Events
June 30 is the last day to submit games to ParserComp.
July 3 is the next SF / Bay Area IF Meetup.
New Releases
Overboard! is a new interactive detective story from inkle – in which you are definitely the culprit, and the only question is who is going to take the fall for your misdeeds. It’s available for iOS and on Steam.
If you prefer your stories in interactive audio form instead, you may be interested in Wanderword’s audio horror story Escape from 63rd and Wallace, set in 1890s Chicago. Playable on the Amazon Echo, it features two modes, story-focused and puzzle-focused.
Books
Narrative Mechanics is a book of articles on games and the making of meaning through mechanics.
Articles
Aaron Reed’s 50 Years of Text Games series continues to deliver extraordinary stories about the history of the medium. I found myself particularly enthralled and fascinated with his telling of the games written by St. Bride’s – a chapter in game history I’d not heard of before Aaron brought it to my attention.
Talks
The London IF Meetup heard from Destina Connor about characterisation and identity in JRPGs. A recording can be found here.
Jeremiah McCall recently spoke about teaching history through video games, and that talk can be found on YouTube.
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 
The link to Narrative Mechanics doesn’t work
Also you reference a link to the talk by Destina Connor, but I can’t seem to find it.
I love your link dumps, as they always are such a treasure trove of good curated content. I’d hate to miss out on two of them.