armchair bea - My Shelf Confessions

Tabitha Goes to BEA 2013

May 4, 2013 by Tabitha the Pabkins · 27 Comments

BOOK EXPO AMERICA! – Have you heard of it – the famed BEA, or ArmChair BEA? If you are a book blogger you probably have. This is one of the biggest book events of the year! I heard about it last year and thought “Oh wouldn’t that be an awesome thing to go to!” Then I promptly forgot all about it, and hadn’t thought about it again until last Friday.

April and I were talking and BEA came up, and all of a sudden I got some wild burr in my ass and just decided within two minutes of the start of that conversation that I just HAVE to go! That I needed a break from my newborn baby (Ok so he’s 9 months now) and a break from work and just a BREAK in general. I was mad, insane, crazy, unthinking with my need to get AWAY! And what better place to get away to then New York City with a bunch of other crazed book lovers??? So it was thusly decided…

And It went something like this:

APRIL: “Arm Chair BEA signups aren’t open yet.”

TABS: “Isn’t that Expo soon? Where is it anyway?”

APRIL: “Yes, next month in New York!”

TABS: “hmmm you don’t say…….*furiously searches the net and finds the BEA site and sees early bird registration is still open…..sees dates….starts to get excited…* I want to go!”

APRIL: “Yeah, it would be nice to go.”

TABS: “No, I want to go, I’m GOING to go – I don’t care. – I’m not even going to see if it’s ok with work or my husband, I’m going, that’s it! *registers and buys ticket*

APRIL: *shocked? crazy laughter* …”Tabs you’re insane, what about work and the husband?”

TABS: That would suck if my boss tries to tell me no I can’t take the time off and then I have to quit my job…c’est la vie” …..*starts dialing husband’s cell phone*

TABS: “Sweety, I’m going to a Book Expo in New York next month, no I’m going by myself, when was I going to ask you? – I’m telling you right now aren’t I?”

Amazingly enough things worked out great – my husband agreed I needed time off from work and the baby and that I deserved to get away. He was much happier that I was able to get a travel partner, the amazing Richelle Clementson, my sister! He was so sweet too and used all of his business air miles to get me a First Class roundtrip ticket to NY from California! SQEEEE Now I’ve never flown First Class so I feel like a complete Queen and I think I’m just as excited about that as I am about the Expo itself.

Here is a list of just a few of the titles I am drooling over that I hear are going to be at BEA…by no means all the ones I’m after, it’s just getting late and I need to get to bed and stop drooling! Also these are not listed in order of importance! lol:

- The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
- Antigoddess by Kendare Blake
- The Returned by Jason Mott
- The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
- Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
- Tumble & Fall by Alexandra Coutts
- A Wounded Name by Dot Hutchison
- The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett
- Starry Nights by Daisy Whitney
- Under the Empeyrean Sky by Chuck Wendig
- Fortunately the Milk by Neil Gaiman
- Across A Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund
- Reboot by Amy Tintera
- The Ward by Jordana Frankel
- These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner
- Vicious by V.E. Schwab
- The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
- The Boyfriend App by Katie Sise
- Twinmaker by Sean Williams
- Rush by Eve Silver
- 3:59 by Gretchen McNeil

Thank you to ALL the ladies in the BEA group on Goodreads, as well as other blogger buddies who have been fielding my numerous newbie questions! I’ll be putting out a BEA Tips I’ve gathered ’round the net post probably in a week or two!

Filed Under: announcements, ArmchairBEA Tagged With: armchair bea, BEA, Book Expo America

ArmchairBEA: Fun Times Off the Blog

June 7, 2012 by April · 12 Comments

Today’s topic did not really inspire me a great deal – I just don’t have much to say about monetizing the blog. Yeah I did do it, but not in a major way – at least I hope it doesn’t come across as major. I’m not trying to make a living off the blog or anything, just enough to pay for the giveaways we do here and perhaps the hosting costs. I’m lucky in that I have a few people who use my affiliate links to buy stuff from Amazon, so muah to all of them and to everyone who does. It means a lot, we love to do giveaways here, especially international ones!

OK now that that is out of the way. Let’s talk about what I do when I’m not blogging. I don’t have much of a life *giggle* I dye my hair fun colors once in awhile and I read, and I watch TV. What I spend MOST of my time doing? Chatting on Skype, most of the time to my besties that I met on this blogging journey – Bex @ Kindle Fever [seriously best partner in crime EVER], Amanda @ Letters Inside Out, and new to our lil trio which has become a quad-whatever, is Preet @ A Written Rhapsody.

I’m wondering what I should tell you about our convos.. let’s see. Our convos are.. pretty free spirited-no-holds-barred-ROFL-WTHish. If anyone has ever caught one of our random Twitter convos [yes, be warned sometimes our crazy leaks over to Twitter because Skype can't contain it] then you’ve been given a taste.

Last night I was quoting Red Hot Chili Pepper’s song Sir Psycho Sexy, which has some pretty hawt lyrics. Somehow we got talking about Adam and Eve (the lyrics do mention them) and suddenly Bex mentions this show that this dude had told his girlfriend who was in labor “”imagine how easy it’d be giving birth if eve hadn’t eaten that apple…” ” which we both agreed was NOT COOL especially during her LABOR haha, well.. let me quote my response: [this is sort of explicit so, younger eyes may want to squint or something]

April Smith: I don’t think it’d be easy even if she didn’t eat the apple
April Smith: i mean seriously..
April Smith: was the vaginas bigger before the apple?!?
April Smith: 0_0
April Smith: i doubt the apple like shrunk her pelvis all magical..

Rebecca: so if she hadn’t, it wouldn’t hurt? i guess haha
Rebecca: since we’re not punished for her…

April Smith: i just don’t see how there could NOT be pain with a kid coming through a tiny hole hahaha
April Smith: or maybe.. they wouldn’t have had kids..
April Smith: like the natural way (think)

and then we pretty much go on like this for awhile, and we get on the topic about Adam dissing Lilith and needing Eve, and she having one of his ribs – probably so he’d accept her LOL so I *might* have called Adam a loser.. for dissing Lilith.. *looks innocent*

Then we decided that Eve was made from Adam’s rib and the rest of skeleton grew from the rib like skelegrow in Harry Potter.. which means that Adam was a wizard..albeit a loser wizard who was not happy with the first lady MADE FOR him..

April Smith: “take this rib.. and it’ll just GROW! a skelton..” and what about the other parts? :O

Rebecca: if he has skelegrow, he has organgrow (nod)

Rebecca: he had fun and accidentally made our parts

April Smith: “this will be nice for my stick..” (chuckle)

Rebecca: ;o
Rebecca: xD
April Smith: LOL
April Smith: probably!
April Smith: she was still moldable!
Rebecca: “while she’s growing, i’l have fun….”

April Smith: hahaha
April Smith: she wasn’t finished drying out.. and he just HAD to play with her..
Rebecca: hahahhahah men (shake)

Rebecca: LOL omg… we should document our convos
April Smith: at least he provided a clit for her
Rebecca: save them for a rainy day…
April Smith: LMAO YES!

AAAAND hopefully Bex doesn’t kill me.. LOL But this is very typical of our convos.. it only takes a little thing and we start going off on a tangent that takes us to who knows where – but always fun I do have to say we crack ourselves up quite a bit

I hope you’re all having a fabulous time this ABEA!

Filed Under: ArmchairBEA, Event Tagged With: armchair bea, friends, skype convos

ArmchairBEA: Book Experiences FTW

June 6, 2012 by April · 15 Comments

Bex @ Kindle Fever and I discussed this and decided we don’t really have “traditional” things that we’ve done in “real life” offline with events – like book signings, etc. Hey, we’re doing ArmchairBEA for a reason! Her living in Sweden, and me, well not being the type to love crowds and tons of people haven’t really been big in going to huge events either! But I have had some pretty awesome experiences that I’ll treasure forever.

I think one of the most special gifts I’ve ever gotten was my nook. It was a gift from a close friend and it was completely unexpected – it literally showed up in the mail one day and I’ve never been more shocked and excited to open a package in my life! My friend knows how much books mean to me – I have even convinced him to read a few with me. [mwuahah] And currently I’m living without much space to put books so being able to download books and store them on the nook has been invaluable. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten more use out of anything, it’s something I use nearly every single day! It’s gotten to a point where I’m so sentimental that I don’t even really consider upgrading to a newer nook (I have the original) even though there are lighter models, etc. I just love mine so much!

There’s my baby (Firefly) all skinned out

I’ve also been incredibly lucky to have gotten great response whenever I’ve sent letters to authors in school or on my free time when I was younger. In response to a letter I sent Bruce Coville in 6th grade, he sent me several pages of a manuscript of the book I was pining for, (I’m talking at least 10+ pages), and was kind enough to explain WHY the book was delayed - his publisher was pushing him to work on other projects before this one. The book was Into the Land of the Unicorns and I was such a huge fan, I’ve read nearly all of his books (that he had written up to that point) and I desperately wanted to know what else he had in store for Cara.

I also sent a letter to at least one other author and got a really nice handwritten letter back to me. I was so touched, although sadly I can’t remember who the author was now! I want to say Phyllis Reynolds Naylor.. but I’m not positive.

How about you? Have you had any awesome bookish experiences?

Filed Under: ArmchairBEA, Event Tagged With: armchair bea, authors, booktastic, events, gifts, letters, nook

Armchair BEA: 5 Things About Me

June 4, 2012 by April · 109 Comments

Design credit: Nina of Nina Reads

Welcome to My Shelf Confessions! I’m excited to be participating in ArmchairBEA for the second year in a row! Hopefully one year I’ll make it to BEA in NYC, but until then, ArmchairBEA rocks!

Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?

My name is April; I’ve been blogging since February 2011. I can’t believe it’s been over a year already and yet most days it feels longer. You learn A LOT about the book blogging world in that time-span and I’ve made a move from BlogSpot over to WordPress.org in that time as well. This year I’ve also gotten a new contributor to the blog, Pabkins who is fitting in quite nicely!

I got into blogging because I needed something to do quite frankly. I was no longer able to attend school and I missed it terribly. I’ve always loved school and it’s structure, my favorite being the english and lit classes (having been a reader since forever!) I had started a book blog several years ago (2005 or 06?) during a college break, but of course once school started back up it was back to the grind and it never got off the ground. I never even learned how many other awesome book blogs there were. This time around my friend Jenn @ The Bawdy Book Blog decided she wanted to join me in the adventure (she actually got her blog off the ground first LOL) and then I realized I better put up or shut up, and I started blogging. We discovered together – and were quite amazed at how big and vast this community is. It’s just astounding and we have been blogging ever since.

Since that time I’ve met several other blogging buds that I hang out with regularly, [basically every day on Skype LOL] Bex @ Kindle Fever and Amanda @ Letters Inside Out. So I blog to share my love of books with the world [whoever cares to listen!] and for the friendships – book people rawk.

What are you currently reading?

I JUST finished a book called Heft by Liz Moore. It’s probably one of my most favorite books I’ve read this year. It’s not a flashy book, there’s not a lot of action or suspense. It’s got a very calm presence, and the emotional impact sneaks up on you. I haven’t written a review yet, but I know it’s going to be hard. It’s a book I’m going to be thinking about for a very long time. Heartbreaking, beautiful and yet.. so soul affirming.

Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you.

Since this is My Shelf Confessions.. I figured I should make a confession here. Those who follow my personal account probably already know this – but I recently dyed my hair – blue, purple, teal, and a little pink. I love these colors and I really like how it turned out. It was fun to go to the Red Hot Chili Pepper concert with the new hair too haha I got some nice compliments

What is your favorite feature on your blog (i.e. author interviews, memes, something specific to your blog)?

My favorite feature on My Shelf Confessions is called Your Fate in Fiction which is a feature that Bex @ Kindle Fever and I do together [we're major partners in crime around the blogosphere!] It’s a fun feature because we decide on a questions for the feature based on a book we’ve read and then make it personal. What would we do in X situation, how would we deal with THIS or THAT, one of my favorite posts was based off of the novel Pure by Julianne Baggott: If you HAD to choose an object [animate or inanimate] to be fused to, what would you pick?

Where do you see your blog in five years?

I see myself with even more blogger friends having even more fun! Hopefully still hosting the WWReadathon more than once a year. Having a blast and rocking it out!

Filed Under: about me Tagged With: about me, armchair bea

In My Mailbox (11)

June 19, 2011 by April · 8 Comments

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by

The Story Siren

First off – I was thrilled to win and receive an Armchair BEA prize! I got 4 books from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and also a booklet with excerpts and postcards from the works of Philip K. Dick which is really neat.

The books include:

The Maid: A Novel of Joan of Arc – Kimberly Cutter

Mule: A Novel of Moving Weight – Tony D’Souza

We the Animals – Justin Torres

The Hangman’s Daughter – Oliver Pötzsch, Lee Chadeayne (Translator)