“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.
