Armchair BEA is the experience for book bloggers to participate in Book Expo America (BEA) from the comfort of their homes. This experience is created lovingly by book bloggers specifically for our peers who for whatever reason are not able to participate in the main conference in Chicago. We bring publishers, authors, and bloggers together in celebrating our love for all things literary by hosting celebrations such as sneak peeks, daily discussion topics, and sponsored giveaways.

If you would like to know more, please visit http://www.armchairbea.com/p/faq.html

Today as part of Day 1 #ArmchairBEA Introduction

Can’t believe I missed last year but soo excited to participate this year and see everyone else’s contributions.

Here I come ABEA 2016!

Group 1:

1. What is the name you prefer to use?
Online I go by ForstRose which is a truncation of my two favorite colors, it has been my online name since the days when AOL and Compuserve were the major online services available. I was still underage – yes that dates me a bit but back then even “grown ups” had to use screen names. It has stuck ever since. The colors are Forest Green and Dusty Rose in case anyone is curious. My IRL name is Melissa. I will answer to either but more than likely if you’re looking for me online the ForstRose screen name will pop up more readily and be easier to find me under.

2. How long have you been a book blogger?
I started Bibliophile’s Retreat back in 2007 as a true blog although it started out from a book review I posted prior to that on MySpace. When I realized the so-called blogging platform there was pretty much a farce if you wanted to do anything fancy at all I moved to blogger and then a couple years later to self-hosted WordPress. That first book review was supposed to be a “quote” for the front of my friend’s first fantasy novel. Which will soon be three books and one of the characters has started a career of her own as a Western Romance novelist with about 40 books to her name now.

3. Have you participated in ABEA before?
Yes I participated a couple years ago but missed out last year. Which was disappointing as I really enjoyed the year I did participate.

Group 2:
1. What is your favorite genre and why?
I read mostly fiction and quite a variety of genres but I would probably say Fantasy is my favorite because my primary goal in reading is to escape to another world temporarily.

2. If you could recommend one other book blogger, who would it be and why?
I would recommend Just Another Rabid Reader, twitter handle @destinyisntfree, who also happens to be participating this year and talked me into participating the first time I joined.
I have several reasons for choosing her, we have become tight buddies over talking books and bookish stuff over the years since we connected and books are what brought us together originally. Also she has managed to grow her blog and build a strong following much better than I have despite having many more demands on her time. She also discusses some of those things on her blog and has developed some ongoing topics around some of her specific challenges as well as bookish things.

3. Which day of ABEA are you looking forward to the most?
I am looking forward to Saturday discussing fictional worlds because I read so much fiction and enjoy reading specifically for reasons of escaping.

4. How do you arrange your bookshelves? Is there a rhyme or reason? Or not at all? (#ABEAShelfie)
I don’t currently have room on my two 6 foot tall bookcases for everything double stacked so I need to do some additional sorting and elimninating if I can. However my organization method has been always to sort first by Christian books then by what I refer to as mainstream which is basically anything that doesn’t fall into the Christian category either by virtue of the Author or Publisher. Then within those two sections I separate the fiction and non-fiction. I then take each section and alphabetize by author last name.

5. If you could choose three characters to have lunch with, who would they be and why?
Kit Morgan – Who also happens to be a favorite author of mine but is technically a fictional character who became an author and the author uses that as a Pen Name. Although I pity the venue which is why the other two I’d pick would be Shona Whittard and Dallan MacDonald to hopefully minimize Kitty’s damage besides the fact that I’d love to meet the cast of Time Masters in person anyway.

Are you at BEA this year? Chime in with comments about your experience at the conference. Are you participating in #ArmchairBEA? Please join in the discussion by posting a link to your post(s) for today and/or respond to what I’ve shared in the comments.

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