Armchair BEA Day 3-A Bag full of Awesome Bloggers

Writing:

Two of my favourite bloggers for writers are Angela Ackerman of The Book Shelf Muse and Stina Lindenblatt of Seeing Creative. And, I know them in real people time! They are as dynamic in person as their blogs. Full of energy and information, both striving to improve their craft and share what they learn along the way.

The Book Shelf Muse is a thesaurus of emotions, settings, character traits (just added) and is an AMAZING tool to have in your writing back pocket. Angela and her partner Becca Puglisi are working on a book for this resource. Thinking it's going to be mighty darn good.

Seeing Creative is Stina's unique spin on writing and photography, you always learn something from her and her Cool Links Friday is a must read.

Book Blogging:

Story Siren (cause she just plain old inspires me with her passion and commitment and I love that she did this for the love of it and look at where it's taken her!) I've been following her since she began and just...wow.

All the Marvelous Middle Grade Monday Crew! Each monday we talk middle grade and I always look forward to their recommendations. And the From the Mixed Up Files of Middle Grade Authors gang...course  little biased because I'm part of the team, lol.

Social Media

My go to guy is Greg Pincus of The Happy Accident. Used to be in an online crit group with him and he is a funny and seriously talented writer who  also knows his social media! If you ever have a chance to hear him talk, grab it, I know I'm going to!

Armchair BEA: Who I am and How I'm Arm Chair-ing it

Armchair BEA is here and it promises to be an amazing week. Going to figure out how I'm going to do it as I go, and hopefully learn from all of you.

I've got two giveaways planned this week and am going to be reading reading reading, follow along on twitter--getting posts ready for the rest of the week. Plus have a Oh MG  YA Canada interview and giveaway, too!

Really looking forward to meeting new bloggers and getting to know others better. Even better? Making connections for BEA 2012 because--I'm going!

About me (and hopefully not too much....call me Deblah blah blah if you must)

I'm first and foremost an assistant library manager for a small town library just north of Calgary, Alberta. Crossfield Municipal Library to be specific. I've been in public library youth services since 1986 when I started as a Reference Assistant for Calgary Public Library. Haven't looked back since then and even though when I first was being trained I thought I'd never be able to do storytimes? Well, check out the picture. Over twenty years later, I'll do pretty much anything. I live and breath library services to children and teens and live and breath books for them, as well. Also have a storytelling company, although don't do that as much anymore. We do about one residency per year that ties oral story and writing into one and a few performances here and there. This August I am thrilled (thrilled I tell you!) to be giving a session for When Words Collide on hot reads in MG and YA for 2011. Also sitting on a panel about providing readers advisory, my focus being children and teens. Have I mentioned I love talking books for them?

Random, but maybe not a  really random fact-I write for kids and also blog at From the Mixed Up Files of Middle Grade Authors.

Really Random fact-I played Bassoon in high school. When our band marched I was a flag girl. You cannot march well with a Bassoon.

Hope those of you at BEA are having a blast. And and BIG SHOUT OUT to Janet Gurtler! I had a chance to go with her, but couldn't make it happen. She's even going to try and get a few books for me.  You rock Janet!

Happy Armchair BEA everyone...!