...The harvest and enjoying ourselves OUR way...

The colors of the Canna are very fall.

This is the season to consider the harvest. The garden is still very much behaving like it is summer although I am presenting that the fall colors are not tropical plants. It has been a good garden season and I actually plan to go out to my back porch and do some reading for this week’s classes.

Pumpkin People!

Thinking of my own personal harvest, this week I completed my last read-through of my book, Women Writers Buried in Virginia that comes out on November 15, 2021. This is my last chance to change any content. After this, I can only fix typos. It’s stressful because I want to get everything as right as possible. I don’t want to misrepresent anyone or any place. It’s scary and exciting. Overall, I’m very proud of being able to share these women’s stories. I’m also proud of myself for focusing on the kind of scholarship that I have wanted to focus on for some time now.

Giant pumpkin vine without any pumpkins

It should be easy—cemeteries are an important part of our history; yet, people still put them in the spooky Halloween season, which perpetuates the myth that they’re scary places to frequent. They’re not and discussing them should not have one’s colleagues questioning one’s research interests… but that actually happened last week. After a conversation, a colleague actually told me that they now saw me as someone with more depth than just cemeteries, spooky things, and goth. I can roll my eyes and go on with my work-life because I have the privilege of being tenured and a full professor but it is still incredibly annoying. I am held to the same standards of teaching, scholarship, and service as my peers. Why can’t I just be myself and enjoy who I am without the passive aggressive criticism?

Black Coral Elephant Ears

One of the woman writers featured in my forthcoming book, Julia Magruder, who was a novelist who wrote for popular magazines such as Lippincott’s Magazine and the Ladies' Home Journal, wrote essays that addressed serious social issues, such as child labor laws and the changing roles of women. In 1907, she also became the first American woman to be awarded the “Order of the Palms” by the French Academie, conferred on those distinguished in the literary world.

She said, “Most of us are so afraid to enjoy ourselves in our way” (The Star Press Muncie, Indiana, Jun 24, 1907, 2). Ain’t that the truth!