Riot New Media

Disney+ Renews Loki for Second Season

On Wednesday’s season finale, Loki used its mid-credits scene to announce that the series would be back for another season. No additional details have been announced. The series just showed a title card with the news. Loki is the first of Disney+’s Marvel scripted series to be formally renewed for a new season. Marvel’s next Disney+ series will be What If…, an animated show that premieres on August 11th.

Henry Cavill Starring in Adaptation of The Rosie Project

Henry Cavill has signed on to star in the upcoming adaptation of the romantic comedy The Rosie Project, written by Graeme Simsion. Cavill will play a professor who’s having trouble finding love, and so he creates an elaborate questionnaire to find a wife. But when he meets a woman who doesn’t happen to fit any of the “requirements” on his questionnaire, he’s surprised to find she might just be the perfect woman for him anyway. Stephen Falk has signed on to direct the film from a script by Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber, and Matt Tolmach. Michael Costigan will produce. The Rosie Project is slated to start production early next year.

Hong Kong Book Fair Subject to Self-Censorship Due to National Security Law

At the annual Hong Kong book fair, attendees will notice a smaller selection of books on the shelves. Booksellers are generally avoiding titles that have been deemed politically sensitive, in an attempt to avoid violating a national security law imposed on the city in June 2020. “Every vendor will read through the books that they are bringing to the book fair to see if there is any content that might cause trouble,” said Jimmy Pang, president of local publishing company Subculture. Other publishers, however, are still displaying books about the 2014 protests and other politically sensitive topics. Raymond Yeung, a spokesman for publisher Hillway Culture Company, explained, “When we publish a book, we put a lot of effort into ensuring the content is legal. That‘s why we don’t think there’s a big problem and would still bring them. We hope this will be an encouragement to our fellow publishers, to show that there’s still some people publishing books like this.”

Demolishing Public Libraries from the Inside: Niles Public Library is a Warning

The people who sit on the Board of your local library can make all the difference. In suburban Chicago, the Niles-Maine Public Library is being destroyed from the inside by politically-conservative Board officials.

Hear LeVar Burton Read His Novel Aftermath for the First Time

In 1997, actor, director, writer, and book lover LeVar Burton wrote a speculative novel called Aftermath. Now, over twenty years later, Burton is doing something new with an older project: he’s turning it into an audiobook. And you can listen to a preview of the audiobook right now at Entertainment Weekly. When Burton originally released his novel, the book was set in the future, the year 2019. Now, with the year 2019 behind us, Burton looks back on his novel and says he was “astonished by similarities between” his “timeline and unfolding events.” How close does LeVar Burton’s cautionary tale about the future come to our current reality? You’ll have to listen to the book to find out!

Library Book Returned to Sheffield Cathedal 300 Years Overdue

We’ve all been late in returning our library books from time to time, but then there’s late late. Just ask the woman who returned a copy of William Stanley’s The Faith and Practice of a Church of England-Man to Sheffield Cathedral’s lending library—300 years overdue. The cathedral, which was built in 1430, once hosted members of King Henry VIII’s inner circle and survived not only a deadly flood that killed 200 people but several major wars. The book was returned via mail with a note from a woman in Wales who said that her recently deceased godmother asked that the book be returned on her behalf. Hey, better late than never.

Amazon Workers Protest Against Anti-LGBTQ Book Sales

TW: transphobia

Amazon workers are petitioning, protesting, and even quitting over the company’s decision to sell a book that frames transgender persons as mentally ill. There is an Amazon employee-led petition calling for the removal of the book Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters in which the author refers to a “trans epidemic” among young people identifying as transgender. At least two employees have quit over Amazon’s sales of this book. Selene Xenia, a software engineer who identifies as trans and had worked at Amazon for seven years, left the company in June after learning that Amazon was planning to continue carrying the title. Xenia said, “The book literally has [craze] in the title and considers being transgender a mental illness in many senses throughout the book.”

The conversations about what books should and should not be sold has sparked a heated censorship debate. For instance, Target discontinued the sale of Irreversible Damage after backlash from activists. However, they later started selling the book again after others cried out that they were denying the author’s right to free speech. Allegedly, Target has once again stopped carrying this book.

Your Guide to Instagram Poetry

Yes, Instagram poetry is “real” poetry. Here’s your guide to Insapoetry, from what makes it so appealing to what Instapoetry writers you should be reading.