Book Blogger Appreciation Week is in full swing and I’m totally crushing on how fabulously fun the events are.  I’ve bulked up my feed reader, read awesome posts on a myriad of different topics, and made fabulous new friends.  One of those friends in my wonderful interview partner Kim of Sophisticated Dorkiness.  She’s thoughtful, intelligent and has a phenomenal blog that you all should be following (if you aren’t already are *wink*)!

Just in case you need another reason to mosey on over there….she’s got Part 1 of our interview. Because the second half below might make no sense to you if you don’t go and hear it from our lips from the the start.  The second half of our conversation starts in 3….2….1….

sophisticateddorkinessKim: If you could give up your day job and be a book blogger full time (meaning, your work as a book blogger could support the lifestyle you currently enjoy), would you? What sorts of things would you do differently with your blog if you were a full-time blogger?

Michelle: Heck yea I’d do it in a heartbeat! I love my job and get paid extremely well but if I could have the luxury of blogging all the time and making the same dough I’d be all over it!

I don’t know that I’d use the word different because I’m totally satisfied with the direction of my blog right now.  I think it’s growing and I hope to continue in that trend.  I do think there are some things I’d like to work in.  Like first thing I’d do is continue to have professional designers take care of the template and some of the back end stuff for me. I’d have professional graphics made for buttons and banners, keep the template up to date and fresh things like that.   I’d also certainly be able to blog MORE since as it stands now I only have so much time to read and then write about it.  I think I’d be able to get at least two to three reviews posts up a week which I would love.

I think I’d be able to pay more attention to what is out there if I had more time.  I’d be able to frequent all the blogs in my feed reader far more often than I have been in the past month.

Oh I’d definitely love to add an educational component.  Tips and tricks kind of thing.  Maybe a speaker series or something.

Michelle:  If you were forced to choose just one genre of books to read and review what would it be and why?

Kim: I’d pick literary journalism/creative nonfiction/narrative nonfiction. That sounds like three genres, but really they’re just different names for the same thing — nonfiction stories, usually written by journalists (although not necessarily), told in a narrative or story form. So, books like Friday Night Lights by Buzz Bissinger or The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman are part of that category, as are books like A Year of Living Blblically by A.J. Jacobs or Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich. I’m a journalist by trade, so I know how difficult it can be to report on facts and then use those facts to tell an amazing story. I feel like I’m a more competent reviewer when it comes to narrative nonfiction because I have a background in how books like that are put together and some of the techniques authors use. So when I review I can bring a sense of whether I enjoyed the book AND and I can speak confidently on the book as a part of it’s field. Plus, those are the stories that I find really touch my heart and make me think about the world in a different way when I’m finished, and experience that happens less for me when I’m reading fiction. So I think that’s what I’d pick.

Kim:  What other ways (besides blogging and reading) do you like to occupy your free time?

Michelle: Believe it or not I don’t have a lot of free time, haha.  Like most I work full time so by the time I get home and settle I’m only left with a few hours before bed.  I do read and blog and catch up with reading posts in my feed reader.  I have a secondary obsession in television so I tend to be on the couch with laptop and remote volleying between shows and reading during commercials.  Have I mentioned I’m big into multitasking? Haha

I do like to spend time with my niece on the weekends.  She just turned 13 and plays soccer and loves to putter around shopping and such so I love to get to hang out with her on the weekends. Sometimes I also do cross-stitch when I feel really stressed and need to be completely distracted, it requires a good deal of thought and attention so it allows your mind to be completely focused while still keeping stress and tension at bay. It’s a great creative hobby as well.

Kim: How did you come up with the name of your blog?

Michelle: I wanted to have something unique and different but that was also somewhat indicative of the subject matter of my blog.  Most in the bookish world know what galleys are so I snagged that.  Then because I’ve always enjoyed writing I finessed the “smith” portion in as an abbreviation of wordsmithing.  :)  That part fits with blogging as well.  In the end I thought it was quirky and different enough to distinguish myself with.

Michelle:  You recently redesigned your blog, what spurned your decision to move forward with that, what big changes did you make and what would you like to see done that wasn’t?

Kim: Part of the reason I redesigned was because I wanted to move to being a self-hosted website rather than being on WordPress.com. I’ve always wanted to have the blog on it’s own site so I could do vlogs (video blogs) and be able to upload my resume and other stories to the site — stuff I couldn’t do at WordPress.com. Also, I feel cool having my own website :)    When I moved, a whole host of new template options opened up so I decided to also change that around. So, the self-hosting and redesigning went hand in hand for me, although not everyone does both at the same time.

The template is totally new, a different color scheme, layout, banner… pretty much everything, and I love that. I like using the South Park character in the banner, and all the colors are my favorite soothing, beachy colors. I have a multimedia box near the top that scrolls through pictures and I’m still working to figure out what to do with that. I haven’t done any vlogs yet, but that’s a plan soon. There’s nothing major left I feel like changing, but I’m sure I’ll change my mind about that in a few weeks!

Michelle:  If you could swap places and live a week in the life of another blogger who would it be and why?

Kim: That’s a tough one! I might pick Raych at Books I Done Read because she’s so funny and I would practically kill to be that hilarious. Or Jackie at Farm Lane Books Blog because she lives in the UK and I would love to live there . Or Lu at Regular Rumination because she’s at grad school and she can speak Spanish — I have never been able to speak another language so I’m a little jealous.

Michelle:  What was the impetus behind starting the Blog Improvement Project? Will you continue the initiative through 2010?

Kim: Well, I’m doing my master’s in journalism right now and so I spend a lot of time thinking about journalism and new media and blogging in particular. Last year I remember reading a lot of posts from people just not sure about basic blog stuff — what is a blogroll, how do I do links, what’s a good review format — and thought that I might be able to help because a lot of the blogging stuff I was reading directly related to some of those questions. I’m not an expert by any means, but I read a lot of experts on blogging because I find it fascinating and felt I could help pass that along through a blogging project.

I’m not sure about 2010 yet. I feel like interest has waned a little bit this year and I’m not sure how many people are still doing it, in part because I haven’t done a great job forming a community around the project. I’m also working with Eva to start the Bookworms to Bookworms mentoring program, which I’m excited to focus on. We might start a blog with that, and if so I’ll probably move the blog tips and improvement stuff there since I can see it connecting. If not that, then maybe I’ll scale the BIP back to one focus per month and try to do a better job connecting bloggers to each other or encouraging people to visit others. So I’m not sure yet — I’m happy for feedback and suggestions or ideas about where the BIP could go next!

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There you have it folks all the news that’s fit to print on Kim and I.  Well the stuff we can share publicly anyway!

I want to thank Kim for being a wonderfully patient partner.  Our interview spanned a couple of weeks during the BBAW Awards nomination process so my availability was scattered.  She was totally understanding and completely flexible!  So thank you Kim I enjoyed getting to know you better.

Lastly fair readers, I encourage you to frequent both our blogs and I definitely say get involved in BBAW it’s a wonderful initiative intended to build this great big book blogging community!