Lists to the Right of Me. Lists to the Left of Me.

Good evening, old friends.

Festival season is gearing up and I will be on the road a lot this summer.  As soon as I’ve heard from one more festival, I’ll post them all here.  Maybe some of you will come find me when I teach in your neck of the woods.

This past weekend I attended a conference, which is very different from a festival.  I only do a couple of those a year but I almost always get so much out of them. This one was the Appalachian Studies Association conference and it was held this time in Cincinnati, a place I’d never been.  I presented a paper on Friday morning.  It’s called “The Ragged Wound: Can the Appalachian Diaspora Save the Region?” The paper is also the hook for my new book project–The Ragged Wound: Salving the Broken Spirit of Appalachia.

“Earth Works: Ceremonies for Tower Time” (from Smith Bridge Press) is in its final editing stages–at least I hope that is so. Looking for a May launch date for that one. Fingers crossed!

I’ll write more about this tomorrow (I think) but the magical anthology of women’s travel writing is out!  “My Wandering Uterus” (edited by Kate Laity, design by Stephanie Johnson) is a delightful assemblage of solid writing and heart-busting story telling. Yes, I have one in there in which all my secrets are revealed.

It is also gardening season.  Finally.

So I am surrounded by to-do lists and the days are growing short indeed.  I got out my calendar today and circled in green all the days I’ll be at home until August. It is not many days, friends.

I do plan to put “blog post” on the list for every day and see if I can manage to get back into the swing of things.