Bending the Bookshelf is Back!

I've written, deleted, and rewritten this post so many times over the past few days, it almost feels like I've discarded a complete novel. There are so many things I want to say, but when you get right down to it, the only thing that matters is this:

THANK YOU

Sincerely, thank you to everyone who has taken the time to write over the past few months, telling me how much they appreciated our collective efforts, and how much they've missed Bending the Bookshelf. Hardly a week has gone by without a few kind words from one of one reader, author, publisher, or blogger who called our shelves home over the years.

For those of you wondering how things will be any different this time around, and whether this return is a brief anomaly or a long-term resurrection, you can rest assured that we've thought long and hard about how to make it work.

First, we are getting back to basics, returning to our roots, and becoming strictly a trans* focused blog once again. No offense to the wider LGBT community, but we are somewhat unique, and what I've been hearing is that we offered something just as unique, something that can't easily be found anywhere else. As for what that means in terms of content, I hope that our range of material will be just as wide, as broad, and as diverse as the spectrum of trans* identities itself - from transvestite to transsexual, androgynous to genderqueer, intersex to other, and all variations of gender identity and expression in between. That, of course, goes for the authors as well as content - we are just as interested in books by by trans* authors, regardless of their content or their themes.

Second, and this is perhaps the aspect that I'm most excited about, Bobbi is going to be sharing administrative duties with me this time around. It's very much going to be a joint management effort, with the two of us posting reviews, responding to requests, and managing content. There were times over the past year where I got very bogged down with other responsibilities, and I really felt the blog suffered. So, before agreeing to bring back Bending the Bookshelf, I wanted to build in some sort of assurance that we wouldn't be put in that position again, and she was only too happy to step up.

Third, while we will continue to maintain our core group of reviewers - Sally, Bobbi, and Samuel - we are opening our doors wide to anybody who wants to contribute. Reviewers who'd like to join the team on a regular basis are more than welcome, but we're just as happy to hear from readers who just want to share the occasional review that interested them. Really, we'd like to see Bending the Bookshelf become much more of a community, so that kind of contribution and interaction really excites me. If you're interested, pop us a line at bendingthebookshelf@gmail.com and we'll talk!

We already have 20 new reviews drafted, scheduled, and ready to post throughout the month, so please be sure to check back often, because we have a lot to share.

Finally, Bobbi and I have worked very hard over the past few weeks to rebuild our social media support, something that I felt was sorely underutilized previously. We started by merging our Goodreads and Shelfari accounts, capturing our collective trans* libraries in one place, as well as our Twitter and Facebook profiles, making them shared Bending the Bookshelf accounts. Over the weekend we also signed up for a few services to automate crossposting across social media, so readers can look forward to more options for following us (please do!), and authors and publishers can enjoy even greater exposure.

With that said, I do want to remind everybody that we really do thrive on your comments. Your feedback means almost as much to us as it does to the authors, so please don't be shy in leaving a comment or sending us a note.

Thank you all, once again, and we hope to hear from you soon - it's very good to be back!