Back in my office this week, a sure sign the summer’s almost over
It’s been a long, strange summer and on Monday, it’ll officially be over for me as classes start back up. I spent the first part of the summer at loose ends and in a bit of a funk. It felt like it was only in July that I was really able to settle into some kind of good routine, and of course, by then the summer was more than halfway over.
Nonetheless, some things got done. I finished a first draft of a mystery novel I’m pretty excited about. I finished my chapbook for WhiskeyPaper Press and that’ll be coming out in late October. I got the go-ahead to start a 3rd edition of my textbook, Questioning Gender: A Sociological Exploration. My entry for the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality is finished. My story, “How to Identify Birds in the Wild,” which originally appeared in Luna Luna Magazine, was accepted for the Among Animals Anthology at Ashland Creek Press.
I did a lot of reading, finishing my reading goal of 90 books for the year in August. Many of those books were mysteries, and I’ll be sharing some of my favorites soon.
I also attended the Midwest Writer’s Workshop in Muncie again this year, where I got do do an amazing short story workshop with Cathy Day. Getting to work on my query with Janet Reid, the famous Query Shark (who was so incredibly nice and not at all shark-like) and the mystery boot camp with Lori Rader-Day were other highlights of the conference.
I was pretty intensely noveling for the last two months of summer, but now that’s done, I have every intention of getting back to blogging a bit more. Fingers crossed. You’ll definitely be hearing more about the chapbook as we get closer to its release.
Until then, happy end of summer! Think of me on Labor Day, when I’ll be teaching a new batch of college students.
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