All of these photos (save the first one) were taken at Montreal’s Beer Fest yesterday evening. The first is of a bottle of wine that I bought purely because I was in love with its label (it tastes pretty great too, luckily!).
It was my first time at Beer Fest, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. They have such an enormous selection, and the mood of the festival is so fun and boisterous. My friend Laura and I both love a good label, and we were thrilled by the adorable/catchy labels and brands that were showing yesterday. Above are some of my favourites. Unfortunately, the festival is held in an incredibly ugly conference centre, so the lighting is awful. Pair that with the fact that I was drinking, and it explains why a few of these photos are on the blurry side. Blame it on the beer!
I am beyond thrilled to introduce: The Book Learning Podcast with Steph (that’s me!) and Gabrielle (my good friend from the interwebs!).
I’m so incredibly excited to finally share this project with you. It’s been simmering for months now, while we worked out the details – and there were a lot of details. My to-do list for the podcast, if I wrote it all out now, would overwhelm me beyond words. But luckily we just took it one step at a time, and are still sort of muddling through. The most important thing, though, is that it’s launched! Boom. Bam! Out into the world goes my incessant giggling and Gabrielle’s awesome work ethic, and our baby of a podcast.
Watch the video above or here + listen to/download the podcast here!
I’m anticipating some questions. Let me head them off here!
What is the podcast about?
Gabrielle and I are both amateur writers, with 16 novels collectively under our belts (it’s a skewed distribution..one of us has 15 of those, and it ain’t me). We realized that we wanted to get to know each other better, share our writing/reading tips with each other and the world, and discuss our favourite (slightly nerdy) topics to our heart’s content. If you’re like-minded, tune in!
Can you give me some specs about the podcast?
The first episode is 40 minutes, and it was a length that felt natural. You can probably expect future episodes to be about the same length. We plan to podcast roughly once at week. We record our podcasts through the Google+ service, Hangouts on Air. That means that they’re live while we record! In future, we may even alert you to when we record, so you can stream it live if you so choose. After recording in a video format, we pull the audio directly from the video and convert it to mp3. Then it becomes a magical podcast! So you can watch or listen to the format of your choice: the video and audio versions have identical content.
Why should I listen to your podcast?
Well, because it’s awesome! And this is the first episode, so it can only improve with time. We have a lot of fun ideas for upcoming podcasts, including but not limited to:
How we feel about books being adapted into movies
Self-publishing
Writing schedules
Our favourite books
Where we get inspiration
How to successfully complete National Novel Writing Month
Being professionally critiqued
Handling rejection
And so many more! (Listen to the podcast for a few more)
What you can expect from the podcast is a light, fun conversation between two young writers who love to write and read, but don’t take themselves too seriously. Become friends with us!
What is the first episode about? I don’t have time to listen right now, but I want to get excited for when I can listen to it later!
The first episode introduces the podcast and the podcasters (that’s us!). We talk about how we “met”, and how we hope the podcast will make us better friends. We also tell the stories of writing our first novels! Then we discuss what we’re currently reading. That’s the short version, for the long version you’ll just have to listen to the podcast!
Share + Rate + Comment + Suggest!
As we try to get this podcast off the ground and up into the air, we need all the help we can get. We would be so appreciative for your feedback: any and all of it! Leave comments here, under the youtube video, at my email, on iTunes, wherever! Rate us on iTunes! Share the podcast with your friends using that beautiful thing called social media! Suggest topics for upcoming podcasts, or make suggestions about books we should read, or ask us questions. I can’t tell you how excited we would be to hear from you. I’m serious. I’m talking to you.
And last but not least: thank you to everyone who has already been supportive of this project, before they’d even heard it. You know who you are, and I love y’all so much. Thank you for the excitement and support. Keep it up!
Summer so far has been gorgeous. Good food and long walks, in all variations, have so far been the staples in my summer life. I was back with my family last week, who I adore. My life always seems a little brighter with all of them around, and my photos are more dynamic. I’ve been working a lot, as I will from here on out, but I am also making time to enjoy the flowers, cook and bake delicious things, sit out in the sun, have long talks with good friends, create some awesome new projects (at least two of them will be announced over the next couple posts!), and soak up summer as much as I can.
Last night, on a probably-unnecessary-but-very-necessary late night Skype catchup call with my BFF who lives about 10 minutes away, she said something very interesting:
I need to get back into the habit of reading for pleasure.
Booyah. There it is. Right there! Reading for fun is a habit, just like any other pass-time. The more you do it, the more you enjoy it, the more you work it into your daily schedule – the better it is. I am also of the opinion that reading the wrong things can bum you out and steer your clear of reading altogether. There’s probably some deep metaphor in there for life, but I’m a little out of it this morning so just bear with me.
I have a simple rule, most of the time: I read what I’m really, really excited to read. Choosing a book at random off my shelf can work in a pinch, but most of the time I try to read things that I can’t wait to get my hands on. This might seem like it’d be expensive, but I rely quite heavily on the libraries at my disposal (my school’s system and the Montreal library), which, among them, carry most things. Of course, for the brand-new ones that aren’t yet at the library, I can usually save $10-15 by buying them on Kindle. And sometimes I decide to be patient, and wait until I can get them for free.
All of this is to say: I believe in you! If you decide to make this summer the summer that you get back into reading for fun, you can do it. Let me help you by sharing my personal picks for the next few months! These are all books I’ve either read and enjoyed, am reading, or am psyched to get my hands on.
