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Hi everyone — you should have been able to watch my interview with Ross Raisin already, but technical difficulties have prevented its posting…for once, these are not my technical difficulties. Really, when the coding in a video stream is cranky, it’s noboby’s fault. We will have it live as soon as possible.

In the meantime, I have an exciting meeting today at WETA to talk about changes and improvements for this website. We’ve listened to the feedback we’ve gotten from our devoted handful of readers (someday it will be a slew!), and I can’t wait to share some new ways of highlighting books here. Thanks for reading, as always, and as they say in our parent organization’s broadcast world, please stay tuned…

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For anyone out there still reading, I’m back! My apologies for over a week without posts; I was on a long-overdue vacation (last summer I wasn’t able to take one). I’ve got lots of stories about reading to share, but I wanted to write a quick post to let you know that this week’s intended interview has been moved to next week for an excellent reason: WETA.org has just relaunched with a wonderful new look and feel. Check it out when you have a moment, and please share your thoughts. You can email me any time: thebookmaven at gmail dot com.

I hope all of you had great Labor Day weekends, preferably with a book in hand. I’ll be back soon to share some of my vacation reading finds.

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We’ll have the Frances Kiernan video up shortly — please come back to see it.

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Remember last week when I said I’d be blogging every day? Hahahahhaahahaaaaaahhaa. I’ll get there; it’ll just take me a week or three. I’ll lean on the tried-and-true bibliophile’s excuse: there are too many books and not enough time. In the meantime, I thought I’d point you to my last two Publishers Weekly blog posts, since both of them are DC-oriented:

The Olsson’s Conundrum: Take a look at the comments on this post and tell me what you think. What is the future of bookselling?

Books in Bits: Have you picked up a copy of Bit o’ Lit? This DC-only (for now) commuter read contains 5-6 excerpts of hot new books in each issue.

Tomorrow you’ll get an absolutely fresh new post, and thanks to all of you who nabbed copies of Jonathan Miles’s Dear American Airlines – those books will go out soon, and I hope you’ll enjoy the read.

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Greetings, readers. It’s the end of my first week of daily posts, and I’m raring to write more. Here at Author, Author! I’m planning to indulge myself (and you, I hope) with plenty of reviews and links to other great litblogs. It’s going to take me just a week or two to get up to full speed, but since a few of you have expressed interest in more reviews, you will get them. I also plan to find a way to add an archive of reader reviews, especially those of books you’ve picked up here in our bimonthly giveaways.

For those of you who have missed a book or two that you did nab as a giveaway, please bear with me. These books will come your way! I so appreciate your sticking with this vlog while we’ve worked through some of our growing pains.

What are you reading this weekend? I plan to finally, finally, finally relax with Elizabeth George’s Careless in Red, which  is downloaded on my Kindle. The Kindle has its flaws, but one great thing about is that you can hold it and turn pages with just one hand. Makes it easier to maintain a grip on a cold drink while in the hammock…

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1. Two more copies of Dear American Airlines to the first two readers who respond to this post with their nightstand reading…

2. Check out my Publisher’s Weekly blog, “The Book Maven,” where I’ve been asking for recommendations of what my younger daughter should read next. There are some great picks in the comments!

3. I’d love to offer more here for readers — and to gather more readers here. If you’ve been lurking, or if you’ve been posting but have comments, suggestions, criticisms…let me know! You can post here, or you can email me directly: thereadingwriter at gmail dot com.

4. We’ve got a great summer lineup of author interviews, including people writing about Brooke Astor; Gloucester, Massachusetts; and World War II-era Warsaw. Please come back for those every two weeks, however…

5. In the meantime, I’ll start posting daily here, with lots of book reviews, publishing news, and some giveaways of my own that aren’t based around the author interviews. So please stop back soon!

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It’s official — the holiday season must be upon us, because I officially can’t keep up! I apologize for not having posted a blog entry last Friday, but I wanted to be sure and write one so you’ll know what’s coming up this month.

First, I’d like to thank each and every one of you who has contributed comments in our giveaways (please let us know if you haven’t received your book within 2-3 weeks after your post; you can get in touch with us by posting again or by emailing me at thereadingwriter at gmail dot com). Your comments are thoughtful, interesting, and fun for me to read — and I hope they’re fun for other readers/visitors, too.

Second, come on over tomorrow and next Monday, too, for our special holiday giveaways. They’ll be a little more limited, but I think you’ll love them (hint: they involve… books!).

Third, for the next couple of weeks we’ll be featuring Top Holiday Gift Books and the Best Books of 2007 from some interesting, thoughtful, and fun guests who are local, to boot. The great thing about these interviews is that they’ll hopefully not only entertain and inform; they’ll make your holidays easier, too. I can certainly use a little help in that area…

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This week was our first book giveaway in conjunction with an Author Author! Book of the Week — and I’m so happy to see the comments and stories that people shared. Thank you for visiting, for reading and watching, and for taking the time to write.

We want this Web site to be about you and for you, the readers (in the DC metro area and beyond!). Do you have suggestions for authors you’d like to see interviewed? Do you have questions you’d love to ask writers if you could? We can’t guarantee specific books or authors, since appearances depend on tour schedules, but we will certainly make an effort.

Next week, we’ll be featuring one of this fall’s most amazing fiction titles: Away by Amy Bloom — stop by again to check out our giveaway, and don’t miss my Wednesday interview with Bloom, who is funny, supersmart, and just finishing up her first experience as a TV producer… — Bethanne Patrick

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It’s reading season… if you’re here checking out this new vlog, you probably already knew that. Those of us accustomed to fall as back-to-school time, cooler temperatures time, falling-leaves time, all think of new books with anticipation when September rolls around again.

You know what books are, of course, but just in case you’ve never heard the term “vlog:” it stands for “video log” — a “blog” based around video clips. Starting with this entry and continuing with nearly every entry, we’ll show as well as tell.

What will we show? First and foremost: authors talking about their work. We’ll introduce you to today’s top authors, including Richard Russo, Mary Gordon, Louis Bayard, Naomi Wolf, Frank Warren, Alexander McCall Smith, Luanne Rice, and many, many more.

We’ll also “show” book reviews, descriptions of local book events, and more — presented by me, Bethanne Patrick. Who am I? I’m a journalist and critic who focuses on books, authors, and publishing. I’ve been an editor at PAGES magazine and the channel director for AOL Books. I blog as The Book Maven for Publishers Weekly and review for The Washington Post Book World and Bookreporter.com, among others. I love what I do, and I hope that it… “shows.” (Hold those groans… I couldn’t help it!)

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