I started the blog Bookish Liaisons on December 24, 2016. I love the title. In the year and half since, I have grown so much!!! What started as a passion project is now a job. Woah. How, oh how, did that happen? Well, a lot of work and late nights.
I began Bookish Liaisons with the intention of being a bookish-lifestyle blog. The name Bookish (me) Liaisons (my adventures). Over the past few months as I have traveled more, soul searched, experimented, and thought about it, I decided to change the name of my blog. I love books, and I am still just as bookish as ever. However, there are things I want to touch on more than I do. I was feeling a little hemmed in by the title Bookish Liaisons because people only saw me as a book blogger. Books come first on this site’s menu, and it’s what I’ll write about most consistently. I just don’t want to feel the need to constantly post pictures with books or write solely about books or relating to books because the word ‘book’ is in the title. My life is a lot more complex than being a bookworm. I want to start exploring that.
As I was searching for new names for my blog, I wanted to keep or, at least, incorporate Bookish Liaisons somehow. I came up with …on the B.L.
Why?
B.L. = Bookish Liaisons. Get it! I am …on the B(ookish).L(iaisons). of life, if you will.
Also it’s a play on the idiom “on the DL” short for “on the down-low” meaning “keep it hush-hush.” I liked this word play for a lot of reasons. 1) It’s word play. I am a nerd, you know. 2) So much of what I read is not necessarily mainstream. I like to read female authors, minority authors, and unlikely stories. 3) I also want to start talking more about my past of sexual abuse because I have an audience. I would be remiss not to speak about such important things when I have people paying attention to what I say. I used to lecture at Iowa State University, written blogs, talked, and advocated for change regarding sexual and domestic violence. This is not new for me in any way, shape, or form; it is just new here. I have a history, which has not been gone into on this platform, and I want that to change. 4) I also want to advocate and educate myself and others on issues of intolerance, racism, and more because these things need to change, and unfortunately they’re all still kept pretty hush-hush – along with point three. 5) The fun stuff: food, clothes, restaurants, vacations, etc. I don’t necessarily do, wear, see, eat, or go to popular places. I like to find the new and different. I like supporting small, local, independently owned, and/female business.
Mostly, …on the B.L. is meant to use my platform to help affect change, encourage others to use their voices, or support people and business who haven’t found theirs yet. That being said, I can’t always live that way. Target is pretty great. (Not sponsored, but I’d be happy to chat!)