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.

[Terri]

Fabulous! It's great to know we can be doing something that we know she wanted to see happen. Thanks Lisa.

[Shelly Burns]

This is a great idea! I'm in to help if needed.

[Nymeth]

It's a great idea, Lisa. Thanks for getting the word out.

[Florinda]

FANTASTIC idea! We just need to remember to follow up on it next fall, but I'd go for it.

[Lisa Roe]

My hope is that we can even get some publishers involved and donating!

[Wendy]

That would be awesome, Lisa...I wonder if publishers of these banned books would consider actually providing a book vs. money?

[Lisa Roe]

That would be an even better idea! Can you tell I haven't had that second cup of coffee yet? ;-)

[Steven at Book Dads]

We've presented the Butterfly Award - for the coolest blog I know, to The Hidden Side of a Leaf in memory of Dewey.
Join us.

http://www.bookdads.com/2008/12/weve-been-given-the-butterfly-award/

[Lisa Roe]

Another suggestion from Dewey's husband:
"There's a woman in town with a very similar pain disorder to Dewey.
Hers is correctable with an operation, though, but her insurance
decided it was too expensive to help her out any more, so she has no
access to regular pain medication, no access to the operation that
could make her life bearable with her children again.

A friend of mine offered to set up a donation-aware bank account at
the local bank if I needed money. I don't, fortunately, but this
person could have her life changed if enough people were willing and
able to help her out. I'm asking my friend to start the account to
help someone not be in as much pain as my wife.

If you think the blogs would be better directed doing that, I think
it'd be cool. But there's also a lot to think about with participating
in a charity that Dewey thought sounded awesome."

Someone started a site to manage Weekly Geeks, correct? What if we added a 'Dewey Memorial Fund' page and people could opt to either donate to Banned Books or the woman with the same pain disorder as Dew. What does everyone think?

[Ali]

Great idea, Lisa, we'll talk about it on the WG email list. Thanks for passing that along!

[Nymeth]

Excellent idea, Lisa. We could also spread the word in our blogs so that readers who weren't necessarily Weekly Geeks participants would know about it too.

[Chris]

For those who don't know yet, I wanted to let everyone know that I started a reading challenge remembering Dewey called the Dewey's Books Reading Challenge with the help of Robin from A Fondness of Reading. If you'd like to know more about it or to sign up, you can visit the challenge blog at http://deweysbooks.wordpress.com. Hope to see some of you over there!

-Chris from Stuff as Dreams are Made on