Heather Johnson, 'The Book Club Madam,' to moderate panel at Baltimore Book Festival

Do you belong to a book club?  Do you want to start a book club?  Need some advice selecting books, generating discussion, or handling group conflicts?  Then you should plan to be at the Baltimore Book Festival on Saturday, September 26 for the panel discussion "The Book Club Toolkit:  Tools and Tips for Starting and Improving Your Book Club."  Scheduled for 12 pm in the Creative Cafe Tent, veteran book clubbers will be on hand to answer your questions.

Heather Johnson, a.k.a. The Book Club Madam and a book reviewer at Age 30+... A Lifetime of Books, will moderate "The Book Club Toolkit" panel.  She leads a 20-member book club in Glen Burnie, Md., called Storie delle Sorelle, and her experience managing so many readers -- and juggling a book club as a working mom -- will prove valuable to festival goers who attend the panel.

Heather has generously offered to discuss her book club experiences in advance of the panel:

Photo credit:  Chris Johnson

How long have you been a member of a book club?  Why is belonging to one so important to you?

When my son turned 3 years old, I suddenly realized I had lost the habit of reading.  I figured a book club was the push I needed to make reading a priority again.  After trying unsuccessfully to find an existing club, I decided to start my own.  That was back in 2005.  Through the years since then, my book club has provided whatever was needed in my life at the time:  intelligent adult conversation when I was a stay-at-home mom, a girl's night out now that I'm back in the work force, and a way to open my mind to new ideas at each stage of my life.

How does your club go about choosing books, especially with so many members?

When our club was smaller we had a "rotating monarchy"; if it was your month, you could pick any book and we had to read it.  Each gal got to choose a book about once a year.  Now that we have a larger number of members, we do things differently.  Every three months each of us nominates a book, and we rank the nominations.  Once I tally the results, the books with the top three ratings are our choices for the upcoming three months.

What's the best piece of advice you'd give to someone looking to start a book club or someone trying to find a book club?

My best bit of advice is to have an idea of what you want your club to be and to be vocal about it.  If you are starting your own club, make sure the people you invite share your vision.  If you are joining an existing club, make sure your vision of a book club matches their reality.  A book club will not be successful if some members see it as simply a night out of the house, while other members want to avoid all small talk to focus solely on the book.  Book clubs are all different -- you just need to make sure that everyone in your club is on the same page.

How do you deal with conflicts that arise within the book club?

That's a very good question.  Depending on the problem, sometimes a simple yet polite email can fix it (we've done that), and sometimes it calls for an "administrative meeting" (we've done that too).  I hate to admit it, but sometimes we simply ignore the problem and hope it will go away.  Of course, that is not the best solution by any means.  This is a topic that we'll be focusing on during "The Book Club Toolkit" panel, and I'm looking forward to hearing how the panelists handle problems in their clubs.

Out of all the books you've read for the club, what are your 5 favorites?

Rather than my personal favorites, I'd rather share the 5 very different books that led to some of our best meetings.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck -- This was our first book, and we spent an entire summer working through it together.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden -- We dressed in Japanese garb and had a guest who showed us Japanese antiques.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver -- Our discussion lasted for two meetings, and we constantly compare other books and their characters to this one.

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown -- Despite the fact that many members (myself included) hated this book, it led to one of our most educational discussions.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri -- The themes raised in this collection of short stories affected members in very different ways.

Meet Heather and the panelists -- Natalie Weikart, a library consultant; Trish Collins of TLC Book Tours; Ladetra Robinson of the Western Maryland book club Sisters in Spirit; Cheryl Hazel of the Baltimore City book club Femme Nouveau; and Nancy Berla of The Second Wednesday Book Club  in Columbia, Md. -- at "The Book Club Toolkit" panel at the Baltimore Book Festival on Saturday, Sept. 26, at noon.  For more information about the Baltimore Book Festival, scheduled for Sept. 25-27, visit the schedule page on the festival website.