Connemara

I met up with the Fulbrighters in Ireland, new and old, for a trip out to Connemara. Here are some lovely photos! We had music and Irish language (including a visit to TG4, the Irish language television station) for our visit to the Gaeltacht, the remaining areas where Irish remains a primary language.

Working on a couple of things before I head off to Scotland later this week, so must dash!

Surprises and Melancholia (Bitch Buzz)

I meant to do a Friday Forgotten Book, but today took a few unexpected turns which involved a glorious day at the beach, a much overdue haircut and a shiny new iPad2 (thank you Fulbright Foundation) which is charging now. So I have added some lovely photos to the Ireland photo album, including a cute little Scottie dog (oddly enough, I'm working on a story that has one as a character). It's often difficult to get the corvids to sit still long enough -- or close enough -- to get a good picture, but rooks have been the best so far. Sitting in a tree on Claddagh Walk, one proved low enough to allow me to get a couple of shots that look all right. I keep trying to get the hooded crows and the magpies -- they're such fun to watch, but wisely wary of humans. Of course, in Galway there are always swans.

Low tide always has such interesting textures in the sand. I like the barnacles and seaweed exposed as the water recedes. Such a variety of textures. Makes for interesting pictures. And there's always my favourite spot. Sigh. It's so picturesque.

My column is up a bit later than usual: overdose on film coverage in the wake of the even more disappointing than usual choices. How the impact of a film like Melancholia could be overlooked seems a mystery. Oh wait, no it doesn't. It focuses on women and isn't a "chick flick" (horrid term).

Oscar Nomination Melancholia

As Bitch Magazine has already observed, the sky is blue, water is wet, and the Oscar nominations are a big feminist disappointment. This seems to be the year they officially become as irrelevant as the Grammys, an industry showcase that reflects no vision of reality outside the industrial boardrooms. In a year when awards can be offered for run-of-the-mill biopics that make horrid people "vulnerable" and "human" (one begins to suspect a subterranean right wing campaign funding both the films and the awards). At least the National Society of Film Critics and the jury at Cannes  picked up on it.

In the seemingly ever smaller number of films that pass the Bechdel Test, one major film got completely overlooked for the major awards: Lars von Trier's Melancholia. It's kind of stunning because it includes the sort of bravura acting that usually gets awards—had it been men in the roles, perhaps the statues would be lining up. Perhaps it was the uneasy accusations of misogyny leveled at von Trier particularly in the wake of Antichrist. But here's the thing: every female character does not have to be a squeaky clean role model or redeemed hooker. Male characters have the space to be good, bad or better yet, complicated. Women remain largely relegated to secondary roles in most films and to films dismissed as 'chick flicks' when they star in them.

Melancholia is no chick flick. It is harrowing in so many ways—not least for the unflinching portrayal of real depression...

Read the rest at BBHQ as always. I have more to say about Melancholia, I think. I've really only scratched the surface here: I want to talk about visualising the end of the world -- and the music, too. Anon -- always too much to do!

Converting Galway

Thanks to Michael, there's a photo of me giving my talk at the Moore Institute yesterday. There was quite a good turnout! I suspect it was the sandwiches. The audience seemed to be receptive and laughed in the right places, always a good sign.I will put the talk on line when I get a moment. I went out to the pub with Leslie and Michael after the talk and then ended up tagging along to dinner with some of Michael's colleagues later. They're sad as their time in Galway is nearly over. I'll miss them.

They're asking me to teach a creative writing course in the spring, so now I will begin brainstorming about what tack to take for that. I suspect I will use it as an excuse to get some of my colleagues to Skype with my class :-)

Krampus and Digital Monks

Did the Krampus visit you last night or did Saint Nicholas fill your shoes with gifts? Happy Independence Day, Finland (let's have a little Värttinä for that).

My talk is today at the Moore Institute. It's an update of my keynote address from April; I wanted to hit a lot of the same issues, but I've also cut it a bit as well. Mostly the jokes: different audience. Not all of the jokes, of course. But I figure some of the offhand popular culture references won't travel well.

Writers: have you taken my survey about writing in the digital age yet?

No idea what kind of audience there'll be. Some friends have promised to show and there will be sandwiches. We'll see. And no, I didn't go through with my plan to graft a Guy Fawkes mask onto the Moore Institute logo for one slide. Coward.

News, a Wish and BitchBuzz

Criminy: it's December! How the time has flown by this semester, even though I haven't been in class. My sympathies to my colleagues knee-deep in exams and grading. I know how it feels -- and couldn't be happier that I am not.

Sorry! But it's true.

NEWS: 

It's a Curse: Drunk on the Moon, Book 7 by moi should be about tomorrow from Trestle Press. Thanks again to Mr B for inviting me to have fun playing with his werewolf PI, Roman Dalton. I hope I did him justice -- it sure was fun :-) I will have a book trailer up soon: just waiting on the cover art.

I'll be on the G-ZONE blog radio show, AKA Gelati's Scoop tomorrow night to talk about It's a Curse. You can listen live and call in, or listen to it later online. I'll be on about 4.30 pm Eastern time, which is about 9.30 pm here.

I'm interviewed in the latest Broadly Speaking from Broad Universe which is about mentors and teachers in literature, so I talk about Owl Stretching and Pelzmantel a bit and my own teaching experiences a little bit.

Next Tuesday is my talk at the Moore Institute at NUIG. I keep thinking about trying to add a Guy Fawkes mask to their logo just for a lark, but I lack the requisite skills.

My column for BitchBuzz this week is on gifts that won't steal your soul. Give something genuine if you're gift-giving this holiday season.

WISH:

It's my birthday month, so I want to ask you for a gift. Nothing expensive -- all it costs is a little of your time. I don't need stuff: I spent some harried weeks this summer trying to get rid of a lot of my stuff. What I would really like is some attention: not for me, for my books. My wish is for any who have the time to "like" my books on Amazon, Goodreads, Shelfari, LibraryThing etc. and offer them reviews. They need not be elaborate; they need not be glowing. But books without reviews seem chancier to potential readers. No one wants to be the first to do something; they want to see that others have trod the path before them and it's safe. So if you have a few spare moments, can you help out a fellow American who's (okay, not really) down on her luck?

Know-vember: Frances McCormack

Okay, what're the odds? Oh sure, it is entirely likely that I would get on with the first medievalist I met at NUI Galway. After all, we medievalists have to stick together like all endangered species. But we keep finding amazing things in common like our birthdays (!) and P. G. Wodehouse and the Marx Bros and Tony Hancock. Destiny took a hand in things, I think, when it sent me to Galway. She even invited me to talk to her Old English course so I wouldn't forget entirely what the inside of a classroom looked like. Here's the lovely Frances, award winning lecturer.

1. What's the first thing you do upon waking in the morning?

Let the cats in for a cuddle and go back to sleep, even if only for two minutes. I'm not a fan of sleeping late, but I do like to wake up slowly.

2. What's a song you might be persuaded to dance to?

I'm a trained dancer, but the best songs are those that make me dance like I don't know how! "Come on Eileen," by Dexy's Midnight Runners, has made me jump up and down on ever since I was a bairn in 1982. I remember the first time I heard it: I jumped around the breakfast table with such enthusiasm and abandon that my mum cried with laughter. "Late in the Evening" by Paul Simon makes me do what my husband calls "Muppet Dancing", and it works best when I'm in the passenger seat of the car (although God knows what the people looking in their rear-view mirrors at me are thinking)!

3. Where in the world do you live?

In books. I much prefer stories to real life!

4. What's a great night out for you?

I don't tend to go out. I much prefer 'in'.

5. What's a great night in?

Learning languages, or doing something craftsy. I like to be busy!

6. If you were offered an all expenses paid trip anywhere in the world,where would you go?

Japan, Japan, Japan...or New York! But unfortunately, as I don't really like 'out', traveling is not the easiest thing for me to do!

7. What book do you wish everyone would read so you could talk about it?

The one with the boy with the orange pyjamas...but I can't remember what book it was. I vaguely remember reading it in bed--there was a boy who may have been an orphan; someone (it may have been a man) took him in, and a woman (whose name may have begun with a J) brought him pyjamas in which to sleep. The pyjamas either had oranges on them or orange buttons, and the boy had an aversion to the colour orange, so he slept in his clothes and then crinkled the pyjamas the next morning to make it look like they'd been slept in. I can't remember whether I actually read this book or DREAMT that I had read this book so if it sounds familiar to you, let me know what on earth it is!

8. What movie makes you cry?

I don't cry at movies...but Graham Greene's books always have me in tears!

9. What makes you laugh?

At the moment, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. But everything in general...I'm a giggler! [Ed: I can attest to this.] Ooh yes, and games where you substitute the word 'goose' for either a noun or a verb in a film title. That one makes me chuckle too!

10. Are there fairies at the bottom of your garden?

Yes! There's actually a special fairy garden in my garden, where the dead trees are and the primrose grows. I don't like to visit it very often, because it's also where the septic tank lives, but the fairies don't seem to mind.

Thank you, Frances, a delight!

Talk About the Weather

Everywhere I've lived people have always said, "If you don't like the weather, wait a minute." Even in Houston, which flabbergasted me because nine or ten months of the year it is relentlessly hot and humid with only the regular 3pm brief thunderstorm to break the hellfire monotony. It was slightly more true in Michigan, but you could generally get a picture of how the weather would go in the morning and plan accordingly with reasonable accuracy (contingent on your knowledge of the seasons, I should add).

In Galway, however, it is literally true. I do consult the weather oracles (i.e. I check my phone) and look out the window, but I know that what I see outside may instantly change. I have walked out into rain and arrived at my  destination in sunshine. I have generally given up on carrying an umbrella, as the bins on most days look like this one. The gales of Galway are legendary. I risked an umbrella today because there seemed to be no wind and it was that kind of pervasive misty rain that quickly soaks everything. But by the time I was crossing the Corrib on my way to campus, the wind had begun to gust again.My umbrella made it here, but I suspect that it may be a challenge on the next leg of my perambulations.

In Galway it's important to wield your brolly like a rapier, twirling it to brace against the shifting winds, dodging other umbrellas on the narrow pavement -- so far it seems to be a very gendered norm, with men raising their umbrellas and women lowering theirs, but we shall see if that has just been coincidence so far. But most of the time I either just get wet or wear a hat (shock, I know). I was walking along the Claddagh the other day, enjoying the dramatic skies (thanks for the touch up on the photo, Ayub!) and watching a jackdaw eat mussels by flying up a few feet and dropping them on the rocks. There were a few rainy clouds out to sea, but while brisk, it was quite pleasant.

And then it started to hail! The wind blew so hard that it was difficult to walk as I hightailed it back toward the centre. Yet by the time I got up to the street again, the sun was out. Sure, it was still raining. But the sun was out. It's crazy, but it always gives people something to talk about, eh?

This weekend there's the Fiction Slam on Friday and then Octocon on Saturday, so I'll be heading up to Dublin to finally meet Pádraig Ó Méalóid face to face after all these years. Next week I'm off to London for some fun including not one but TWO Alan Moore events and some idling in East London with the mad Mr Murphy. Next it will be off to Scotland, but more about that anon. For the present, let's talk about the weather...

Cliffs of Moher

I had my first guests visit: Marie, a fellow Fulbrighter in Cork, and Jean, her NYC friend. We had a lovely dinner at Ard Bia Thursday night and we headed off to the Cliffs of Moher on Friday. We were lucky to have sun at the cliffs even though it was pouring in Galway. Here are some photos from the trip and a few from around town.

Around Galway Bay

Autumn in Galway nonetheless has a lot of green yet...

Galway is a busy working port with plenty of boats and bustling business.

The swift-running Corrib meets the bay; must be nice to live along here.

Along the piers where the river meets the bay.

There are swans everywhere in Galway. Beautiful but not that nice!

A civic-minded crow helps keep things tidy.

Don't even ask what Leslie's drinking! The King's Head has good Sunday dinners and Kilkenny ale which some of us enjoyed.

Newgrange

A brief video before my batteries died (>_<) so you can see the area around Newgrange and the tree full of crows watching us (I'm sure they were amused). The narrow passage and deep interior really brought out my claustrophobia, but I waited at the end of the group to see if I could talk myself into going inside...

Friday's Forgotten Books: Saint Patrick's Confessio

People ask me what this "digital humanities" business is that I'm supposed to be engaged in for the coming academic year; the answer is long and complicated (but if you bring me a cuppa, I'll tell it to you). Among the kinds of activities that very big umbrella covers is one of the projects developed here at the Moore Institute: the Confessio of Saint Patrick.

You can look at digital renderings of the eight surviving manuscripts; you can read the text in English, Latin, Gaeilege, Italian, German or Portuguese; you can read a lot of essays that tell you about the context of Patrick's time, the manuscripts, the world he lived in and get a full bibliography of the sources. All from the comfort of your computer!

This is the sort of thing that shows you why medievalists, despite our reputation as people only to be found in musty libraries among handwritten tomes, tend to be geeks of the first order and interested in the latest technologies (okay, this does not apply to Fred Biggs ;-). The most plenteous text from the Middle Ages, The Prick of Conscience (not as racy as it sounds), boasts just over a hundred copies. Many exist in a single copy (e.g. Beowulf). Digital copies are so helpful!

For more FFB, drop by Patti Abbott's blog.

Life at No. 10

Still trying to sort out the practical matters: you know how much patience I have for that (>_<) but my M-Bag has arrived with its wealth of goodies. No fun waiting around for the postman to arrive when there's no internet at home! I have some brief video from Newgrange (before the batteries ran out >_<) but I have to splice it together which I should have been doing with all that free time but I only remembered it now. More anon!

Dublin, Newgrange and Maynooth

I had a busy weekend thanks to the Fulbright folks. Our orientation in Dublin proved to be a lively affair that kept us on the run. Thanks to Colleen, Sonya and Pippa for a great experience. Thursday started out a wee bit early, with a dawn train from Galway to Dublin. Good thing I live across the square from the train station!

I haven't been in Dublin in thirty years. A lot has changed. While we started out at Trinity, there was no time to catch the Book of Kells exhibit, so I'll be back (anyway I didn't get a chance to meet up with Pádraig either, so I'll be back soon).

We met the other Fulbright folks, including Michael, Leslie and Gurram who are all in Galway and we had a chance to chat and talk about our projects as we got to know each other. We had a lively welcome and a fun history tour of Dublin with our energetic guide Tommy. That evening we had a dinner theatre show -- a sort of Riverdance light >_< The musicians and dancers were mostly good, but it was a bit cheesey and touristy. But the audience seemed largely pleased (apart from Dominique who's doing a masters in traditional Irish music at Limerick; poor gal, she found it a bit trying).

In the morning we were off to Newgrange, an incredible megalithic site, older than Stonehenge. I wasn't sure I would actually go inside. The passage into the temple is quite narrow and there are all those tons of stones overhead. The light at the winter solstice hits the interior through a special channel designed for that purpose, so they knew when the sun would return once again. Quite a sight, which they recreate with a 40 watt bulb ;-)

So yes, I did it. I hung back at the very end of our group and was rather nervous, especially when they turned out the lights. Okay, panicky might be a better word, but I tried to relax (ha!) and while I may have run out pretty quickly at the end (oh yeah), I can say I did it and it was quite an amazing experience. You can throw your hat into the ring to be one of the lucky few who actually get to see the dawn rise there at midwinter; there's a lottery to choose.

After that we went to the lovely campus at NUI Maynooth, where we had lectures on Irish history and language, a tour of the campus and a tantalisingly brief visit to the Russel Library and all its many treasures. We had a lovely dinner with the new President and lots of the other faculty that spawned a lot of conversations and connections. The second day we got our introduction to speaking Irish and in the afternoon Irish dancing. Hee, a bunch of academics! We did a lot better with the language than the dancing (well, most of us -- Dominique and Amelia did just fine, and we were getting better by the end). Dinner that night was under the full moon that rose over Trim Castle, the twelfth century Norman fortification (take that, Strongbow!). It was an absolutely gorgeous night.

Sunday we headed back to Dublin for the Ambassador's Remembrance and Peace event. The President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, spoke eloquently and there was beautiful music, including a new piece in honour of the day that featured the Irish Orchestra and Uillean pipes that had a soaring beauty, both melancholy and by the end, full of hope. It was that kind of event: NYFD and NYPD first responders were honoured -- some dual citizens, some the children of immigrants. It was a very moving event.

Afterward we all headed back to our separate locations, promising to keep in touch and to practice our dancing ;-) I'm still without internet at home (finally have it on campus, hurrah!) so I may not be online as much as usual. Hopefully it will all be sorted soon (or I may just go crazy).

Hello from Shannon

Free wifi in the airport and an hour's wait for my bus. A fairly short flight so not quite enough sleep and a tickle in my nose that means someone's germs are trying to fight their way in (STAY OUT!). Dawn is breaking. I already had to have my picture taken >_<; because I'll be staying here for a c0nsiderable length of time. Hope I never have to see that picture! Pink eyes and rooster tails in my hair. Maybe I can sleep on the bus. My landlord should be meeting me at the bus station in Galway. I'm seeing tea and a long hot bath in my future :-)

Hee! Guy sitting across from me reading to his kid tells him the "What's brown and sticky?" joke -- one of my favourites :-)

UPDATE: it may be a few days before I get internet at home. I should have wifi access tomorrow on campus (using the postgrad lab today). In the mean time, you can text me on my UK phone although I think I'll be getting an Irish phone (probably an iPhone :-).

BitchBuzz: Writers as Content Providers

I tried to sneak a random Fall reference into my column today, but my editor generally nixes my loopy titles in favour of those that actually convey the subject of the piece. Go fig. Kudos to the fabulous Nancy Holzner for providing this week's content (see, talk to me and you'll end up in a column and/or blog post):

Writers vs Content Providers

By K. A. Laity

"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." -- Red Smith

At a writer's conference this past weekend, my astute pal Nancy Holzner (author of Deadtown and Hellforged) said she reckoned everything had changed once writing became "content" and writers became "content providers."

She's both a novelist and tech writer, so she's seen these changes from a lot of angles. I immediately remembered a student a few years back saying that the allure had gone out of the term "writer" because blogging had made everyone a writer. The magic—if it was ever there—has gone.

The big publishing news like the explosion of ebooks and the implosion of bookstores gets most of the headlines; less visible is the slow erosion of writers' pay. As Nancy said, we got used to the dismissal of people calling writers "a dime a dozen" but we never actually thought it might become the pay scale...

As usual, read the rest at BBHQ and feel free to comment, repost, tweet or like it on Facebook (show me the love!). This will be my last column until I get over to Galway; just too much madness going on.

Don't ask me about the packing: it's a nightmare. I can't go to sleep and then I wake up at ungodly early hours and yet seem to be making little progress. Somehow, somehow...

News & The Ongoing Madness

I don't know what I fundamentally do not understand about the process but the yardsale, as many already heard on Facebook and Twitter, was pretty much a bust. I sold a few things but I ended up abandoning the cause and leaving folks to loot as much as they wanted for free. Not all of it, oddly. Some great stuff went begging. I took what was left to donate in the morning. I guess people just don't want my stuff :-(

I am dividing everything I own into three categories: things I must take to Galway, things I want to hold onto but won't take to Galway (and must be loaned or stored) -- and everything else, which must go. And must go now. I have given stuff away and donated stuff and still there is way too much.

>_<

Somehow it will all get done in the shockingly short amount of time left -- despite starting to teach a three-week long course today, yeah. How will this happen? I don't know, it's a mystery.

I got a nice email from the US Embassy in Dublin on Thursday. Apparently Sept 8th is International Literacy Day and they want to feature my project in Digital Humanities, "Writers in Motion," in a news clip on their website. So there'll be a picture of me and an abbreviated description of my project for the first day of my Fulbright orientation in Dublin. By the by, I'll be leaving from JFK on Sept 4 and flying to Shannon, then probably taking a bus to my new home in Eyre Square.

The new issue of Pagan Friends features an excerpt from Pelzmantel. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, and think you might enjoy a story of medieval magic, here's a fine opportunity.

Oh, and um -- print editions of The Mangrove Legacy! Did I mention that already? :-)

It's Official

My department has approved my release for Galway: college approval on its way. A million and one things to do (like grading, revising, planning, teaching next week, and more) but a moment to celebrate properly with a little Vic.

The Galway Project

Yes, I've dug out my Learning Irish book and tapes (yes, tapes O_o) and will endeavour to master what I can.

I probably should have thought of it before, but thanks to Karen Hayes for asking on Facebook if I would share a description of the project I'll be working on in Galway (assuming all the massive paperwork and permissions and whatnot go through :-). Here's a little snippet, but if you want to read the whole thing, it's on Google Docs. The proposal begins with the pitch for the undergrad seminar for the fall:

Writers in Motion: Romanticism and Reality in Lives of 21st Century Writers

The "Writers in Motion" project aims to bring together popular portrayals of writers on film with the realities of being a writer in the 21st century. Films offer us a romantic view of writers' lives. Forget hard graft: according to movies, writers live, love and drink to excess, then occasionally transcribe their adventures in a brief montage. Success, naturally, ensues. We will spend some of our time interrogating romanticized representations of writers in a variety of modern films, while contrasting those portrayals with the realities of writers' lives both in the past and in the present. We will explore the benefits inherent in the complicated gap between reality and representation: why is Hollywood selling us this vision of the writer? Just as historians seek to recover past writers in the context of the social conditions of their time, de-mystifying the distorted perceptions fostered by Hollywood's commoditization of a romanticized past that obscures social realities, we will try to glimpse the realities beneath the representations modern writers confront.

Technology is changing the writer's life with the new surge in publication of ebooks and the instant access to writers and books provided by the internet. Writing was once a solitary profession, but now writers can collaborate and communicate with each other and with their readers. How are instantaneous communication and elastic textual formats changing the ways we write and read? What does it mean to be a writer in the 21st century? Will the traditional print hierarchy and genre structure dissolve or will new categories develop? Are traditional publishers still necessary? The recent end-run around publishers by the Wylie Agency, when super agent Andrew Wylie sold his clients' ebook rights directly to Amazon's Kindle store, has inflamed already tense relations between traditional print publishers and ebook sellers—not to mention authors, agents and readers.

What new categories are emerging that may supersede the traditional forms of publishing? How should writers approach these new opportunities? With greater access afforded to publication by the web, does this model, made possible by new and revolutionary technologies, lead to more democratic forms of producing and disseminating ideas and knowledge? Or does it reinforce and exacerbate existing hierarchies among writers and the value of what they produce? Does equal access to publication in digital media enhance the range of alternative ideas and democratize knowledge by expanding access to readers hitherto excluded? Or does it further reduce its value by flooding cyberspace with reams of otherwise unpublishable dreck? [continued...]

And the job description: Teach one undergraduate seminar to a maximum of fifteen students in digital humanities in the fall semester, for two hours per week for eleven weeks. Advise fifteen to twenty graduate students and liaise and cooperate with faculty in related fields for a maximum of 15 hours. Collaborate with the Moore Institute for Research in the Humanities and Social Studies and its key academic staff on the following key research activities: 1) Texts, Contexts, Cultures 2) TEXTE: Transfer of Expertise in Technologies of Editing, 3) Thomas Moore Hypermedia Archive.

Big News!

Okay, so remember how I got that form letter rejection from the Fulbright Foundation? Turns out that was an error. I'M GOING TO GALWAY!



I got the phone call this morning (and yes, still nervous not to have something tangible to show but they assure me it's real :-) and wow, was it hard to teach with all that in my head but I couldn't see the dean until this afternoon. I was fairly certain that the college wouldn't have a problem with supporting a Fulbright scholar but you know, best to be sure. Now I'm going to have to run around banging on my pots shouting, "Fulbright, Fulbright, Fulbright!"

UPDATE: I've got a PDF of the offer letter which is winging its way to me now.

Unexpected

Well, the most unexpected thing yesterday was the snow that fell after the weather report suggested no more than the possibility of some light rain. My first reaction was disbelief, then dismay as it continued to fall. We finally accumulated over an inch and a quarter. There's something distressing about getting snow this early, though there's a part of my brain that says, well, maybe we're getting it out of the way early in the season though of course another part of my brain whispers, oh god, it's going to be a real long winter, isn't it?

Today is advisement day, which always fills me with misgivings. What advice can I offer? Don't do what I do? Life is easier if you conform, follow the rules and do what everyone tells you to do? Nah, I can't really advise that -- then again, all they really want to know is what classes to take next semester. I can do that. Well, with the help of my computer interface, I can do that.

The other unexpected thing came in the mail. Accustomed to getting rejections in the mail (acceptances usually come via email or phone), I experienced a sharp stab of disappointment to see a thin envelope from CIES in the mail yesterday.  But I opened it to find more encouraging news:

Namely that I've sailed over the first hurdle toward the Fulbright. That's something: not everything, but something. My file is now being sent over to Ireland to be considered along with the other finalists. How many finalists? Don't know. When will I know if I make the final cut? Somewhere between "March and May" although sometimes it can be beyond May, depending on, oh, a host of factors. You can be approved, not approved or held in reserve as an alternate. For the latter, you might have to wait until first stringers decide whether to take the opportunity. So more waiting. Trying not to think about it -- yet plan for the possibility of going abroad for an extended period of time. Or not.

Sigh.

"Only the first phase": I love the sentence, "Given the multi-phased review process, it is important that you do not take any irreversible action based on expectation of an award." In other words, don't tell your boss off, quit your job and sell your house.

Two theatre outings to review soonish; a Moore essay sent off that should be appearing in Studies in Comics eventually, part of a themed issue from the Moore conference in Northampton last June.

UPDATE: It's Tuesday, so it's time for another entry in "La Ronde," the round robin story started by Patti Abbot. Check out  Evan Lewis' story.