For some reason, when I think of newcomers to Book Expo America, I flash back to the end of Pretty Woman. Not that I’m a big fan — I don’t feel strongly one way or the other about Julia Roberts’ streetwise Cinderella — but the film’s last line sums up all the hopes and fears that can get shoehorned into the BEA experience.

So here goes, updated for relevance:

“Welcome to Book Expo America! What’s your dream? Everybody comes here; this is BEA, land of dreams. Some dreams come true, some don’t; but keep on dreaming.”

As an author, I know something about those dreams. After all, BEA is the big kahuna of American publishing — thousands of authors, editors, and publicity people under one gigantic roof for one event-packed weekend. These past few years BEA has taken place in New York City which, as the center for the publishing industry, spins more than a few dreams of its own.

So, as a book blogger, what do you hope to get out of this BEA dream? That’s one question I can’t answer for you — everyone has different expectations. But, as a long-time New York City resident and Book Expo attendee, I can offer you some tips for making your trip better and, well, dreamier.

1. Take the bus. The Javits Center is not “real” New York City. Before you panic, let me amend this to say, yes, it is in Manhattan. But the Javits is located all the way on the West Side, far from most attractions, hotels, shopping and restaurants (unless you happen to have a special fondness for the Hudson River). If you’re like most BEA attendees, you won’t have a chauffeur at your call. And crosstown distances in Manhattan are longer than you think — it’s a far longer walk to the Javits from the Eighth Avenue subway than you’d expect.

Fortunately, the M34 bus goes crosstown along 34th Street, which is the major street nearest the Javits. Take it. Which brings me to my next tip….

2. Save your feet. The floor on the Javits is very hard on the feet — must be all that  concrete. Thankfully, some publishers will spring for extra padding under their carpeting, but you can’t count on this. Plus the conference is spread out over several display floors that can seem larger than some European principalities.

In other words, bring the comfy shoes; save the Jimmy Choos.

3. The MTA is your friend. Yes, big city mass transit can be intimidating. Yes, you can take a cab. But the line for them outside the Javits is often long. Who wants to wait on line for an hour after being on your feet all day? Be prepared and do what the New Yorkers do: Take the A (or Q or B) train. Or the bus, for that matter. Especially during the day, you’ll ofte get to your destination faster.

Download maps and other information at: http://www.mta.info/nyct/maps/

Have an iPhone? I like the KickMap app, which offers localized mass transit info.

4. Get automated. To take the subway or a bus, you’ll need a MetroCard. You can buy them at any subway station from a machine. These machines are easy to use and accept cash and cards (but no coins, please). Single tickets are $2.25. Buy in bulk — you get a 15% bonus on purchase of $8 or more. Plus you’ll save precious time.

5. Take advantage. Make no mistake, BEA is amazing — all those publishers, people and authors joined together in one big industry kumbaya love fest. This makes it all too easy to get trapped within the Javits Center universe. But, as a New York City resident, I would be tremendously sad if you didn’t take advantage of our fair city’s other offerings.

Here are a few suggestions for things to do, especially if you’re on a budget:

~ Like performances and shows? Get same day steeply discounted tickets at the Times Square TKTS booth (www.tdf.org), located at Broadway and 47th Street. Offerings generally include Broadway shows, dance performances, Off-Broadway and much more.

~ New York City is famous for its restaurants. If you’re yearning for the Michelin star experience, it’s usually much cheaper to enjoy lunch than dinner. You’ll get the same food, same environment, but a less anxiety-inducing check.

~ To get to know a city, here’s no substitute for café society. Avoid the Starbucks rut — some of New York’s best coffee houses are down town in the Village. Have a cappuccino at Café Dante or Café Reggio. While you’re in the area, check out the justly famous Strand Books where new books mingle with used, often at astonishing prices. Or take in an art house film at the Angelica or Film Forum.

6. Ultimately, BEA is about the people. There’s no substitute for meeting other publishing professionals face-to-face; for honing relationships through real-time conversation instead of e-mail or tweets. Keep your BEA dream in mind. Whether it be meeting authors, getting an advance peek at new books, or just getting an intoxicating dose of the publishing industry, it can all happen here.

—————–

Kris Waldherr is the author of DOOMED QUEENS (Broadway Books/Doubleday) and numerous other books. She also runs a studio-gallery devoted to book arts in Brooklyn, NY. Learn more at KrisWaldherr.com.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

______________________________________

I was always fascinated by the image of the green, crumpled elephant in Babar. Green and crumbled because,  “Alas, that very day, the King of the elephants had eaten a bad mushroom. It poisoned him and he became ill, so ill that he died. This was a great calamity.”

And that was the end of the issue. On to naming the new King who was, of course, Babar. The matter-of-fact way in which it was all dealt with was quite gratifying.

In thinking about some of my favorite picture books, I realized that many of them have that same matter-of-fact attitude toward misfortune. I mean where are Eloise’s parents? When I read Eloise to my daughters, the question never came up. Why should it when Eloise is living her life with such aplomb?

Who didn’t want to her appendix out after reading Madeline? Or, if not that, at least a broken arm and a big dramatic cast to show off at school?

Bad things happen. As a child, I found it scary, intriguing—and encouraging—when bad things happened in books. Encouraging because I felt trusted with grown-up information; yet even more encouraging was the fact that bad things happened, but I could move on. I couldn’t have put it in words, but the message was misfortune didn’t mean despair.

Now, as a grown-up writer of picture books, I wonder if we’ve gone too far in stripping “bad things” from our mainstream picture books?

In my picture book “Just a Minute” I couldn’t get away with Mom leaving 8-year-old Johnny in the big, busy ground floor of a department store under the watchful eye of “Mabel, selling socks.” The sales clerk Mabel, became Auntie Mabel, for everyone’s comfort.

Banished was even the hint of a possibility of something bad happening—which we won’t mention, because it is so horribly bad, but we all know is the barest chance our child might get kidnapped. Rather than spare my child the thought of being left to wait by themselves with Mabel selling socks (and spare myself the thought of what might happen!) I’d suggest reading “The Ransom of Red Chief” by O. Henry.

A funny, ridiculous story like this of a kidnapping gone very badly awry is encouraging in the most basic way—and that, rather than a diet of constant, unspoken fear seems much better nourishment for ourselves and our children.

In another picture book of mine, “A Christmas Crocodile,” [Maw Books review] a crocodile gets delivered to the wrong address on Christmas Eve (as if there’s a right address to deliver a crocodile on Christmas Eve…). The crocodile eats up the family’s big, elaborate Christmas. And for a while there was some discussion with the publisher of ending the book with an illustration of the family redecorating a new tree.

But I had very deliberately not gone there in my ending. The family had the best Christmas ever, but all was not restored. Sometimes something good is lost (the crocodile ate all the presents, too) but it’s fine. And David Small, the illustrator, agreed. (Little did I know at the time, what David knew about things not being restored. If you haven’t read his graphic memoir “Stitches” I’d recommend it.)

Could a story like “Sylvester’s Magic Pebble” by William Steig get published today? Sylvester turns into a rock. Our main character, a child, has disappeared, apparently died and his parents are left in mourning! Some kids’ story!

Everyone is sad, but even so, Sylvester tries to get used to being a rock. Fall comes, winter passes and in the spring, Sylvester’s parents come to the rock for a picnic. Sylvester’s father says, “Let us try to live again and be happy even though Sylvester, our angel is no longer with us.”

Sadness is acknowledged, but the story isn’t sad. Not only because the reader knows that Sylvester isn’t dead, but because of the straightforward march of the story. The voice seems to say, bad things happen. Winter comes to us all, but even so winter always turns to spring. It’s just a matter of fact.

Thank you so much Bonny Becker for being with us today courtesy of Provato Marketing.  Visit Bonny at her website as well as the Maw Books reviews and interview found at the links at beginning of article.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

For me, writing is something that I’ve explored throughout my life, but not in a passionate and serious way. At times, poems and essays just spilled forth from me without my intellectual purpose or thought process saying, “Ok, I am going to write now.”

My first two books, “The Sudan Project: Rebuilding with the People of Darfur” and “Benny The Baffled Behemoth” started as an idea that just poured forth and compelled me to work and shape them into what I saw in my mind that they could be.

There are additional books on the way that were the result of the same process: passion, drive, and purpose compelling the process of bringing forth a new work.

What I find is that my passion to make a difference often provides the drive I need to put everything else aside to tell the story before me, the story then offers me a specific purpose to promote that which I am passionate about.

In the case of both books mentioned, my purpose was to educate kids about an idea or circumstance and then to share some of the profit with an organization that can benefit from additional resources to make a literal difference for children in the world.

My two charities that I am supporting currently through the books are The Sudan Project (www.thesudanproject.org) and Heart For Africa (www.heartforafrica.org).

The Sudan Project is providing clean water, child protection services/education, and agricultural development guidance to the people of Darfur as they attempt to move on and resettle in less war torn areas of Southern Darfur.

Heart For Africa works with children in multiple countries as they provide HOPE: hunger services, orphan services, poverty services, and educational services. In fact, Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in Africa at close to 42%. Heart For Africa is building a self-sustaining community for orphans that will provide for these hundreds of thousands of orphaned children. It is estimated that at the current death rate there will be few adults in the country in the next two decades. The life expectancy in Swaziland is 29 years old.

Since 2008, I’ve been able to give back almost $1000 from the sales of these two books. It is a drop in the bucket compared to the need, but it was more than I had to give before writing these books!

I am excited to say I have a new book on the way, titled “Night the Jallys Roam”, that is part fiction story and part non-fiction information about the benefits of micro-lending business development programs in Jamaica with ACE (www.acexperience.org). I get to travel to Jamaica in November as we finish the final development of the project and prepare it for publication in January 2010.

I challenge all writers. Write what you are passionate about. Follow your drive in your writing. Fill your books with purpose.

Melissa Leembruggen is the author of The Sudan Project and Benny the Baffled Behumeth.  She serves as the president of Clay Bridges Communications and can also be found on Twitter @ClayBridges.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

I’m thrilled that Amy from My Friend Amy asked me to guest post not only about the friendships we create through blogging but also about the wonderful community that we have here in Utah.  Go check it out at the Book Blogger Appreciation Week blog.  I must admit that I have no shame in promoting the awesome book bloggers we have here.  There are more than 30 of us now.  Not kidding.  Go forth, read the post, comment, and visit them!

(P.S.  If  you are a Utah blogger – I would highly recommend promoting the post!)

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

People are sometimes surprised when they come to my house.  I’ve got two boys, a husband, and a very charming dog, and there are pictures of them around if you look hard enough to find them.  But mostly, the frames in my house contain quotes from my favorite books, parts of poems I’ve fallen in love with, and even single words that seem essential.  I hang them on walls or stack them two or three deep against things.  I move them from room to room, wall to wall.  Every so often, when I come across a new line or paragraph in a book I’m reading, or a poem that touches me, I’ll type it up on my computer and insert it into a new frame.  I usually keep it on my desk at first, and then as time goes by, and I’ve read it enough that I can let it go; I’ll find a place for it.  I’ve been doing this for over twenty years now, way before I ever started my serious writing.

Inside those frames are the words and phrases that inspire me every day, the things I was trying to write but someone else beat me to it.

Thank you Kathryn!  Here is your opportunity to read more of Kathryn’s work by entering to win a signed copy of The Year the Swallows Came Early.  To enter, simply leave a comment on this post and share one of your favorite quotes.  Something, like Kathryn, you wish you had written.  Giveaway is open internationally and will close on August 17th.  Good luck!

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Have you ever wished you could remember just how to do a certain finger play…maybe This Old Man?  Or wanted to have an online read-along story for you and your children to enjoy?

Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) has a free educational website, in English and Spanish, to help parents and caregivers develop the language skills of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. RIF’s Leading to Reading (Semillitas de aprendizaje) is a fun and interactive online resource featuring stories, games, music, and other engaging activities for adults to experience together with young children. Both sites are accessible at www.rif.org.

Since language develops far more rapidly during the first five years of life than any other time, it is important that parents read and interact with their young children as often as possible. This site encourages children to discover the joy of reading at an early age.

The RIF Leading to Reading site is organized into three easy-to-navigate sections:  babies and toddlers (ages birth-2), preschoolers (ages 3-5), and grown-ups. Motivational mascots, Riffy and Rita, guide users throughout the site with “click” and “hear” navigation. Other features of the site include:

• A wide selection of animated and audio children’s stories;
• Finger play videos such as Itsy Bitsy Spider and I’m a Little Teapot;
• Interactive videos introducing children to age-appropriate subjects such as animals, art, and geography;
• Nursery rhymes and lullabies such as All Around the Mulberry Bush and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star;
• Online coloring and doodling;
• Sing-along songbook;
• Grown-ups section featuring expert Q&A, a RIF Leading to Reading video with literacy tips and activities, book search, and parent and caregiver journals.

The RIF Leading to Reading website is compliant with all Internet safety guidelines and is advertising free.

What’s happening at RIF?

Check out my blog, Rasco From RIF.

Carol Hampton Rasco is President and CEO of Reading Is Fundamental, Inc. and in addition to her blog may be reached at Toll free: 877.RIF.READ and Twitter as @rascofromrif.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Sometimes our greatest parenting moments are the ones that we take for granted the most. Reading to or with our child is one of these. It is a wonderful opportunity for closeness and teaching. It is often the one time in the whole crazy day of parenting that we can take a breath and enjoy the gift of our child.

A parent’s embrace is like food for a child’s soul. Reading books allows for this in the most natural way and many times parents and children look forward to reading together for this experience alone. I know I do!

Reading a book also presents parents with the most amazing opportunities for parenting – especially where feelings are concerned.

While we are beginning to understand the importance of teaching our children how to manage their feelings, in the midst of feeding, dressing, homework, and activities, we often forget to focus on this.

Increasing our children’s feeling vocabulary, accepting their feelings (positive and negative), exploring these emotions and helping them learn how to manage them are the ingredients for developing their emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, which is strongly linked to future success and happiness, is something more and more parents are paying attention to.

The book you or your child chooses to read is far less important than where the reading takes you. My experience is that children are drawn to books that explore feelings in some way. Let the book be the platform for discussion. Children don’t need much encouragement. Given half a chance, they will happily discuss how the book makes them feel or how the character in the book feels.

As a parent you can expand on their comments with your own. Here are some ideas:

• Give your children time to explore their feelings at their own pace and come to their own conclusions.
• Restate what they say, but put in some more feeling words.
• Provide some “what if” scenarios such as “What if the mommy had said…?” or “What if that was you, how would you have felt?”
• Share your own stories. Children love to hear real stories, especially things that happened to you or how you felt as a child. It’s sometimes fun to replace reading a book altogether and relate one of your childhood stories instead.
• Share your feelings. Children learn best by example. Parents are their best models and hold the greatest power for teaching.
• Relax and enjoy! Teaching anything in a warm and loving environment always gets the best results.

While any book that speaks to your child is great, I’d like to suggest a few based on what my kids have enjoyed:

• Boom… Boom… Boom…: A Story to Raise Your Child’s Emotional Intelligence by Marsha Jacobson.  This book is a wonderful story about a little girl facing her fears. This fun-to-read story uses the power of storytelling to teach by example. A young girl’s adventure with her mother paints a picture of what emotional intelligence should look like. Children absorb the subtle, yet powerful messages and teachings with ease.
• Thomas’s Snowsuit by Robert N. Munsch (Annick Press, 1985) – My husband and I immigrated to Canada in 1987 with our two toddlers. The whole snowsuit experience was new and not welcome at all! This book got us through. We, along with our kids, felt comforted to know that we weren’t alone in our feelings.
• The Franklin series focuses on many different situations that children can relate to. Parents can really get stuck into the feelings that are evoked by these stories.
• The Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Park has been some of my daughter’s favourite books to read. I think it’s because Junie B. is a real little girl who doesn’t always do or say the right thing. It is a great series for teaching the value of learning from our mistakes.

Visit Marsha Jacobson at her website and follow on Twitter.  Are there any other books that you would add to that list?

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Oh, the gods are laughing at us now. But more on this in a moment.

In an exchange with Natasha, she asked if I would speak about judging literary contests. Glad to do so, as this is a very interesting area. But, what a proverbial can of worms!

Judging literary contests is actually one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Akin to editing, it is always delicate and difficult to pass judgment upon another author’s hard-wrought works. Judging is difficult on several fronts. First, from my side, there is the volume of submissions to deal with — sometimes manageable and sometimes a complete tsunami. Depends on the rules of the contest and nature of the publication/organization behind it. I learned early on that if a contest does not have strict guidelines, it spins out of control, falls apart, and becomes buried beneath an ever-shifting slurry of stories.

Secondly, there is the nature of the publication. After years of various types of editing and judging, I much prefer the more established book contests rather than wide-open Internet lists, websites, or writing contests which are open forums or “dumps” of endless posts and submissions. With books we have already cleared several writing/editing/production hurdles, thus narrowed the field, and enter higher levels of sophistication. I also prefer traditional print over e-books, because for some reason I find reading numerous, flickering-screened, lengthy e-texts to be eye-straining, tiresome, and thus much more difficult than curling up in a secluded corner and plowing through books. Onscreen work forces me to take many more breaks, which lengthens the process, whereas reading can continue unabated all day if necessary. Maybe that is generational on my part, but there it is. I prefer printed books.

Thirdly, there is the question of quality and genre. I am a very strong advocate of all things good — good being the operative word. I do not distinguish between any genre or sub-genre and do not take a dismissive attitude towards things not labeled with the snooty, ivy-covered curlicues of capital-L Literature. Likewise, I find no problem with works of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. All are equally valid, if they are well-written. That is the entire argument. Quality is the key that unlocks the reader. If writing has merit, it does not matter what the style or content is. High quality writing can withstand any criticism and is always a pleasure to read, regardless of genre/stylistic labels.

Which brings me to judging a good literary contest. Contrary to what you might think, the poorly written works are the easy part of the contest. I have been asked before if it is annoying to have to read “crappy” works. Not really, because poor writing eliminates itself immediately and without problem. After discarding the trash, the hard part remains.

Good writing is very troublesome. Elsewhere, on this same topic, I wrote, “It isn’t wading through the crap that gets you … it is having to pick and choose between brilliant yet often completely different and creatively opposite works. Those are the ones you might read a dozen times and still be weighing back and forth, because they have different, yet valid, merits.”

Last comes the moment you’ve been dreading and everyone has been eagerly awaiting. We have come to the final decision. Unlike editing a journal or anthology, I can’t dodge the “best” question by choosing several works for inclusion. With a contest, to quote Queen from the Highlander soundtrack, There can be only one. The ultimate judgment must be made and you have to choose a single work over all the others. Not an easy task at all, since all the finalist manuscripts are fantastic and the authors equally worthy. Regardless of talent, you have to toss out all the other great works and choose a single tale. This is the thing that will gnaw at you, not just before with the deadline looming, but years afterwards, when you still remember these other, fascinating characters and their compelling stories, or when you run into an author again and are reminded that you chose someone else over their absolutely excellent work. It is a somewhat bitter moment when you feel like apologizing but cannot because it is the nature of a contest. If only everyone could win the Olympic gold medal.

Which brings me to my Theory of Relative Literary Merit: All things good are equally valid and judges are victims of excessively high quality. I think it is good to remember wily old Albert Einstein’s warning: “Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” We judge at our own risk

Visit Thomas at his website.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

I’m really excited to have Hannah from Word Lily on my blog today featuring one of the yummy author recipes!  Today’s recipe is a Espresso and Cardamom Rub which was shared with us in my interview with Leslie Patricelli whom has the most adorable board books ever.  I love them! Unfortunately, I don’t love coffee so I am thrilled that Hannah does and was gracious enough to give us the low-down!  Hannah . . .

When I first looked at the Espresso and Cardamom Rub recipe on Maw Books Blog after saying I’d try it out, I was a little bit confused: It’s called an espresso and cardamom rub, but the recipe didn’t have any cardamom! Well, this was confusing, but also unacceptable.

I was excited to try it because my husband and I both quite like coffee and cardamom. Sounds like a good fit, right?

I tracked down the original recipe, and found that it did contain cardamom:

ESPRESSO AND CARDAMOM RUB for beef, pork and chicken thighs and legs
1/4 c finely ground espresso roast coffee
1/4 c kosher sea salt
1/4 c packed dark brown sugar
3 T hot paprika
1 T ground cardamom
1 T ground ginger
2 t garlic powder

I had to substitute for the hot paprika because I couldn’t find any. Gourmet Sleuth recommended substituting Hungarian Paprika plus a pinch of cayenne, so that’s what I did.

I measured all the ingredients into a bowl and

stirred it all together (breaking up the small but inevitable clumps of brown sugar).

Once the dry rub was assembled, I realized I didn’t quite know how to use one! ChefTalk to the rescue this time. A rub, it stated, “is a massage given to meat, seafood, fowl — even vegetables — immediately before cooking or a few hours prior to grilling.” We poured about half of the rub into a smaller bowl, sprinkled it onto the steaks and then my husband rubbed it into both sides of two 1-pound-plus sirloins steaks.

We let the dry-rubbed steaks rest until the grill was hot, which wasn’t very long.

We had about half of the rub left (or maybe a bit more), which I stored in a jar with a tight-fitting lid (as instructed).

We were surprised that the flavor wasn’t stronger than it was. I found it quite flavorful, it’s just that we expected it to be more so. It was definitely yummy! I think next time we use the rub, we’ll apply it further ahead of time so the rub has more time to permeate the meat. I think I also was probably a bit shy on my use of cayenne to supplement my normal paprika — I’ve been burned by cayenne a few times, and I didn’t want to use too much — I’m guessing the pinch suggested by the experts is in addition to normal amounts for spices, in the 1 teaspoon or 1 tablespoon range, whereas this recipe called for 3 tablespoons. Instead of a just a few shakes, I probably should have used a more measurable amount, because the heat didn’t really come through at all for us.

Thanks for a great recipe, and a new cooking experience, Leslie Patricelli and Natasha!

Visit Hanna at her blog Word Lily.  Visit Leslie Patricelli’s website, check out her books, and read the author interview.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

When I saw the tweet from Natasha asking for a guest post while she was away on holiday, I didn’t hesitate, I just emailed and offered my assistance. When I received an email in return letting me know that I was her guest blogger, I suddenly thought, what an earth do I write about?  After pondering a while, I decided I would talk about my  experiences setting up my own book blog, the influences other blogs have had on my reading and my ever increasing obsession with books.

My blog, Book Chick City, was created at the beginning of July this year, with the initial idea being an online book club. Since then, it has evolved into a fully blown book blog with news, reviews and even  interviews!

From the first hesitant steps of setting up my blog and not really knowing what I was doing, to how I build my blog today, is all down to the many fantastic book blogs I came across on my journey through  the blogosphere. I accumulated all the ideas and fun widgets I found to create Book Chick City. Most of the people I have ‘met’ along the  way have been really helpful and others have left great comments on my posts. It does seem that outside the book blog world, reading  seems to be dwindling in favour of other activities. I can honestly say that there are not many people I know who read that much any  more, let alone want to discuss the books they have read, so it feels great to chat with like minded people.

My interest in books and reading came at a very early age and since  then it has grown into a bit of an obsession. If I’m not reading books then I’m shopping for books – what would I do without Amazon 1- Click! I find that a week rarely goes by without a few new books being added to my TBR pile – a testament to this is the fun weekly meme, Mailbox Mondays, hosted by Marcia @ The Printed Page and What’s on your desk Wednesdays? hosted by Sassy Brit. Those of you who  follow these on my blog will have seen photos of the mountains of  books I accumulate. Although I LOVE buying new books, I also visit my  library regularly and my local charity shop, where I have found some great bargains. The books that I don’t want to be a part of my  ongoing collection go straight back to the charity shop.

Over the years my reading choices have been quite varied, from the  classics to horror, from crime to chick-lit, but I have noticed that I do tend to stay with authors I know. But after reading the reviews  and interviews on the book blogs I have visited, their choices of  authors and genre have started to influence my buying, and I have  bought quite a few books that I probably wouldn’t have looked at if  it wasn’t for these blogs.

In the last couple of weeks I have been contacted by various  publishers who want to send me books to review. So, along with the hundreds of books I already have on my TBR list, I am now adding  more, but this is absolutely fine with me. I love reading, I love  books and I love writing. What more could a book chick ask for?

Visit Carolyn at Book Chick City and follow on Twitter @BookChickTweets.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.