in her honor: retirement of Marilyn Dahl

Posted on February 3, 2017 by pagesofjulia

I needed to add this bonus post today to recognize the retirement of my editor at Shelf Awareness. Marilyn hired me as a reviewer in March of 2011, and she has been a pleasure to work with for these five years and eleven months, without a moment’s exception. I am of course a little devastated to lose her as a boss; but she deserves this, and she leaves some more than competent folks behind to take care of us. (In the last few years, Associate Editor Dave Wheeler has become a fine friend as well as a fine editor.) I’ve learned so much from Marilyn about how to read, how to write, how to read what I’ve written, how to play well with others, how to be a graceful human being. It’s been an honor.

I want to point you to Marilyn’s Reflections on Reading and Retirement column of Jan. 31, and as well to her Reading With… questionnaire. The good news is you will still see the occasional review with her byline on it. Maybe one mystery per month.

Love you, Marilyn. Thanks for everything.

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bonus cross-post: can you help? at definingplace.com

Posted on January 17, 2017 by pagesofjulia

Friends, this week’s bonus post is just to send you over to another project I’ve been working on. My birth/place page is seeking contributors. Please take a look and see if you can help out. Thank you! And back to your Tuesday.

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new beginnings: graduate school (again)

Posted on January 4, 2017 by pagesofjulia

I am checking in only briefly today from Buckhannon, West Virginia, where I am midway through my first residency in West Virginia Wesleyan College’s low-residency MFA program. It’s been almost, but not quite, overwhelming; and all in a good way. I had lengthy and complicated travel from New Braunfels through San Antonio, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, and Fairmont, WV. I saw snow! And I was greeted by the friends I made on last summer’s visit. Even though this was my first residency as an enrolled student, I felt like I was coming back home into a place & a community where I belonged.

I started writing a line several days ago that began “early highlights definitely include…” but the list kept growing until it included pretty much everything. I have enjoyed readings by both core & visiting faculty too many to name, and seminars on a variety of topics like authors in correspondence, writing about ecology, and braided structures. I’ve had several writing exercises or prompts go especially well (and they don’t necessarily go well for me usually) – in particular, I found Nickole Brown’s talk on imitation, and her writing exercise, kind of a breakthrough. My writing sample got workshopped early on, and that went well and was productive. I’ve done some revision that I’m feeling good about continuing with. I’ve met with my faculty advisor, Katie Fallon, and enjoyed many conversations with Doug Van Gundy, who I especially hit it off with last summer. My classmates are truly a family to one another and already to me. In other words, yes, I’m overjoyed with what I’m finding here. I’m inspired & looking forward to this semester & beyond.

On the other hand, the schedule is rigorous, there’s plenty of work to do in our scant time “off,” and I miss my husband and dogs. Chris and I have hardly spoken, although he’s such a dear and is being patient with me (I warned him).

Most of all, I’m so excited to be embarking on this new challenge: two years of becoming a better writer and producing work.

Thank you, reader friends, for supporting this change on the blog.

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reminder: new pagesofjulia coming

Posted on December 22, 2016 by pagesofjulia

Time is speeding up and the lists are changing shape around here.

Husband and I and our two little dogs have just returned from one of my favorite places in the world: the deserts of far West Texas, around Big Bend National & State Parks, where we rode our mountain bikes and enjoyed sunrise views like this from our cabin.

click to enlarge

click to enlarge

Next we have a few days in Houston with Husband’s family and all our friends. I hope to catch a punk show in between bike rides & festivities.

And then I’m home for just a day and a half before catching two airplanes and a bus to get to West Virginia for the start of my grad program. I have been busy reading, commenting and preparing for all the hard work that will begin there on December 30. It is a hectic but joyful time!

This is just a reminder to you kind folks out there that my format will be changing a little bit. I’ll post 5 days a week through the end of the year – which is, the end of next week – and then will post just once a week on Wednesdays. Those posts may be a little shorter than usual, too, although some of them will still be full book reviews (including some for the Shelf), maybe even the odd movie review. I appreciate you all bearing with me as times and this blog change.

In the next week, you can look for my usual year-in-review and best-of-the-year posts. And then, we will all learn together what the future may hold!

Happy holidays, friends.

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changes a-coming

Posted on December 1, 2016 by pagesofjulia

I have mentioned before that there are changes afoot around here at pagesofjulia. Now, I’m seeking a little input.

Starting December 30, I will be a student in West Virginia Wesleyan College‘s Master of Fine Arts program studying creative writing, specifically creative nonfiction. This is a full-time commitment, so I’ll be taking my work for Shelf Awareness back to a minimal level: probably one review a month, to start with, while I find out how much free time I have from school.

This means less time (and built-in material) for pagesofjulia, too, obviously. I have found this blog so rewarding and educational an experience, and I’m humbled to have all your follows & comments. I would never want to let this thing go away. But I do have to make more time, and more space in my brain and reading/writing time, for this new priority. I’ve had some thoughts (and some input – thanks Liz) about how I might continue to keep some activity going here, and hopefully keep most of my readers more or less satisfied.

I’m thinking one post a week is a realistic goal, especially if all those posts aren’t wholly new content. And I’m interested in sharing my grad school experience with you, to a certain extent. I thought I could do some combination of reprising older posts, with comments on how my thoughts are changing, or about what books I’m interested in rereading as an MFA student (Joe Gould’s Teeth comes to mind). And I thought I’d do some quick updates on what I’m reading, what I’m writing, and what I’m thinking about on a given day. These would be super short, but hopefully follow the general theme of pagesofjulia. Maybe some teaser-style posts as I find bits of writing I want to share, too. And, the odd review for the Shelf, naturally.

So I would love to know what you’d like to see happen here as life twists and turns. If you could take a minute to answer the poll here, I would be grateful. And of course, if you have further thoughts, please do comment as ever!

The second question is about what day of the week you’d like to see me post. If you have a strong feeling about this, please let me know in a comment. Otherwise, we’ll probably be looking at nice, neutral Wednesdays.

Thanks for your support, friends. And, until the new year begins, don’t worry, I’ll see you back here tomorrow.

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personal update: on the road again

Posted on September 23, 2016 by pagesofjulia

This post is a bit belated, I suppose: today is the day that Husband and I hit the road for another cross-country move! It’s been just a hair under two years since we moved from Houston to Bellingham, Washington, and now we are en route to a new home in the sweet little town of New Braunfels, Texas. Two people, two dogs and two bikes (and a big precious sculpture and a tent and sleeping bags and lots of books, etc.) in a truck, southbound.

this is two years ago in a U-Haul. but we probably look something like this. Husband says: "Truck-driving Mama and Dog as her copilot."

this is two years ago in a U-Haul. but we probably look something like this. Husband says: “Truck-driving Mama and Dog as her copilot.”

The great adventure continues, y’all.

More big news: in January I will be entering the low-residency Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing at West Virginia Wesleyan College. (Read more about that program here.) This will bring big changes in my life, and is bound to bring some changes here at pagesofjulia. For one thing, I will be cutting my work for Shelf Awareness back drastically, until I get a grasp of what the school workload looks like. It saddens me to loosen ties with the Shelf, who I adore: this is far and away my favorite job I’ve ever had (although I think of the cancer hospital library fondly). It will be important to me to keep doing what work I can for them; but we’ll just have to see what that looks like.

I will almost certainly have to cut back on posting to this blog, too. I don’t yet know what that will look like. Maybe one book review a week would be a safe goal? I can continue with the occasional teaser and book beginning; but I don’t think the 5-day-a-week format will be realistic. I haven’t worked this out yet. If you have thoughts or feelings, I’d love to know them.

In the meantime, you can picture my little family visiting friends in Bend, Oregon; family in Durango, Colorado; doing some mountain biking; visiting some national parks; and moving into a rental home with a big backyard for the dogs. I will breathe deeply, and keep reading.

Posts will continue while I’m on the road, of course, and I’ll see your comments in a timely manner as ever.

Thanks for your support, friends.

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birth/place project launch at Defining Place

Posted on May 10, 2016 by pagesofjulia

A few weeks ago I asked for your help with a project. That project has now gone live: I’m calling it birth/place, and you can visit it here. I want to thank those of you who have offered to contribute, and I invite the rest of you to do so. Also, of course, you are invited to follow birth/place at that link. New images go up every Tuesday morning, so you’ll get just one ping a week (unlike the five-day schedule I keep here).

defining place
I’m having a fabulous time exploring place, and I just hope some others out there find it as fascinating a conceptual journey as I do. Thanks as always for reading, friends.

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states project: can you help?

Posted on April 18, 2016 by pagesofjulia

Call this a break in our regularly scheduled programming: I’d love a little help, readers. I am working on a class project that involves making contact with people born in each one of the 50 United States, as well as Washington, D.C. and protectorates like Puerto Rico and Guam. As you can imagine, I know lots of native Texans, and am doing all right with some larger or heavily populated states like California. (I am surprised at how many people I know who were born in Michigan. Why Michigan?) I could use help with some of the teenier states in New England – hello, Rhode Island – and others. I won’t list them here because I’ll probably take all comers: I am accepting multiple submissions.

Where were you born? (image credit)

Where were you born? (image credit)

I am asking for volunteers to receive an email request from me for your participation. If you choose to play, it could take as little as five minutes or so for you to contribute to my project. (There is also room, if you feel so moved, for you to spend more time on your submission, but that is entirely up to you.) If you’re intrigued, please shoot me an email at juliasbookreviews at gmail dot com, and I’ll get back with you. Of course you can always back out, too.

For my readers who were born outside of the United States (& territories etc.), if you’d like to participate, you’re welcome to drop me a line as well. I’m not sure in what form such submissions will make it into the final project, but I’d love to hear from you. It would be great to be able to expand this concept on a global scale, but as an issue of scale & simplicity, I’m beginning with just the one country.

Thanks for helping, if you choose! And always, thanks for reading.

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“Landspeak” by Robert Macfarlane

Posted on June 18, 2015 by pagesofjulia

Here is another that I cannot improve upon by commenting. Words and places, beautifully composed? I am sold. I’ve heard a lot about Robert Macfarlane but this short piece is all of his writing that I’ve actually read. Clearly I’ll need to find more.

Please enjoy

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my anniversary in history

Posted on April 19, 2015 by pagesofjulia

This post is somewhat related to a an ongoing series.

Today is the 7th anniversary of my marriage to this handsome, supportive, bike-riding, brewing Husband.

wed

On a far more sober note, some reading I did several months ago yielded these surprising coincidences. Also on April 19, in 1937:

  • Picasso began to conceive & sketch his theme for a commissioned mural that would become Guernica;
  • Canadian Norman Bethune resigned from the revolutionary blood transfusion organization he had founded & shaped in republican Spain; and
  • sent by the Nazis, twelve newly designed Messerschmitt Bf 109s arrived in northern Spain to support Franco’s forces.

These are momentous events that shaped the Spanish Civil War and its place in history, and I was struck that a day so meaningful in my life would have such larger implications. I just wanted to share.

…Thanks to Hell and Good Company, a fine book by Richard Rhodes, for these timely details.

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