It has been a while since I sent out a Substack, and I hope to return to it as summer finally hits. I am a college professor, and the spring semester has always been the busiest for me. My writing grinds almost to a stop; everything overwhelms me, and grading seems all-encompassing. I don’t really know why spring is worse than fall. It is always the same number of classes. It just feels more daunting.
All that being said, I had a great spring semester. My job is always rewarding and fulfilling. This spring was more about the future. Over the past year, I had the honor of being a Faculty Fellow on my campus, and I used that role to create a class on visual rhetoric and comic books. I gave a presentation on that class early in the spring, and some professors from the Digital Media department approached me about adapting the class for their students.
That class will run in the fall, so I am excited about that.
I was also approached by a professor in the History department about co-teaching an Early American History/Literature class in the next year. This is something I have always wanted to do, and I am super excited to get started on planning this one out as well.
So, lots of great stuff on the horizon at work.
I also had some great things happen with my writing. First, I finally got an acceptance for a story that I have had tons of rejections for. One of the things that I constantly struggle with is the question of whether a story needs more work or if it is just not finding the right editor.
My story, “The Wedding Feast,” is the perfect example of his. A dark little fairy-tale-like story of two mythical creatures at the wedding of their daughters. I love this story. It makes me laugh and cry. It gives me all the feels. However, every rejection made me wonder what I was seeing that nobody else could. I even had editors tell me they “wanted more to happen” or “didn’t like the ending.” I read it a hundred times, asking myself how I could make it better, changing a word here or there but coming up with nothing. It didn’t need improving. It just needed the right person.
I am excited to say that the story will be out later this year in an amazing publication, and the editor went as far as saying,
This is a story that landed very close to my heart. I won't get too personal, but I want you to know, I needed to meet the Wolf and the Thief in the Night. This is a story I've thought about often since my first read—and my co-editors were just as charmed, too. It would be an honor to publish this story.
I cannot wait to tell you all more soon and hear what you think of the story as well.
I also had a visit from an old friend a few weeks ago and got to catch his stand-up while he was here in Chattanooga. I am amazed at how many people I have met over the years are either in academia, creatives, or both.
Mat Alano-Martin has always been one of the funniest people I know, and I have followed his career from afar since we used to hang out during our college days.
Lastly, I have jumped into reading for pleasure with amazing gusto since the semester ended. This week, I finished Extinction by Douglas Preston. I have loved Preston and Childs’ Pendergast books for a million years and try to read most of the other stuff they put out solo or together. Extinction has all the landmarks of a Preston book, and I really enjoyed it.
A plot that revolves around a murder at a resort for the super-rich where they have brought pre-historic animals like the Wholly Mammoth back from extinction provides the background for a classic crime novel.
Not a perfect novel, but they never are. The ending was telegraphed pretty heavy and the epilogue was a little strange, with some weird twisting of Biblical stories to make redundant points.
Yet, the action was good, and the plot had some interesting twists. Check it out if you have already read much of his other stuff. If not, this is not a great first read. Head back to Relic and move forward from there.