June 14, 2011 • randomness •

California Book Bloggers: See You in September?

I’ve had a couple of small disappointments in my social calendar – the one that blends my online social-media life with my admittedly sparse offline social life – this year. I didn’t make it to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in April, which has been the site of some great book-blogger meet-ups for the last couple of years (although I’ve heard hardly anyone else made it either, so that reduced any sense of loss). And while I loved seeing book bloggers from all over the country while at Book Expo America and the Book Blogger Convention last month, not many of my fellow West Coasters made the trip to New York City this year.
Conversations on the theme “We need to have a California book-blogger get-together!” started on Twitter the night I returned from New York. They moved to e-mail soon after, and serious planning is just getting started.
There aren’t many details to report yet, but here’s what Amy, Danielle, Jill (Softdrink), Wallace and I have been talking about:

We propose The Great (California Book Bloggers) Escape to be held one weekend in mid-to-late September 2011. The likely location is the Santa Ynez Valley, north of Santa Barbara, probably in or near Solvang.

The location was chosen because it’s fairly central, but not too remote. The tentative plan is to kick off on Friday evening and end on Sunday. Activities are still being discussed, but are sure to include social time and bookstore outings, as well as a DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) hour or two.

As I said, more details will follow – we’re still getting information together – but at this point we’d like to get a feel for interest. If you’re a California-based book blogger, author, or other bookish person, there’s a form below for you to let us know if the California Book Bloggers Retreat sounds good to you. Your information will only be shared with the Retreat planning team, and completing this form is NOT a commitment to attending – so if you like the idea but aren’t sure you’d be able to go, please fill it out anyway!

In addition to here, this form will also be posted at:

– but it’s only necessary to complete it once!



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