Stratofanatic's Emporium

Well! I applied for -- and received -- a preceptorship from the U of A Writing Program to help train and mentor incoming graduate students, who will teach English 101 and English 102 online. Initially, I didn't even think of applying. More than enough things currently on my plate, you know, including teaching sections of Honors module for incoming freshman in the Fall, but I applied when our WP director suggested the idea to me. Overall, since our GTAs will be teaching the program's pre-designed online courses, which I know inside and out, I was pretty sure that I'd get the position. Still, it's quite nice . . . and I'm slowly growing more excited about the prospect.** So, for the rest of August, I'll help prepare our Orientation Week for graduate teaching assistants -- the first time, in fact, I've ever been on the other side of one of these things. Teaching everything through Zoom, though, is disappointing. I'd love the energy of meeting all our ne...

It still hasn't really sunk in yet, but our academic journal, Fafnir , has just been nominated as a finalist for the 2020 World Fantasy Award in the "Special Award: Non-Professional" category! I'm just blown away by this nomination. Sure, we've worked hard the last three years to professionalize Fafnir, and there's been tons of improvements. But . . . honestly, as an academic, it just never even occurred to me that I'd be engaged in something that falls under the World Fantasy Award umbrella. So, needless to say, I'm still processing -- but in a good way.  ;)

As usual, I'm not counting the non-fiction I've read -- just the made-up stuff. Final stats: 8,300 pages over 182 days, or 46.1 pages per days . Counts for 2019 can be found here and here ; counts for 2018 here and here . All and all, not the worst I've done (that would have been the prior six months span), but still not fantastic . . . at least I had the Patrick Rothfuss books upping this term's count a bit. THE LIST (Jan. - June 20202) Brandon Sanderson, Warbreaker , 650 pg. Gail Z. Martin, The Summoner , 300 pg (DNF). Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic , 300 pg. Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind , 700 pg. Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear , 1100 pg. Katherine Addison, The Goblin Emperor , 500 pg. Fletcher Pratt and De Camp, "The Wall of Serpents," 100 pg. Peter S. Beagle, Summerlong , 250 pg. Laura E. Goodin, After the Bloodwood Staff , 300 pg. John Myers Myers, Silverlock & Reader's Companio n, 300 pg (DNF). Clive Barker, ...

We all know that he first published the novel in 1954 . . . but when did he write it? The question came up because my two latest entries for The Literary Encyclopedia , a biographical entry of Poul Anderson and an account of his best fantasy novel , just went online a few days ago. There, I mentioned that Anderson began and completed The Broken Sword in 1948. Well, no sooner did that happen than another scholar sent me a message asking for my source. And, wouldn't you know, I can't find it now. The issue's seriously bugging me.  It's pretty well established that The Broken Sword is Anderson's earliest written novel, which he wrote before  Vault of the Ages  (1952). Vault was composed in the 1951-1952 range; it uses an idea similar to one that appeared in "Tiger by the Tail" (1951). Likewise, Anderson mentions in his Foreword to the [January] 1971 revised edition of The Broken Sword that he wrote the original novel "twenty-odd years ago"...

Academic efficiency is a topic that obsesses me. Although academic culture contains a fair amount of underground animosity against "productivity pressure" and the Protestant Work Ethic --  The Chronicle of Higher Education  is full of it   -- I'm still continually strategizing ways to be more efficient with my working time. This attitude has gotten me through grad school  and  a full-time contingent faculty position without any mental health issues, so there's that. Plus, I just love working for its own sake.  Anyway, here's my latest attempt at self-assessment. In my last year of grad school, I used to keep of yearly productivity record for my writing (see  here  and  here ). Once I began publishing regularly, though, I soon found yearly records impractical. After all, you can wait up to 11 months to get back a journal's reader's reports**, and the revisions sometimes take as long as the original submission. So, here's my first ever...

Ah-ha! A Youtube content creator named LA Quadling just put up a short review video of the latest issue of The Baum Bugle , which features an article by yours truly on the history of magic words. (The article is celebrating Baum's novel The Magic of Oz , which contains an unpronounceable magic word called "Pyrzqxgl.") And, luckily, Mr. Quadling quite liked my article. Check it out if you're interested -- it begins at 3:10 in the video and lasts for just over a minute.

We've now hit the three-month mark for quarantine. Stuck at home working instead of Starbucks, this is how I've managed to do: 2 academic articles (18,000 words total) 1 book review (2,000 words) 2 encyclopedia entries (4,000 words total) Saved about $200 worth of coffee. That last number, incidentally, is especially painful.