Interview Day! I promised in my BBAW Sign-Up post that I had been matched up with the most fun book blogger I know for Interview Day. It is Care from Care’s Books and Pie! (formerly Care’s Online Book Club)
Care is well known in the book blogosphere for her clever (over)use of tags; her love of pie (in her reviews, instead of stars, she awards slices of pie); and for her generosity in commenting. (She consistently shows up on my end-of-the-year stats as a top commenter on my blog, which I really appreciate!)
Care and I even met in person a couple of times, before she migrated southward, to North Carolina. Care snapped this group selfie at the Boston Book Festival in October 2012:
Care and I both started reading Stephen King late in life, and we’ve done at least one read-along together (#ShineOn). I missed the Italong, but her enthusiasm for the audiobook version of King’s scary clown/scary small town story read by Stephen Weber convinced me to listen to all 45 hours of it!
Chatting with Care
Q: I love the new name! How did your blog name, Care’s Online Book Club, originate and why did you decide to change to Care’s Books and Pie?
A: I first started my book blog as an idea for my long-distance family to have a book club – a place we could meet and chat about books. If Facebook had been then like it is now, I probably would have done it there but since I already had a personal blog, I thought I might as well create a book blog, too. Unfortunately or fortunately, the people who stopped by to chat were other bloggers and wa la! I got caught up on the book-blogosphere community and have never looked back.
Q: How/when did your pie baking hobby begin?
A: I can’t quite recall when the pie obsession happened exactly, but it has been a long time. I just started experimenting with unusual pies and it evolved into wanting to be really good at pie pastry and then it became a goal to make a pie every month and then I started collecting pie recipe books and pie plates and being expected to bring pies to food events which turned into creating every pie in the book A Year of Pie by Ashley English in 12 months. That was 2013.
I thought it would be cute to rate my books with pie slices instead of stars. I have morphed into being a book and pie gal, I guess. Branded myself, so to speak.
I do get excited when I read about pie in a book, usually dropped into a scene. Stephen King usually has pie in his books, I’ve noticed. Now I try to keep track.
Q: Don’t you also have the hobby of letter-writing? How does it dovetail with your book blog?
A: Yes, I do love to write letters. In 2012, I set a goal to write a letter every day. I love stationery and pens. I find that book bloggers like to send and receive letters and many of my penpals are bloggers. Probably because of Twitter, to be honest, and now Instagram. How fun is it to get a letter then take a photo and brag about it?! while thanking the letter writer that their missive was received.
Books are great subjects in letters. “What are you reading? Here’s what I’m reading.”
Q: How many of your virtual book friends have you met in real life?
A: I met a ton of book bloggers at the 2010 BEA/BBC event! I roomed with Sheila of Book Journey; along with Kim the Sophisticated Dork and Esme of Chocolate and Croissants!! I mostly hung out with Jill who no longer blogs about books or seems to be online ever anymore. 
I have two exciting meetups to share: Nancy the Book Fool and Judith (Leeswammes) all the way in the Netherlands!
I took a leap of faith or daring and crashed/stalked Nancy’s vacation to Charleston. SC. Then she came to Mass to visit me and we met Simon Van Booy… Not just MET SVB but had tea with him. It is my top author-rockstar geekout fest memory.
In 2013, I had the opportunity to visit Europe, and Judith of Leeswammes’ Blog graciously agreed to meet me in Amsterdam. A true highlight of my trip!
And now, living in North Carolina, I can happily say I’m friends with Amy and Heather the Capricious Reader and Becca of I’m Lost in Books!
Q: What is the ONE biggest positive you can name for blogging?
A: Connections that have gone long past chatting about books and become what I hope are lifelong friendships. It is just awesome that our our book-blog-world is so positive and not nasty. I appreciate that everyone is so nice. Perhaps our discussions don’t go as deep for that, but I appreciate it anyway.
Q: Are you surprised at how blogs have evolved to include Twitter and Tumblr and Facebook, etc? (This question and, except for the first three questions above, all the other questions, Care came up with and we both answered, so you can see my answers today on Care’s Books and Pie.)
A: I love Twitter and I hope hope hope it doesn’t get away from what I love about Twitter with algorithm-controlled feed display or whatever the latest threat was about. I attempted Tumblr but didn’t have the time to really ‘get it’, maybe. Facebook is for family. Twitter is just awesome, and we will see what the future does to blogging. I’ll keep writing snail mail letters (no offense meant to the lovely postal workers I do not mean to refer to as “snails”.) Not sure if I answered my own questions but we need to wrap this up, am i right?!
Book Blogger Appreciation Week is an annual week-long event originated by My Friend Amy in 2008 that ran for five years, and has now being brought back after a hiatus by The Estella Society.
Click on the image for the Linky List of Day Two interviews!