Recapping This Year's BlogHer

One of things I love about BlogHer, now in its third year, is the number of diverse women I meet from around the country and in some cases, the world. In my Silicon Valley blogging circles, people are mostly writing about start-up life, venture capital, Web 2.0 trends, the world of social media and why every new online network is cooler than the last one. At BlogHer, I run into an array of topics, interests, passions and writing styles.

In a long elevator ride that went from top to bottom at least eight times, I shared stories with women from Kansas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Florida, New York, Texas, Wisconsin, Canada, England, Oregon, Washington (state and DC), Massachusetts and Connecticut.

They're writing about motherhood, humor, politics, issues that affect women like education, healthcare and war, spirituality, crafts (who knew there were so many blogs on knitting, sewing, craft making, stamps/albums and beyond), and two of my favorites: fashion and food/wine. There are so many great fashion and food bloggers, I could spend days getting lost in their stories, recommendations and photographs.

There were women authors who also have blogs that are topic-less, meaning they write about everything, a bit like me minus the technology. In a recent blog post, Ruth of Ruthless in the Suburbs quotes Oscar Wilde (a favorite of mine as well): "Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."  Amen, Oscar. Which reminds me of a joke. So this horse walks into a bar, sits down on a stool, and the bartender comes over and says, "Hey, why the long face?" She has a second blog that reviews books.

Other interesting women I ran into include Romi Lassally of True Mom Confessions -- formerly with Huffington Post -- Victoria Revay from NowPublic, IzzyMom, Meagan Carberry of True Office Confessions, 16 year old Chloe Spencer, Holly Burns who blogs at Travelocity, Stacy alias Mrs. Squirrel, Cheryl Colan, Cristin Jones and Helene Taylor, who has a blog about "Modern Divorce."

Also, see my Faces of BlogHer and BlogHer photo album.