Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Ending the Season of Silence


 If you have other things in your life—family, friends, good productive day work—these can interact with your writing and the sum will be all the richer.”

                                                                        ~Author David Binn

           

            Once again, an embarrassing amount of time has passed between my blog posts. In the months that followed since I last posted, I dealt with my father’s rapid decline and passing on to Glory on May 29th 2018, almost exactly one year after my mother. In the fall of 2018, I had a strenuous and intense teaching load: two different literature courses at two different colleges.  The Western Literature course I taught at Patrick Henry College, a small Christian college in Purcellville, VA, was particularly challenging in terms of preparation, but the Intro to Lit class I taught at Northern VA Community College was challenging in terms of dealing with students who flagrantly plagiarized. I have not been sorry to stay home this past spring and fall and possibly to be “retired” from teaching. As much as I have loved my students and being able to share my passion for literature, I have been very grateful for time at last to devote to writing.  In May I finally finished the manuscript of the novel about Edith and JRR Tolkien that I’ve been working on in fits and starts for the past five years, and am pleased to announce that in September, I signed with a new agent. God willing, we will soon find a publisher, and this book, long in gestation, will at last be brought to life in print. While I have learned many things in my season of silence, I am hopeful this new season of my life will enable me to incorporate those lessons learned in my writing.  Thank you for being a reader and for your interest and encouragement along the way. I’m deeply grateful and look forward to sharing more of my writing with you in the months ahead.