• If you’ve been alive in the writer’s blogging world, then you’ve probably heard about the huge circus around some literary agents saying it’s not okay to be gay after the apocalypse. Original article here. Except that the agents in question (who chose to out themselves) say that they never said that. I’m confused, and concerned, since my current WIP has gay characters after the sort-of apocalypse. But at least this whole debacle inspired Amanda Rudd to put up a great list of YA gay fiction, which I’m now determined to check out.
• EDIT: Lena Corazon gave me some great links in the comments: First up, a great overview on the YA gay debacle, and also a wonderful list of 10 fantasy novels that just so happen to have gay characters. Thanks Lena!

• Somewhat relatedly, this sparked an interesting conversation on Michael Offutt’s blog about the YA formula. While I’m not sure I agree on the specifics of the formula, I agree that there’s a formula – but is that necessarily a bad thing? Viewers, you decide!

• Tumbling around Tumblr, I found out about this interesting new feature on the Kindle “that will enable readers to highlight a particular passage of an e-book in order to ask its author a question about it”.

• Check out this list of 10 badass women from fantasy literature.

• If you ever watch a video on my blog, make it this one:

Sorry that the short list for this week was…well, short. Here’s an adorable monkey to make it up to you.

No, not THIS monkey

THIS monkey