Sunday, October 21, 2012

Where have I been?

Where have I been?  Well, in the past week, in addition to the usual family stuff, I've

  • wrapped up the latest issue of JPRS
  • Skyped with my managing editor about the next issue
  • written a book proposal for my next co-edited collection (went out to a press yesterday)
  • written a summer research grant proposal 
  • completed and written up an external tenure review
  • had a conference call about the Popular Romance Project
  • had a preliminary songwriting meeting about this year's Alte Rockers parodies
  • taught my classes (Pope, Blake, Whitman, Dickinson)
  • co-taught another half-class with a colleague, on Donne, and
  • graded 25 student poetry essays.
I have another set of essays to do today (and tomorrow, and the next day), and some important emails to write, but basically, I feel good about what I've gotten done, and about how I've felt doing it:  calmer, less frazzled, less frantic.  

In short, the media downshift seems to be working--and to be getting easier, more self-sustaining.   

Let's see what the next week brings.  

3 comments:

Laura Vivanco said...

I was wondering how you'd been getting on, so it's great to see that you've been so productive. I'm really glad your "media downshift" is turning out so well.

Is the "next co-edited collection" the one about love but not specifically romance novels? As usual, I'll understand if you don't want to answer that question. I suppose it might be confidential.

E. M. Selinger said...

Hi, Laura! Thanks for keeping an eye out for me. It's been a busy time, but much less stressful than it might have been, without the constant tug on my attention from social media. I'm really enjoying the change.

The collection is the one about Romance Fiction and American Culture, an American-Studies-ish volume which I'm editing with Bill Gleason from Princeton. We started working on it some time ago, but lost some contributors, then gained some more, and finally we had a real book's worth. Bill had some interest from presses back in January, at the MLA convention, so we're following up on those leads.

The one thing I didn't do in the last week was finish my revision-and-trimming of the piece on "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na," an Indian romcom. It was accepted pending revisions at a journal, and they gave me until mid-October for the revisions, but said that if I missed that deadline, they'd consider it for a subsequent issue. Given the other things on my plate, and given the lack of urgency to get the line on my CV, now that the promotion is in hand, I took them up on the latter offer. It was very nice to have the option--both at their end and at mine!

Laura Vivanco said...

"Bill had some interest from presses back in January, at the MLA convention, so we're following up on those leads."

That sounds very promising. It'll be nice if you can find a press which'll enable popular romance studies to reach a wider audience.

I've been doing a bit of work on the US and romance fiction (it's a long-term project, and I'm not likely to finish it soon) so I think I'd find a volume like this one particularly helpful/interesting to read. I hope it comes out in the not too distant future.

"It was very nice to have the option--both at their end and at mine!"

Ditto on what I said above about reaching a wider audience and I agree it's very nice not to feel stressed by deadlines or career pressure. Though admittedly I lack the pressure of a career pressure for rather different reasons ;-)