How to use this Page

Want to recommend great books to teen boys? Guys Lit Wire, a new collaborative book blog, will be launching in June - and we need your help! In an effort to keep content fresh, timely, and varied, we'll update the blog every Monday through Friday, with different bloggers posting each day. Thus, we'll need at least twenty-one people committed to posting once a month.

Colleen from Chasing Ray is in charge of the project. If you or anyone you know (parents, ask your sons; librarians and booksellers, ask your patrons; teachers, ask your students) would like to participate in the Guys Lit Wire blog, please email colleen(at)chasingray(dot)com or leave a message at her blog.

As regular readers of the Bildungsroman blog know, I'm actively involved in readergirlz, running their website and heading up the postergirlz advisory council. Guys Lit Wire and readergirlz are not directly connected, but they do support each other, and each project actively encourages BOTH genders to read and participate in book discussions.

The Birth of Guys Lit Wire

How did this all come about? First, Sara Lewis Holmes went to the store to get a book for her son. She also had a conversation with her husband about books for boys, partially inspired by Colleen's post at Chasing Ray. Then Sara posted about it some more. aquafortis came up with the name Guys Lit Wire and started working on a design for the blog. After Colleen posted about it again, things started moving forward - and here we are now.

Email colleen(at)chasingray(dot)com now to be a part of Guys Lit Wire!

Just to update you on the idea that several of us have been bouncing around for a web site recommending books to teenage boys. We are working on the design and putting together a big list of daily posters. But first the name:

Guys Lit Wire!!

All credit for that one goes to Sarah (who will likely also want to mention some help from Tanita). I was banging my head hard against the wall on this and Sarah came through big time. So kudos to her limitless creativity which will be big time on display on the site. Wait until you see the header she is working on for the main page - it is some kind of awesome.

We are planning to go live by June 1st and update every Monday - Friday with a different daily poster. We hope to have 21 folks on board dedicated to posting at least once a month. This way we get tons of new content from lots of different points of view, which is what I really wanted. We will likely run multiple daily posts as the site evolves but readers will be able to count for sure on at least one new post every weekday and that is what we will build a lot of the site's readership on.

There will be book recommendations, author interviews, literary commentary, a rant or two (I'm sure) and lots of other good stuff. The goal is to cover a ton of different types of books from across the literary spectrum so we can become a good resource to actual teenagers as well as anyone seeking to find books for teen boys. (And if the girls want to visit we are happy to have them, but boys are our target audience.)

Right now everything is moving forward quite nicely but we do still need some folks to commit to posting. If any of you would like to participate in Guys Lit Wire (or recommend someone) then please let me know. We are especially looking for guys so we can keep our group balanced (and because guys know a thing or two about what guys like to read... :) Please send me an email if you can help. (colleenatchasingraydotcom)