Discussing and Remembering Dewey

[Maw Books]

It is a sad week within the book blogging community. Dewey from Hidden Side of a Leaf passed away this past week. To say that she leaves behind a huge void is a understatement. Not only was she a prolific reader, reviewer and blogger but she was also the founder and organizer of Weekly Geeks, the Bookworms Carnival, and the 24 Hour Read-a-Thon. And I'm sure I'm unaware of many others. We have all been influenced by her amazing energy, creative juices and bringing the community together. She was a wonderful friend. Florinda at The 3 R's: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness perhaps summed everything up best on this well thought out post. She already has a list of bloggers willing to help.

There has been a lot of discussion on many blogs and twitter about how to cope with that loss.

Some of that discussion has included:

1 - How to best express our condolences to Dewey's family. Many of us have her address in which to send cards/packages. It's been mentioned to donate money/books to her local library, donate money to have her family plant a tree in her name, gather all the online tributes to make sure that Dewey's family doesn't miss them all, send flowers, etc.

2. - How to best carry on the amazing community building events that Dewey started. Many have already expressed interest in taking up some of these projects, includes challenges, Weekly Geeks, the 24 Hour Read-a-thon (this has gotten so big, it probably should have a dedicated blog), secret santa (with Nymeth), and the Bookworms Carnival. Dewey already had a lot of help on many of these projects so I'm sure many feel more prepared than others to step up to the plate.

3 - Raych from Books I Done Read has asked for a RIP button to place on our blogs.

4 - Keeping Dewey's husband in the loop. He mentioned that he would like to either see Dewey's blog continue or just let it rest. Either way, I think he should be in the know how.

So what now? Let's figure it out! Ideas, like to help, etc? I thought that we should get a discussion going in just one place, so it's not spread out among everybody. This certainly doesn't make me the "moderator" here. I just want to be able to talk amongst ourselves. What have I missed?

And if you're reading this discussion that get the word out and direct traffic over here. I'll set up another discussion to list links of our remembrance posts.

[Literary Escapism]

If anyone is interested, American Bibliophile has an interview with Maria Murnane.

http://americanbibliophile.com/?p=260

[Florinda]

Cool. I had wondered about this too. I'll put the link up on my blog tomorrow to help get people over there.

[Ali]

Weird, Marny, I don't know what the problem is, you're definitely listed as a member so it's not a matter of not being subscribed or something, which was my first thought. I'll email you right now and hopefully we can sort it out somehow.

[unfinishedperson]

I also would like to be included in the yahoo group. How do I go about this? Doesn't seem to be a lot of information on this thread.

[Ali]

We'd love to have you! The info is here somewhere but it got buried I think. Send a blank email to [e-mail], and come to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Weeklygeeks/ to catch up on messages.

[unfinishedperson]

I found it after searching...and am working on "getting in" to the group. Thanks.

[gautami tripathy]

I wrote a blog post on her:

http://readingandmorereading.blogspot.com/2008/12/weekly-geeks-27-r...

Yes, we have to keep her spirit alive. We will not let the Weekly Geeks, Bookworms Carnival 24 hour Readathon die away.

[Ladytink_534]

Oh no! I really liked her. She was so creative and fun, she'll be missed.

[Lisa Roe]

I'm so late to this conversation, so I apologize if this has already been mentioned/covered. Dew's husband emailed me yesterday. I had mentioned making some kind of donation to their local library and wondered what his thoughts were:
'Let me tell you this -- about fifteen months ago, Dew and I were
talking about starting a charity with the specific function of
offering libraries funding to replace banned books during banned books
week. They're always going "missing", and replacing them would be
awesome.'

I asked if he would like to to disseminate the information himself or could I run with it:
'I'm not up to, either timewise nor emotionwise, starting such a
venture. If you or someone you know would like to pick up the ball and
run with it, though, that'd be a fine thing. Even if it was just a
blog-based funding drive in the month of banned books week and then
the money donated to a library, that'd be ridiculously cool.'

So, what does everyone think? Is it the most amazing idea EVER or is it just me? :-)
~Lisa

[Maw Books]

This is a amazing idea! I participated in banned book week last time and now I know what I'll be doing this time around!

[Wendy]

I love this idea!!! I forget when banned books week is...but I think that would be too cool.

[Maw Books]

It's in October. So definitely a while but lots of time to pull something together.