; birds and cats were girls. Even more surprising, according to our data: this disparity is not obviously improving, even over the last 25 years."
For PW, I wrote about the persistent gender gap in fictional animal characters—a pattern I noticed while analyzing 100s of picture books with @puddingviz.bsky.social.
It's a more interesting (and pervasive) problem than I first thought.
#kidlit #booksky
🔗: www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
A stack of books that includes: There Are Reasons for This, by Nini Berndt; Backhanded Compliments by Katie Chandler; Colored Television by Danzy Senna; and Love Is A War Song by Danica Nava.
the fam saw my @seattletimes.com beach reads piece and took notes for our trip 😍 from the library to boot!!!
19.08.2025 00:25 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
“What are music or books if not ways / to trap us in rumors? The freedom of fine / cages!”
yalereview.org/article/rita...
In LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA: THE EDUCATION OF AN ARTIST, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner gives the story-behind-the-story of Miranda’s rise to fame. This reads as an affectionate biography of Miranda’s upbringing and explores how his art (Hamilton, Moana etc.) came to life.
www.publishersweekly.com/9781668014707
next piece is up for @seattletimes.com — it’s all about Seahawks football and why the Legion of Boom era is so special!
www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...
“The Franchise: Seattle Seahawks: A Curated History of the Legion of Boom Era,” by Seattle writer Michael-Shawn Dugar, collects stories from the team's LOB days.
06.08.2025 20:35 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
new @seattletimes.com piece up!
I chatted with Peter Ames Carlin about his new book on Springsteen and the making of “Born to Run.” you could listen to the album…or read the book (out from @doubledaybooks.bsky.social 8/5)!
www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...
EVERY DAY IS SUNDAY goes behind the NFL machine and looks at how it became so profitable -- in both an economic and cultural sense. sundays have never been the same, and Ken Belson shows us why.
www.publishersweekly.com/9781538772553
here's my convo with the great Jeff Chang about the book! ->
www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
Ken Jennings spoke with us to discuss writing over 1000 Kennections puzzles, interacting with the community of solvers and growing up in a games household.
24.07.2025 23:03 — 👍 0 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
next up for @seattletimes.com: Ken Jennings! I spoke to the one and only Jeopardy host/champion about his daily puzzle diet and how it feels to run a puzzle named after yourself (to be clear: Ken told me he doesn't like the name 'Kennections'). Happy puzzling!!
www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...
First Water Mirror Echo review is in!
“Chang persuasively argues that Lee’s presence on screen helped shape the idea of what it means to be Asian in America. This definitive account cements Chang as a preeminent chronicler of Asian American history.”
On sale 9/23. Preorder now! watermirrorecho.net
WATER MIRROR ECHO by Jeff Chang is a stunning biography of Bruce Lee as a martial artist, actor, teacher, dancer and so much more. The book also weaves Lee's story with that of Asian American identity in the US. I can't stop talking about this one.
www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-358-72...
Frank Leahy might be the most successful college football coach you've never heard of -- which is sure to change after reading AMERICAN COACH by Ivan Maisel. This biography captures the complexities of his life on and off the football field.
www.publishersweekly.com/9780306835780
Hot take alert: "I think the books that people read on light rails aren't actually what they're reading." Elliott Bay Book Company's Sofia Brekkan calls y'all out on today's episode of Meet Me Here from @kuow.org 👀
16.07.2025 17:57 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0we stand by our original statement ☝️😌
14.07.2025 18:36 — 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
this is one of my crowning achievements thank you @riverheadbooks.bsky.social
(also, read the new Patricia Lockwood this September it will make your brain hurt in the best ways!!)
My latest piece for @seattletimes.com is up today! This time, I wrote about some books to take to the beach (woohoo paperbacks!) and escape from whatever it is we're trying to escape from these days. Happy summer reading!
www.seattletimes.com/entertainmen...
The WNBA is adding three new teams: Cleveland will join in 2028, Detroit begins play in 2029 and Philadelphia will be added to the roster in 2030. This will bring the league to a record 18 teams. https://n.pr/44h8HMo
30.06.2025 16:37 — 👍 287 🔁 29 💬 8 📌 6
The cover of a new book called “Clint” by Shawn Levy. A sleeve obscures the title of the book just enough to make it look like the book is not titled “Clint” but “C*nt.”
picked up a copy of this new Clint Eastwood book and did a double take 🤯🤯
30.06.2025 14:45 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
