Why not blog?

Yesterday I was sitting by the window with a stack of books, a steaming mug of tea by my side, enjoying the wintry landscape, when a message popped up from a friend informing me of her new blog about books, The Book Dowser.

Blogging has been a wonderful way for librarians, authors and book lovers to come together in cyberspace and share a common love for literature. In fact, as I read her second post about her passion for historical fiction and the Little House series in particular, I was tickled by the remarkable parallels to an earlier post of mine entitled "Characters coming to life" which referenced several of the same titles.

Only later did I realize that even more than a fun new book-related blog to read, The Book Dowser is another answer to a question I commonly receive from students and parents who are curious about avenues for publishing young people's writing!

The reader and writer behind the The Book Dowser is in high school and this blog is a wonderful outlet for her talents. In the past I've written a few posts on magazines which publish writing by young people, National Novel Writing Month (did you hear that University Book Store is going to publish a novel written by a local author during NaNoWriMo?) and websites with additional information on getting young people's writing into print.

But somehow the idea of the blog as a way of self-publishing one's writing did not occur to me until yesterday. However, I am now throwing the idea out there in case it catches anyone's fancy! Blogs are easy to set up, sites such as Blogspot will host your blog for free, and they can be a fantastic way to keep in touch with far-flung friends and family, exercise your creative writing skills, comment on issues that matter to you, and much more. Of course, you should remember to follow basic Internet safety rules and check with your parents before setting anything up online. If you do start blogging about books, please let me know! I'd love to read what you have to say.