Armchair BEA 2013

 As always, I am late to the party—but I really want to participate in Armchair BEA this year.

1.   Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging? 

Hey everyone – my name is Crys. My students call me The Hodgenator, which I decided to use with my blog since it’s my Twitter handle. I am a high school English teacher who has a Master’s in Library and Informational Sciences where my area of concentration was on school media. I love Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, witchy reads, and mysteries.

I have been blogging for three years—maybe four—after my husband encouraged me to share my love of reading with a small corner of the Internet. At the time, I didn’t realize so many people were already blogging about books, so I am excited to see that I am in good company.

2.   Where in the world are you blogging from? Tell a random fact or something special about your current location. Feel free to share pictures. 

I live in North Alabama. A random fact about my area? We are called The Rocket City.

3.   Have you previously participated in Armchair BEA? What brought you back for another year? If you have not previously participated, what drew you to the event? 

I have never participated in Armchair BEA before. I decided to do it because it’s a great way to hear from others who are like me and not fortunate enough to attend BEA.

4.   What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2013? 

Currently reading—hmm…Friday was our last day of school, and my goal has been a book a day this summer. I started that on Monday and am on track. My book for today is ‘Perfect Scoundrels’ by Ally Carter.

Favorite read of 2013? There are so many—‘The 5^th Wave,’ ‘The Nightmare Affair,’ ‘The Madness Underneath,’ ‘Bruised,’ ‘School Spirits’ to name a handful.

5.   Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you. 

When  I was five years old, I was hit by a car and almost killed. Now as a mom, I am hyper about my child being anywhere near any kind of area where cars drive. I am insane about it.

6.   Name your favorite blog(s) and explain why they are your favorite(s). 

YALove Blog – this was the first blog I followed after joining Twitter. Sarah and I share a passion for YA lit and bringing it into our classrooms, and I love her wit, design, etc. I aspire for my blog to be as awesome as hers.

7.   Which is your favorite post that you have written that you want everyone to read? 

Favorite post, hmm…My Happenings in Hodgensville where I had students create a marketing campaign for a novel of their choice for their final outside reading project. These were my AP Lang kids, and I wanted them to step into how books are marketed to their age group and whether or not the marketing is affective.

They did a great job and I was impressed with their creativity.

8.   If you could eat dinner with any author or character, who would it be and why? 

There are so many, but I will go with three (and in no particular order):

-      Jane Austen: I want to know how she dealt with the misogynistic nature of her time

-      Jodi Picoult: I just want to hang out and absorb her awesomeness and discuss social issues affecting our society

-      Chris Crutcher: I would love to discuss his life as an educator and compare notes on how times have changed, and how they have stayed the same

9.   What literary location would you most like to visit? Why? 

ALL of them—no, really. I have a map of literary locations in America, and I want to go to all of them. I’ve been to several all ready, and the one I am looking forward to the most is Sleepy Hollow. So many amazing people are buried there. And, come on, it’s Sleepy Hollow. I would love to go on Halloween night.

10.What is your favorite part about the book blogging community? 

The creativity I see from other bloggers as well as the plethora of reading material. I love that I can tweet a question about a book suggestion and hear back almost immediately. I love that I can visit blogs that use different genres as their own inspiration, and through that sometimes I find myself reading novels I would never have read otherwise. Most of all, I love that we are all celebrating reading. I hear all the time how the book industry is dying and reading is dying with it, and I am like, “Umm…come say that to the book bloggers’ faces. I triple-dog dare you!"

11.Is there anything that you would like to see change in the coming years?

For me personally, I would like to make sure I take the time to comment on more blogs. I know that is the best way to build an audience. I have got to work on balancing my time with my blog during the school year. I would love tips from fellow teachers out there on how they do that. Do they pick a specific day of the week to work on their blog, etc.? Any tips I will take. There is no pride here.

It would be awesome if we had socials based on the areas we lived in to get to know one another and to build relationships outside of a screen. Other than that, I’m going to keep blogging about the books I read and enjoy and celebrate the written word.

Happy Reading!

    - The Hodgenator