Tuesday, March 13, 2007

The Edge of the Forest, B List Bloggers, and Ramblings

So the latest issue of The Edge of the Forest is up and ready for your reading pleasure! And as a reminder, go to the Archive to get all past issues, including the February one, which I forgot to mention earlier. Oh! And if you're reading this a few months from now, just go to the archives for March 2007.

Kelly of Big A little a has a great list of what's happening at TEOTF. I was lucky enough to interview Kirby Larson, who wrote Hattie Big Sky, Newbery Honor winner. True side story: all during ALA Midwinter, before the announcements, I was pushing Hattie Big Sky as if I were working on commission.

Anyway.

MotherReader has an article, Be A B-List Blogger, and of course my first reaction was damnit to hell, because I'm a C-List Blogger. But then I tried again, and Yay, I'm a B-List!!! Here's the proof:
B-List Blogger
So anyway, check out MR's recommendations. Most of the things she mentions I learned the hard way; or just stumbled upon doing them, not realizing what I was doing.

In all honesty, it's not about how many hits you get or how many people subscribe via Bloglines or your technorati status .... Oh, I cannot lie to you all. Yes, that stuff does matter; because in the blogosphere, it's one of the few ways that a blogger can get a real sense that someone out there is reading the blog.

But the real, underlying point of MotherReader's article is this: the kidlitosphere, as with any blogosphere, is a community. And when you blog, you're a member; and to be part of that community, you need to communicate, not only with your blog, but with what and when you write; linking to people, in articles and sidebars and blogrolls, is another way to participate; as is commenting and keeping a conversation rolling from blog to blog. Because without each other, it's a little lonely.

We have many voices, many viewpoints; chances are, there is only one thing that we all agree on: We love children's and/or teen literature.

OK, two things. And we love to share that love.

2 comments:

MotherReader said...

I knew you were right on the cusp when I wrote the article, but was confident that you'd be B-list soon. (It goes to show how screwy the whole thing really is, since you're so obviously B-list material.)

Chris said...

I'm a C-lister. Oh well, I can aspire to greatest. I will be a B-lister someday.