*hacks through cobwebs with a machete*

Anybody here?

It’s been a long while, but I’m never really gone for good!

I’ve just been very busy, busier than usual—or whatever “usual” once stood for, back in my ancient professional past—so blogging has fallen by the wayside. The little free time I do have goes toward recharging and working on my fiction.

Some updates for those who care about my literary pursuits (if that’s not you, you can skip this paragraph and the next): Last year in June, my second novel came out to great success and fanfare, where by great I mean very, very modest and by fanfare I mean a virtual vuvuzela here and there on social media. Still, I’m pleased overall because the book found many more readers than the first, in part because I’ve learned a great deal about marketing and promotion between the releases. I’ve also made some nice short-fiction sales, fewer in number but greater in quality than in the past. I can’t believe it’s been eight years since I first started putting my fiction in front of other people’s eyeballs. 

In the first half of the coming year, I will have a short-story collection and two novellas coming out. I’m really  excited about the collection, which is lean (featuring only about 20% of my short-fiction opus) and tightly organized around a theme. The novellas are for a particular line put out by my publisher and I absolutely loved working on them. The first novella might showcase my best writing yet, and the length is absolutely heavenly—long enough to tell a complex story yet short enough that the time investment isn’t too onerous and that I can indulge my inner short-story writer without bogging down the larger narrative. I have grand writing plans for the coming year, but more on that another time.

What will likely be of interest to readers here is my return to the plans for Academadness. I set it aside for so long that I will essentially have to redo it, which will have to wait till the summer of 2026.

But enough about nonacademic stuff.

This past year, I graduated a couple of PhD students, one of whom I was happy to see go. The student was weak and I should have been firmer about dismissing them early, but instead I let them hobble for too long, not in small part thanks to Covid, and then I felt duty-bound to drag them across the finish line. I promised myself never again, because weak students drain the advisor’s energy, spend grant money without producing much, and bring the group morale down. It’s a mercy to everyone involved to cut them loose, and I didn’t do that. But what’s done is done now and I have tried not to beat myself up too much over this, without much success. On the upside, I’m very happy with the composition of my current group. They’re all strong and motivated, everyone’s creative juices are flowing, and we’re doing some excellent work.

Anyway, what’s the source of my excessive busyness? High-workload institutional service on top of regular duties (the regular duties being teaching, research and grant writing, and common professional service like reviewing papers and proposals and editing a journal, and institutional service like sitting on  committees). Namely, I have a big college-level role with hours of weekly prep, meetings, and paperwork and an important department-level role that requires a lot of interaction (mercifully, by email or videocall for the most part) with faculty, staff, and students, as well as lots of fuzzy planning and, again, paperwork. This work is not hard, I’m good at it and enjoy it on several levels, but my day is still only 24 hours, I’m not as young as I used to be (so I can’t borrow time from sleep by pulling all-nighters anymore without serious health penalty), and let’s face it, I don’t want to abandon my creative pursuits because they provide me with purpose and joy.

The busyness won’t go away anytime soon, but the upside is that I have plentiful blogging fodder … and hopefully more time to share it all here, at least during this winter break.

So what’s new with everyone? How has everyone been?