I’ve occasionally made reference over the years to some long-term health issues in my family. Those continue, and the ongoing challenge of dealing with them is having an effect on my writing. My big blog in particular has become too grumpy, too sloppy, and too repetitive. It’s important for me to realize when I’ve had enough (or too much) to say on certain themes; and it’s also important for me to realize what topics need fuller and more carefully written treatment than I’ve been giving them.
I continue to be pretty happy with my micro.blog page, though — I feel that I am still sharing things there that bring people pleasure and even, occasionally, illumination. That will continue as usual.
What I’m going to do, if I can manage it, is to make the big blog a place for less frequent but longer and more thorough-considered essays. Actual essays. My goal is ultimately to post one essay per month, but — thanks to the aforementioned personal challenges — that may not start right away.
Other writing updates: I have an essay on the 1937 movie Make Way for Tomorrow coming out in a new journal that hasn’t yet announced itself — more on that in due course — and a longish essay on the possible renewal of humanism (a perpetual theme of mine) in the next issue of The Hedgehog Review. Later this year will be another piece in Hedgehog and an essay on Ezra Pound for the legendary Salmagundi.
I turned in the complete manuscript of my biography of Dorothy L. Sayers last month, but thanks to the glacial pace of modern academic publishing the book is unlikely to appear until next year. By contrast, Sayers turned in the manuscript of Gaudy Night in late September of 1935 and my early November it was in bookstores. Oh well.
And of course I am teaching! — and enjoying it as much as I ever have. My students are delightful, and I will very much miss them when, at the end of this calendar year, I call a halt to that part of my career. But I am looking forward to blazing new trails in my writing for many years to come.
My deepest thanks to you all for your support. And now I must sign off — Angus wants to play ball.
