das Jessa Crispin

One of the original — and by most counts still the most popular — book blogs, Bookslut, is moving to Berlin. Or at least, founder and editor-in-chief Jessa Crispin is.

It’s not the first time Crispin has uprooted — soon after she started Bookslut in Austin, Texas, she moved it to Chicago, where it quickly grew to include a magazine of fiction and poetry and reviews and interviews. Meanwhile, Crispin just as quickly became the literary doyenne of the town, running the city’s most popular reading series and being the media go-to for local literary stories. It even proved a platform for a larger audience, as Crisipin has become a popular commentator for national media such as NPR and The Smart Set.

So what happened?

“I think that maybe I treat cities like relationships, and one day I just wake up and realize it’s over,” she explains in a blog post. “I’ll tell myself that I’m crazy, that maybe I’m not trying hard enough, after all, people I love very much are here. But no, it’s over, and I started looking around for somewhere to move.”

Crispin says not to worry: not only will the site continue on as it is, with her assistant Caroline Eick as the new managing editor — she’ll even continue the Chicago reading series. But as for the beloved blog, it will be run by some substitutes — such as her old Bookslut sidekick Michael Schaub — until she gets settled in Berlin.