something new...

I admit that I was a bit unprepared for the post-partem that followed Allegheny, Monongahela getting accepted for publication. I was under the impression that I would have to send my manuscript out to competitions for approximately the rest of my life and this rendered the idea of the book in my head unfinished and therefore still my primary project. But the good people at Red Hen fished it out of the slush pile, for which I am almost unbearably grateful, and I had to deal with a strange cocktail of jubilation at having a book and crushing terror at having no project.

I'm pleased to say that in the intervening months, I have concocted a new way to keep myself writing and grant-writing (which I swear is another genre of its own). I'm loath to speak of details before the ideas cohere, since we all know that's the easiest way to kill a project dead, but in five words or less: lyrical re-interpretation of Jane Eyre.

Currently, I'm working on grant and fellowship proposals so I can travel to Yorkshire and do research at the Bronte parsonage once my stint as Stadler Fellow expires. I also want to spend some time in Charlotte's and Jane's landscape and be influenced by it in the same way I was influenced by Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania for my first book. Keep your fingers crossed and stay tuned for updates!