Kghia Gherardi & Simeon Beresford
Bookstacks is a community within the virtual reality game Second Life (SL). As you can guess, it is a place for bookish people to meet other bookish people and get together and do bookish things. Originally founded by Simeon Beresford in the spring of 2007, Kghia Gherardi was recruited shortly thereafter to help with events. Bookstacks currently has 400 members and an additional 100+ notification subscribers, many of whom show up to the weekly Book Trivia Game on Saturdays and the alternating weekly discussions and social gatherings on Sundays. Bookstacks is s collaborative effort Let us know if you want to help.
Many Bookstacks events take place at Bookstacks Isle on Awen, though the Sunday discussions often take place in topic-appropriate locations elsewhere in SL. Past locations have included The Globe Theater for the Shakespeare discussion and Rachelville for the YA fiction discussion. Additionally, Bookstacks is adding reading group discussions to its events, starting with a Paranormal Book Group and a Cozy Mysteries group. Poetry Libre, lead by Leonardo Zimring and Serene Bechir, also holds its weekly open mic poetry event at the Bookstacks Pub.
This website links to the Bookstacks events calendar, as well as other bookish events. If you know of an event, sim, or anything else book-related that you would like featured on this blog, please leave a notecard in the drop-box at Bookstacks.
In late 2008, Bookstacks partnered with The Guild of UK Writers to better offer events to both the readers and writers of Second Life. Co-sponsored events include the Victorian Steampunk-themed skating party and a Horror Fest.
Featured inside the Pub is a rotating art exhibit, curated by Kelly Yap of Kelly Yap Art Gallery. The exhibit changes every six to eight weeks, so there is often something new to see.
In March 2009, Kghia and Simeon, along with Xinoxi Han, began a new project with Radio Riel. Off the Shelf is a fortnightly podcast featuring authors, poets, book-related venue owners, librarians, and others associated with making texts available to a reading public. The podcasts are recorded live in the Off the Shelf set above Bookstacks Isle on Sundays at 1 p.m. People are welcome to attend the taping and ask questions of the guests after the show. Be sure to check out the section on this web site for more details.
