By Her Shelf has been suspiciously quiet the last couple of months. My co-contributors and I have all been insanely busy working, writing, creating, teaching, mothering, and, somewhere in the mystical gap in the time/space continuum called “free time,” reading. We’ve been so busy, in fact, we took an unintended extended summer vacation from blogging. While our break was fun, it’s time to get back to bringing you the reading related content you’ve come to expect from us. We’re easing back into regular posting with a brief recap of the amazing things we’ve been working on and what we’re reading these days. 

Contributor Alex participated in Camp NaNoWriMo in July. Her work in progress (WIP), Project Pastelitos, now sits close to 30,000 words! She also purchased her ticket to attend BookNet Fest in September. You can also catch Alex’s book related writing on Frolic. Alex is currently reading Second Chance Summer and Next Year in Havana. 

Contributor Christina recently launched Other Words Press, offering editing and critiquing services. She’s currently working on her first course, Inspire: From Idea to Draft, which will launch later this year. I’ve had the opportunity to read the modules, and I’m excited for all the aspiring authors who will have their writing lives changed by Inspire. Christina is currently  reading Where the Crawdads Sing and loving it.

I’ve been a busy bee. I released The Speaking Season: Poems and Pieces in paperback and kindle eBook. I’ve continued working with authors to publish their books, mostly through formatting and proofreading. I’ve been working on a super secret suite of author related content since December, and I’m finally ready to start releasing it. I’m announcing the first course this month.

After experiencing a hardcore reading slump, I crawled out of the abyss by picking up My Sister, the Serial Killer. I flew through it in two days and started another. I just finished Personal Protection, and it was really good as well. There are few things better than a Julie Miller romantic suspense to get me out of a reading slump.

And that’s what the ladies behind the shelf have been up to and reading. What are you reading now? What or who is your go-to genre, series, or author when you’re experiencing a reading slump?