Armchair BEA Interview

For the Armchair BEA I am interviewing Ecletic/Eccentric.

 
MTR: Why did you start your blog?


E/E: eclectic / eccentric began as a sort of strange dare from two of my real life friends. I posted randomly for awhile before finding the book blogging community. From there on out, I was hooked. Becoming a part of a group of people dedicated to and in love with reading felt like a dream come true.  My blog went from random to focused, and I found myself once more excited to read a variety of genres and to really interact with the books I was reading.


MTR: What is your favorite part of blogging?


E/E: Meeting new people takes the cake as my favorite part of blogging. The diverse population of the book blogging community means there is always a new book, a new genre, a new style to discover. When I first started blogging, I was stuck in a rut. After the intensity of my Masters program, I was vegging out with super-easy reads, primarily romance novels and YA series. But being back among more 'literary' readers really inspired me to (re) widen by reading, filling in the gaps with literary fiction, classics, graphic novels, and so on. I love diversity in people and in reading, and blogging really helps with that.


What book is your current obsession? (The one that you're so in love with at the moment)


E/E: Alma Katsu's The Taker is definitely occupying a large chunk of mental book-fantasizing, but my wish list is disturbingly long. I'm very impatiently waiting for Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Prince and Gail Carriger's Heartless. Even the idea of reading Chine Mieville's Embassytown gets me shaking with excitement. And on a completely different note, I keep staring at Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita as I plan on reading it next month!


MTR: What do you when you aren't blogging or reading?


E/E: I am a college professor, teaching composition, literature, and film to (mostly) eager undergraduate students, so a great deal of my time is taken up preparing lesson plans and grading papers. I am lucky though in that preparing lesson plans involves a lot of reading books and watching movies (who can complain about that?) When I'm not working, reading, or blogging, I watch an obscene quantity of television (typically back-to-back episodes instantly streamed through Netflix). Currently I am watching Friday Night Lights, Rescue Me, and a throwback from my youth, Roswell. I am really looking forward to the season premieres of White Collar and Leverage this summer.


Please link any posts you'd like to give more attention.


E/E: I am the Director of the Speculative Fiction category for the Independent Literary Awards this year. If you have any suggestions for new release Spec Fic reads, please head over and leave your suggestions! Be sure to check out the Indie Lit Awards website as well for more information.
More information about yours truly can be found on my About Me page or on my Armchair BEA welcome post.