Autumn Essentials Readathon Announcement

EDIT: I’ll keep the old content on this post farther on down the post for those interested to see how things have changed during the creation process. I’ll also be updating this post with the new information at the top as more development happens.

Update 3:
The notes have probably been tweaked since update 2, but I finally have bingo boards! I still need to work on the board for Team Pumpkin Spice, but things are coming along! Note: these may not be the finalized boards. There will be a separate posting for the official announcement with all of the finalized details.

Update 2:
I’ve tweaked some of the original notes (again), but I don’t see a point of posting about it until everything is finalized. I do have new material to post about though! We’ve decided to do 9 prompts for each team so each team will have a 3×3 bingo card. I’ve roughly outlined the prompts for team Pumpkin Spice, but these may still be subject to change (hence roughly).

I’m also trying to expand my view of what “fall” and “fall celebrations” can mean from across the globe, so I read a few articles and took some notes. I like to call my notes the cliff-notes version. They make sense to me, but I’m not sure they’ll make sense to anyone else.

https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/quintessential-fall-how-other-countries-celebrate-autumn

https://earthsky.org/earth/autumn-equinox-cycles-of-nature-and-chinese-philosophy

https://www.travelandleisure.com/attractions/festivals/best-fall-festivals

Update 1:
With the advent of 2020 turning out as it has so far, I wanted to rename the readathon because, after talking to some friends, the general consensus was that “basic bish” is generally seen as a term reserved for white people, especially white women – and I really don’t feel like the world needs a revival of that kind of a thing as long as it’s seen as being so exclusionary. Do I eventually want to see the term basic bitch used as a form of endearment? Yes. Is now the current time to start pushing for that? Heck no. So, after talking about that subject a bit more with some friends I felt like a name change to either Fall Vibes or Autumn Essentials Readathon was in order. I put up a voting poll on Twitter, and you know the rest.

And that brings us back to the development of the readathon that I’ve been neglecting until today (27 July 2020) – for some reason I’m fabulous at procrastinating unless there’s a deadline. After looking at my notes from last year, this is what I have so far:

Stay tuned to this blog post for more updates!

Original Announcement:
This readathon (edit: from here on out is the original post when this was formerly known as Basic Bish Readathon) is still very much in the brainstorming phase, but by September 2020 I’d like to launch the @BasicReadathon on Twitter and YouTube. Check out the video I made about it to learn more:

Updates since this video include:

1. I think I’m going to include teams to make themes easier:
   • Team Pumpkin Spice
   • Team Cozy Sweater
   • Team Boxed Wine (please drink responsibly)
2. There will be book prompts to match with the 3 teams. As I/other founder volunteers come up with the prompts, I’ll list them here.
   • Team Pumpkin Spice
     1. Read a book with a pumpkin on the cover.
   • Team Cozy Sweater
     1. Read a book Emma Watson thinks highly of.
   • Team Boxed Wine
     1. Read a book that has a character with resting-bitch-face.
3. Additional Idea: each team must complete a recipe consisting of pumpkin, spice, and sugar themed prompts.

If you would like to participate in founding this readathon (coming up with prompts/book suggestions for the prompts) or as a team leader or both let us know in the comments below or on Twitter!