It’s not a bad time for a general check-in, I think, given how sporadic my posting has been.
- The Graduate Program: is almost over. I’m graduating in May, and my dissertation progress is pretty much right on track. I’m going to have to keep working pretty hard between now and May (my filing deadline is 19 May, but I’ll need to have a mostly-finished manuscript a little in advance of that, to make sure my advisors have a chance to read it over), but not so hard that I can’t take partial weekends and the like. The good news is that the dissertation isn’t just close to being done, it’s also pretty good. The more I work on it, the more convinced I am that my argument is interesting and worthwhile. That’s a good feeling.
- Other Academic Work: it somehow manages to not just be all dissertation all the time! I’ve just agreed to write a few articles for the Encyclopedia of Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy, a project that will probably take up most of my summer but I also expect to be very rewarding. I’m doing a couple of biographical entries, but I’ll also be writing an essay on feminism and posthumanism. (Any of you who’ve ever had to sit through my ranting about how posthumanist fiction is predicated on a rejection of the body, you’ve already heard the rough outline of this essay.)
- Strange Horizons: The magazine is doing really well! We restructured the reviews department a while back, and I’m thrilled with the result. (I’m also thrilled with what all the other departments are up to, but those aren’t new, so they don’t get singled out quite the same way.) A lot of the fiction we published last year is being reprinted in the various (and rapidly proliferating) Year’s Best collections, proving to me that I’m not the only person who thinks our fiction is stellar. (Oh, and you have just a few days left to vote in the 2005 Reader’s Choice awards, so go vote.)
- The Weblog: I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice, Gentle Reader, that I continue to have an ambivalent relationship with weblogs and the internet. At this point, my major concern is the time issue. (See previous point re: dissertation.) I’ve got a small army of things I want to write about, and very limited time for doing the writing. But I’m giving it a real try. I’ve imported some posts and comments from the most recent incarnation of this site, and I have a long-range plan to put at least portions of my eight-plus years of online journalling archives back online, but that’s pretty much at the very bottom of my priority list. Sorry.
- The Home Office: My houseplants are still alive, though perhaps not thriving the way they did in my last apartment. (The last apartment was much sunnier.) I keep trying to get back into a regular yoga routine, but am blocked in this attempt by the fact that our apartment lacks any open space large enough for me to run through the sun salutations without worrying about whacking my hand on a piece of furniture. Matt and I are getting back into a routine of cooking dinners together (rather than getting take-out) and I’m really happy about that. And now that I have a better handle on my work, I’m feeling much less reclusive than I was six months ago, and seeing more of my friends.
Things are good, overall. Now I have to get back to work.
Posted Tuesday, March 7th, 2006 at 12:55 pm. Filed under: academic > personal > science fiction > writing and editing.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Yay you-blog!
Okay, that’s all I got for now.