Welcome to a surprise weekday send of Well Sourced. This newsletter comes with some exciting news: today marks the launch of a new limited-run podcast I’ve written and produced, Liberating Lit.

Liberating Lit will run for 11 episodes each Tuesday, beginning today and continuing through mid-November. It will then take a break and resume for another 10-episode series in late winter 2027.

It has been five very long years for literary advocacy. Anyone who has spent any time in the book censorship space knows this, whether they’ve been engaged for five months or since the beginning of this meteoric rise in attacks on books, libraries, and public education. I know I’ve been struggling to find and sustain hope and energy for this work. Some days, I don’t want to think about books, reading, or libraries at all, despite how passionate I am about defending and supporting them. In many ways, getting out of the country for a week in late spring–which happened because I was going to talk about American book censorship in Germany, so it was intricately tied anyway–reminded me how important it was to refill the well.

But in the weeks before I went to Muenster, Germany, and then to Iceland–my very first trips overseas and solo to boot–I participated in a six-week advocacy institute held by the Unite to Read Project (URP). I’ve been a fellow with URP this year, and the institute was meant to be an opportunity to connect with other literary advocates. The discussions and workshops were so helpful for me in thinking about sustainably continuing this work, and physically getting away only added to it. I was lucky to spend my time in Muenster with a fellow advocate, and some of our conversations were among the most helpful and meaningful I’d had in a long time.

The URP fellowship is an opportunity to spend a year working on a project related to literary advocacy. I’d gone in with a plan to do a big project on quiet/soft/silent/inside censorship, but through the institute, I realized the scope of that project would be far more than I have the capacity for.* Instead, two themes emerged over those six weeks I couldn’t stop thinking about. The first was the importance of advocating for advocates. The second was the need to tell our own stories with our own voices because if we don’t, someone else will do it for us.

That was the moment I realized that these last five years connected me with some incredible literary advocates, thanks to my own work. Literary Activism at Book Riot has served as a five-year archive of this moment. The work I’ve done here at Well Sourced, as well as through numerous workshops, speaking opportunities, and more, has made me realize that the more we talk about what advocacy looks like–what it can look like–the more we leave insights, tools, and opportunities for those seeking them out now or those who may be seeking them out in the future.

What would it look like, I wondered, to talk with those who are doing the work right now about doing the work?

That was the birth of Liberating Lit.

Each episode in the series speaks with an individual who has been a literary champion in this era of unrelenting censorship. Some of the guests have been doing this work for decades, while others are new and trying it out. The people who agreed to talk with me include very familiar names whose work has been seen and shared at the national and international levels. Other guests are those whose work happens right in their own backyard, whose names and stories may not be well-known at all.

The format of the podcast allows for asking shared questions across all guests, as well as diving into the specific work or experiences they’ve had. What is it like to be a public library board member and transgender at a time of intense scrutiny of both? How does a high school student navigate learning that they’re barred from using their school library, even if they’re literally sitting in a room beside the shelves? Where and how does That Librarian protect her mental health?

Recording each episode of this show did what I hope it does for listeners: it made me remember my why, and it also provided me the permission slip I didn’t know that I needed to slow down, take breaks, and know that it’s okay to acknowledge how hard and exhausting literary advocacy can be.

The series launches with a little bit of my own personal history with censorship, much of which I shared on a stage with Illinois English teachers last year. I was so scared to give that talk because, despite how comfortable I am giving talks in front of audiences of any size, I rarely talk about myself personally. I did at that event, and it reminded me how much people really do connect with you, your voice, and your experiences. Several of those educators came up to me after to thank me, and several more shared photos or anecdotes about Laurie Halse Anderson and/or Speak–something that will make much more sense after listening to this episode of the show.

I hope this show rekindles your spark or helps you find where and how you can be part of the movement for the freedom to read. These guests are phenomenal, and their insights are an embarrassment of riches. Truly.

Below, you’ll find the official press release I’ve put together about Liberating Lit for the sake of archiving it. Big thanks go out to Ashley Hope Perez and Alyssa Chrisman for the URP institute. Thanks are also due to Jen Zink, who edited the show, and to each of the 10 incredible guests I got to spend time with. Thank you to Emily Drabinski for our conversations in Muenster that helped clarify the show's focus, and to Tasslyn Magnusson for early brainstorming on the power of telling our advocacy origin stories. You’ll get to hear from both of them this season.

The first episode is available now wherever you listen to your podcasts, as well as on the show’s website, Liberating Lit. Note that it may take anywhere from hours to days for the first episode to show up in the larger pod catchers.

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The Liberating Lit Podcast Aims to Inspire, Rekindle Literary Advocacy Amid Continued and Ongoing Book Censorship

Award-winning author, editor, and anti-censorship champion Kelly Jensen has launched a new limited-run podcast spotlighting the work of literary advocates. Liberating Lit begins its weekly cadence on Tuesday, September 8, introducing listeners to an advocate in each episode whose work has had an impact. Advocates range from national leaders in intellectual freedom, as well as local-level advocates making an impact in their communities as library trustees, teen documentarians, and more. 

Liberating Lit emerged from the Unite to Read Project, inspired by Jensen’s own experiences in community and coalition building around the right to read. 

“Literary advocacy, especially in this moment, is hard work. Finding people who challenge you and inspire you is key to both getting started and continuing forward when things get touch,” said Jensen. “The idea for a podcast that introduces or expands someone’s community felt not only welcomed, but necessary, as we prepare to enter our sixth year of coordinated attacks on intellectual freedom.”

The podcast will run for two seasons. The first lands this fall, with the second season launching in early 2027. Each season features 10 guests, each sharing what sparked their passion for advocacy, how they keep their cups filled, and advice for both those who are looking to get involved in literary advocacy and those who need to find their spark again. 

Among the first season’s lineup are Dr. Emily Knox, Dustin Pace (Nontoxic Masculinity), Amanda Jones, and Marley Dias. Other guests include an array of familiar names, as well as voices that will be new to those tuning in. 

“I hope Liberating Lit is the kind of podcast that people listen to and find themselves fired up and challenged by,” Jensen said. “The more people realize how much of an impact they can make in advocating for diverse literature and in speaking up about what we lose as books are removed from school and public library shelves, the better off we’ll all be. This has been a long decade, full of unrelenting book censorship and attacks on our public institutions of democracy. By centering the stories and insights of people who’ve been doing this work–whether for months or for decades–it’s my hope that others will realize how much they can do to impact change, too.”

The independently produced, advertisement free show is available wherever you listen to podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. Show notes, transcripts, and other information for each episode will live at the Liberating Lit website, liberatinglit.com. 

Jensen’s podcast is a natural progression of her own advocacy work. She’s been a leader on the topic of book censorship for well over a decade, both at Book Riot and in her own work through STACKED, Well Sourced, and other outlets. She’s twice earned Commendation from the American Association of School Librarians, as well as been named a Person of the Year by Publishers Weekly and a Chicagoan of the Year by the Chicago Tribune. In 2015, she was named one of the 15 in 15 by the National Coalition Against Censorship for her collaboration with a South Carolina librarian to provide teens with their own copies of a locally-banned title.  

“My work for the Literary Activism newsletter at Book Riot and my own newsletter, Well Sourced, is ultimately about developing an archive of our current censorship moment,” said Jensen. “I see Liberating Lit as a way to document and share the voices and perspectives of the people who are making a tremendous impact right now in the literary world when it comes to protecting the right to read.”

Since 2021, Jensen has given numerous talks and workshops about book censorship to libraries, state library associations, high school writer conferences, and more. She was one of three Americans invited to speak on the topic in Muenster, Germany, at the Kinship in American Studies 2026 Conference. Prior to her work as an editor at Book Riot, she worked in several public libraries in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. She earned her master’s in information studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. 

“Every recording was an opportunity for me to learn more and for me to think about how I can be a better and more effective champion for literature. I think listeners will be as surprised and delighted as I was with the depth of insight, the encouraging stories, and even the challenges faced by those doing the work of literary liberation,” she added. 

Notes:

*If you read this far, then I’ll say that the quiet/soft/internal censorship project hasn’t disappeared. I’ve narrowed the focus and am utilizing the framework elsewhere.