Returning to this Space

Gosh. It's been ages (nearly two years) since I've written anything here! In part that's because I've been busy and felt like I needed to step away from the blog in order to focus on other writing. Since my last post, I've had a book come out, an article accepted, which has now appeared in print in a scholarly journal, and another book accepted for publication by an academic press. I'm closing in on revising it and sending it to my editor in the next couple of weeks. To be honest, though, that's not the only reason I haven't been writing here -- legitimate as it might be. Although I have continued to run as well as to write (finishing two more half marathons, including the one I was training for when things trailed off here, and a couple more shorter races), I've also continued to struggle with some emotional and mental health issues since moving to Alaska. It's probably not politic to say that here since I'm not yet tenured, but there you have it. For the past couple of years, I've found it too challenging to write a personal blog when I wasn't happy. It required too much of my energy just to do the stuff that I might write about when I was in that state.

But I'm back. Writing regularly and not just academically is something that I need to do. How public that writing should be is perhaps more debatable, but this space already exists, and I miss the community of bloggers. I'm training for a big race (more on that in a post in the near future); I'm starting to think about some new academic writing projects and some new ones that aren't academic; I'm planning for some great courses in the spring semester. I'm also determined not to let the dark beat me.