Originally the solo blog of writer/editor Melinda Beasi, Manga Bookshelf has grown into a multi-blog network featuring Manga Critic Katherine Dacey, Manga Curmudgeon David Welsh, MangaBlog‘s Brigid Alverson, Soliloquy in Blue‘s Michelle Smith, and A Case Suitable for Treatment‘s Sean Gaffney, as well as regular contributions from manga sales analyst Matt Blind, Manhwa Bookshelf contributor Hana Lee, anime reviewer Cathy Yan, Japanese magazine excavator Erica Friedman, and other special guests. Click here to contact us.
Bloggers
Melinda Beasi (editor) has written about manga, manhwa, and other East Asian-influenced comics at Manga Bookshelf, PopCultureShock’s Manga Recon, and CBR’s Comics Should Be Good, where you can find her periodic review column, Tokidoki Daylight as well as The NANA Project, a collaborative project with Danielle Leigh and Michelle Smith. She’s also been spotted as a guest writer at MangaBlog, The Hooded Utilitarian, Flashlight Worthy Books, Comics Worth Reading, The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and About.com, and as a guest on the podcast Manga Out Loud. Melinda lives in western Massachusetts, where she coaches young singers and eats too much cheese. Click here for an index of Melinda’s offsite writing. Connect with Melinda at LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google +, or by e-mail.
Brigid Alverson has been reading comics since she was 4. After earning an MFA in printmaking, she headed to New York to become a famous artist but ended up working with words instead of pictures, first as a book editor and later as a newspaper reporter. She started MangaBlog to keep track of her daughters’ reading habits and now covers manga, comics and graphic novels as a freelancer for School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly Comics Week, Graphic Novel Reporter, Comic Book Resources, MTV Geek, and Robot 6. She also edits the Good Comics for Kids blog at School Library Journal. Now settled in the outskirts of Boston, Brigid is married to a physicist and has two teenage daughters.
Katherine Dacey has been reviewing manga since 2006, when she joined PopCultureShock. Over the next two years, she worked with webmaster Jon Haehnle and fellow contributor Erin Finnegan to transform Erin’s “Manga Recon” concept from a bi-monthly column into a full-fledged website covering manga, anime, and Japanese pop culture. She stepped down from her post in January 2009. Kate’s resume also includes serving as a panelist at the American Library Association’s national conference, New York Comic-Con, and Wondercon; contributing to Chopsticks, a “comprehensive guide to Japanese culture in New York City”; and contributing to the School Library Journal’s Good Comics for Kids blog, where she writes Good Manga for Kids, a column that focuses on manga for pre-teen readers. When she isn’t writing about manga, Kate swings a golf club, plays the oboe, runs long distances, watches old movies, and frolicks with her dog Grendel. Kate lives in Boston, MA.
Sean Gaffney has been reading manga since 1996, writing fanfiction in the manga and anime world since 1996, but only decided to start a manga blog in 2009. No one is quite sure why, as talking endlessly is one of his favorite things. He’s also written guest posts at Erica Friedman’s Okazu. His favorite manga things to discuss are shoujo with cheerful yet oblivious heroines, defending angry tsundere girls, and pretending he doesn’t ship. His favorite non-manga things to discuss are classic cartoons from the 1930s to 1960s, William Shakespeare (and other Elizabethan/Jacobean playwrights), and Frank Zappa. But really, he’ll happily talk about anything, even if he has to Google it first to pretend he knows all about it. He lives in Connecticut.
Michelle Smith has been writing reviews of books and comics (of various persuasions) at her blog Soliloquy in Blue since 2006. From 2008 to 2010, she wrote for PopCultureShock’s Manga Recon, serving as the Senior Manga Editor from 2009 onwards. She has also written for CBR’s Comics Should Be Good and participates in The NANA Project series of roundtables (along with Danielle Leigh and Melinda Beasi) that are hosted there. After contributing to Manga Bookshelf for a year, she finally caved to peer pressure and officially joined the team in June 2011. Aside from reading, Michelle’s main passion is music (especially popular music produced between ’71 and ’74), though she also enjoys genre television and attempting to broaden her culinary horizons. She lives in Florida.
One day in 2004, David Welsh decided on a whim to start a blog, the unfortunately named “Precocious Curmudgeon.” From his earlier days dedicated to writing primarily about super-hero comics, he eventually expanded his comics reading to include independent comics, then comics from Japan, which have supplanted most everything else at this point. (Hence, the renamed blog.) He wrote a column on manga, Flipped, for several years, first for the defunct Comic World News, then for Tom Spurgeon’s The Comics Reporter. He is particularly fond of weird, off-brand seinen, somewhat mean-spirited shôjo, and yaoi about people with jobs and lives. He has probably not seen the anime, and he probably never will, but he appreciates your passion on its behalf.
Contributors
Matt Blind has been a full-time bookseller for more than 10 years, and a blogger for more than 7. His first manga was Planetes in 2003, his first anime was Star Blazers (Uchu Senkan Yamato) in 1981: In fandom terms, this means he is oooooold. Despite advancing decepitude, Matt maintains the world’s only steam-powered clockwork manga engine (which occasionally spits out bestseller lists) and still holds down a 45-hour a week job at the bookstore.
Read all of Matt’s posts here!
Cathy Yan is a law school student in Illinois. In fourth grade, she made the unfortunate decision to allow her best friend to introduce her to Sailor Moon, and she hasn’t looked back since. She loves cooking anime, josei dramas, Shounen Jump rivals, and BL manga by Yamada Yugi. One day she’ll start a therapy group for people who watched Neon Genesis Evangelion while under the age of 20 and are now, like her, permanently traumatized. You can find her on Livejournal, Twitter, or Tumblr.
Read all of Cathy’s posts here!
Hana Lee is a biology graduate student living in California. By day, she experiments with yeast; by night, she spends her time knitting and eating good food. She is also a longtime fan of anime and manga, as well as an avid reader of books. Hana is proud to call herself Korean-American and maintains her fluency in Korean by watching K-dramas, reading manhwa and browsing the Korean-language blogosphere. Her favorite comics include Hikaru no Go, Nabi and Ravages of Time.
Read all of Hana’s posts here!
Erica Friedman is the President and Founder of Yuricon & ALC Publishing. She is also President of Yurikon LLC, a social media promotion company focusing on small and “micro” niches. She writes the world’s oldest and most comprehensive blog on Yuri, shoujoai, girls’ love anime, manga and related media at Okazu. She writes about Social Media Marketing at SocialOptimized.
Read all of Erica’s posts here!
Angela Eastman is a creative writing student at Lesley University, where she’s learning to write books for kids. She started reading manga in high school when she found Cardcaptor Sakura, and it’s all gone downhill from there. Angela is an unrepentant bookworm, and aside from graphic novels loves children’s stories, thick fantasy novels, classic literature and anything by Paulo Coelho. You can find more of Angela’s writing on the Graphic Novels/Comics section of Suite101.com, where she is the Topic Editor, and on her blog. You can also find her on Twitter.
Read all of Angela’s posts here!
Derek Bown is a creative writing and editing student at Brigham Young University. He started watching anime back when Pokemon was first popular, moved on to Ranma 1/2 and One Piece, and eventually found his way to manga. He runs his own anime and manga review blog at Burning Lizard Studios, which he started back in 2009. He is a massive fantasy fan, and loves comedy and action manga the most. His knowledge of anything other than shounen manga is woefully inadequate, but he knows his way around pretty much any action fighter series worth reading. He also happens to be a closet romantic, but will deny any knowledge of shipping fandom if asked. His favorite manga are One Piece, One Piece, and One Piece.
Read all of Derek’s posts here!
Phillip Anthony is 30 years old and still not dead. After discovering anime in the mid 90′s, he kept up an on-again, off-again love affair with the medium until 2006 when he read an article in Newtype USA about something called a podcast. After that, his life never really got back on track. He now semi-podcasts about the anime and manga industry on his website. His work can also be found at Otaku News, where he attempts to not get fired from being a news reporter and reviewer. When he’s not crying over the latest VIZ drama manga, you can find him on Twitter discussing how awesome ARIA is, and why Masters Of The Universe might be the greatest 80′s movie ever. Phillip lives in Dublin, Ireland with his family.
Read all of Phillip’s posts here!
Jia Li is in second grade and enjoys ballet, singing, and jumping on her trampoline. Her favorite subject in school is science and she also enjoys playing the piano and violin. She would like to grow up to be a veterinarian, a teacher or a star.
Read all of Jia’s posts here!
Guests
Eva Volin, Robin Brenner, Khursten Santos, Connie C., Aja Romano, Lorena Nava Ruggero, Deanna Gauthier, Nancy Thistlethwaite, Megan M., Ed Sizemore.
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Want to write for Manga Bookshelf?
Manga Bookshelf is particular when it comes to content and generally will approach potential contributors on its own. However, if you have an idea for a regular column or stand-alone article you think would be a great addition to the site, contact us with a brief summary of what you’d like to contribute and at least two examples of writing you’ve previously published online. Please allow up to four weeks for a response.
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