Beth Fish Does Book Tournaments, Awards, and Events

As many of you know, the late winter into early spring is my busiest time of the year. For almost two months, I work seven days a week, ten hours a day editing manuscripts for the fall book season. I have almost four weeks more, and then I can be a regular person again.

And when I have some free time, I'll be back reading blogs and participating in the following events.

Nerds Heart YA

I am thrilled to have again been chosen as one of the judges for the Nerds Heart YA tournament. This "bracket style competition" was developed to "showcas[e] books that had not received as much publicity as the big hitter books" of 2010, providing "more visibility for fantastic, under represented books."

The books were nominated by public, were published in 2010, and "[f]eature characters, or are penned by authors" that fit one or more of the following categories: POC, GLBT, disability, mental illness, religious lifestyle, lower socioeconomic status, and plus size.

The tournament begins in April, and I'm looking forward to learning which books made the cut and which ones I get to read. Visit the Nerds Heart YA blog for more information.

Indie Lit Awards

As you know, I read a wide a wide variety of books, and I'm happy to be participating in a different kind of book event: the second annual Indie Lit Awards. I will be a voting member in the category of memoir and biography.

Here's information about the awards: "The Independent Literary Awards are book awards given by literary bloggers. Lit bloggers write about books and literary related items. They are the fastest growing form of publicity in the literary world, though most are still independently run and do not receive compensation for their reviews or recommendations."

Nominations for the next awards will not be open until September, but I encourage you to become familiar with and subscribe to the LLA blog so you'll be ready to nominate your favorite title in each of this year's categories: literary fiction, GLBTQ, nonfiction, speculative fiction, memoir/biography, poetry, and mystery.

Book Bloggers Convention

And finally, because clearly I do not have enough to do, I am more than honored to have been asked to serve on panel at second annual Book Bloggers Convention to be held in New York on May 27, the Friday after Book Expo America (BEA) closes.

The session I'll be participating in is called "Navigating the Gray Areas of Book Blogging" and will be moderated by Heather from Age 30+ . . . A Lifetime of Books. The panel is made up of industry professionals and book bloggers: Bethanne from The Book Studio, Kathleen from Bookish Broad, Pam from Mother Reader, and Amy from Amy Reads.

For more information about the convention and to learn how you can register to attend, please visit the dedicated blog.

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I'm looking forward to all these events (and BEA). I'm also counting the weeks until I can once again visit your blogs on a regular basis.