Keeping on top of Genre, the Dailies

In my Scott Pilgrim trailer post last week I mentioned that I have a specific (and quite possibly compulsive) way in which I keep up to date regarding genre news. At the time I assumed that most people have some sort of crazy schedule they keep to focus on whatever their hobby is, so it only got a small mention. Then my friend Fate (Check out her blog BTW - it's a lot of fun!) asked me for more info on how I keep up to date.

Sitting down to put the schedule on paper - I realized it's a little bigger than just a weekly thing. I have four categories of resources to help keep on top of my genre reading. Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Yearly. So, for the next four Fridays, we'll look at how I keep up to date in genre news.

Keeping up with genre news the Bookmonkey way - Daily

Entertainment Weekly

My first stop for genre news is a morning visit (and to be fair, I tend to pop back at lunch as well) to the mainstream magazine Entertainment Weekly. They focus on all sorts of Entertainment news, so there is a lot about reality television as well, but on a fairly regular basis this is where I will find a lot of my genre news, especially for things that would be tricky to find elsewhere (like casting info for the upcoming Captain America movie or The Walking Dead Television series). Overall, I tend to scan a lot of the articles, but they pay people to keep track of news, so it would be silly of me to ignore them.

Horror / SF/Fantasy

Actually for updates regarding genre fiction, I find the best places to keep a finger on the pulse of what is out there are a number of blogs. There are news sites I go to (we'll focus on those in the post about my weekly habits), but on a day-to-day basis, I just find someone who is passionate about a subject and follow them. For horror, I follow BJC at Day of the Woman, for Young Adult fantasy, I follow the Fickle Hand of Fate, For Gaming news, I recently started to check out Eiglophian Press. In a way they are the best places to go as you can feel the passion they have for their own favourite genre and you can assume they'll be up-to-date on areas you don't know much about.

Comics

On a daily basis, I get my comic book news from my BFF Mike (pictured left), whether over the phone or on his blog. Just as I go to various bloggers for updates in different genres, Mike is my go to place for current comic book news. I do have other places I check out on a weekly basis, but this guy really likes his comics - I mean seriously, he is currently doing a five day retrospective on The She-Hulk for his own blog (which is totally worth the read by the way). Now I know each of you can't call Mike to ask about comics (his boss would get mad), but like me, you probably have friends who are into similar things and you should give them a call - they'll help keep you up to date, and everyone likes getting asked about stuff.

So there you have it, my daily schedule - next Friday we'll look at my weekly one.