I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to see the back of 2011. Really — I can’t. It was a year full of professional milestones, and I had a wonderful time teaching my first classes at Wooster this fall and getting to know the town and college, but it was harder on the personal front. I’m looking forward to 2012 with optimism and anticipation. I fully expect the spring to be crazy — I’m teaching three classes rather than two, and my senior IS students will be finishing their projects — but I also hope it will be rejuvenating. I’ve been amazed by how widespread this sentiment about the new year has been. I can’t think of another year when I’ve heard so many people express relief at the passing of the old year and hope for the new one, in a way that seems heartfelt rather than rote. I guess it’s just been a hard one for all of us. May 2012 bring positive change for you, too.

Also, mysterious Mayan calendar predictions aside, isn’t “twenty-twelve” just so much more satisfying to say than “twenty-eleven”?

I didn’t get as much work done on Killingly this year as I meant to, mostly for the above-mentioned personal reasons, plus that whole “first semester of teaching” thing, which is pretty time-consuming. But I did get some work done! And I’m delighted to say that I’ll have a student assistant helping me to dig up more research material this spring. If all goes well, I hope to finish the book in summer 2012. I’ve also been writing some nonfiction, partly inspired by the reading I’ve done with one of my IS students.

In March, I’ll be back in Austin briefly to give a reading at UT before zipping down to San Antonio to present a paper at ASECS 2012: “Delarivier Manley Understands the Ladies Better than You: The Female Wits and Feminocentric Satire.” I’m also hoping to attend Wiscon this spring. Anybody else planning to be in Madison?

I meant to post a multitude of things in the last month or so, some still open in tabs from the first time I read them. (I prune my tabs regularly, but still, it’s no wonder my Firefox loves to give me the spinny rainbow wheel.) Here are a few of them:

• Lev Grossman on what fantasy is.
• An insightful post on Anne McCaffrey and her work.
• The Guardian’s obituary for Russell Hoban.
• Kristin Cashore on reading like a writer.
• Katha Pollitt on Christopher Hitchens.
• NPR’s top 5 YA novels of the year.
• A call for papers on Georgette Heyer at the Journal for Popular Romance Studies.
• A Vintage Smith College tumblr.
• Diana Peterfreund on love triangles in YA and love diagrams of Jane Austen novels.
• The Band of Thebes Best LGBT Books of 2011 list (with recs from me).
• Rachel Signer’s piece at OccupyWriters, my favorite there so far.
• What Middletown Read.
• Miette’s podcast of “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.”
• Boing Boing’s 2011 gift guide: a little late, okay, but still full of interesting stuff, including many books.
• Shauna Ahern’s basic ratio method for converting wheat-based cookies to gluten-free, plus a molasses cookie recipe I’m planning to make soon. (My mother and I made date pinwheel cookies and quinoa flake jam cookies for Christmas.)

And finally, something that makes a dreary January day a little brighter, at least if you grew up with the Buffy kids and still like a good vampire show now and then. 2011 would not have been possible without yoga and Netflix streaming.

A very happy new year to you all.

Because that’s what you get this summer, apparently. I’ve been working on Killingly and course prep and an eighteenth-century abstract this week, and I’m wiped.

The Hairpin has a great interview with Kate Beaton, who talks smartly about many things, including dramatizing history in comic form and why people reacted so weirdly to her calling-out of sexism in comics. And for your enjoyment, a recent Hark! A Vagrant strip sure to delight c18 nerds: Fop Gun.

Thriller writer Will Lavender describes his path from writing literary fiction he wasn’t satisfied with to writing what he loves.

A long piece in the Atlantic about the development of the current YA market.

And a lovely review in PW for my friend Merrie Haskell’s forthcoming middle-grade book, The Princess Curse.

Still recovering from my busy week, and now from spring forward, too. Mostly I spent the latter half of the week reading — I finally finished The Ambassadors, then read Jessica Stern’s Denial: A Memoir of Terror, then Cynthia Ozick’s Foreign Bodies. (I put up short reviews on my Goodreads page if you’re curious.) I’ve also been looking at things on the internet, as you do. Some of those things have been upsetting — like this incredibly unsettling video of some of the most minor effects of the earthquake in Japan (cracks in the ground, filling with water).

If you haven’t donated to the Red Cross or another organization to support Japan’s relief effort, please do.

Some more cheerful (or at least distracting) links:

• Recommended to me by a friend: the Arvon Book of Life Writing.
• An interview with Ann Patchett about an essay of hers in Granta.
• Daniel Craig cross-dresses to make a point about gender inequality, with narration by Dame Judi Dench. (I’m not sure it’s the clearest visual argument I’ve ever seen, but who cares, it’s Daniel Craig in a dress.)
• An online exhibition of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s travel albums.
• The NYPL digital picture collection.
• A striking essay by Sherwood Smith about learning how to rewrite and get beyond the “easy phrase.”

And finally: Anthony Lane snarks about Oscar-worthy movies by predicting future winners. Here’s the best:

2013

“HOUSE”

After “The Queen,” “Elizabeth,” and “The Young Victoria,” which British queens remain to be explored? Step forward, Anne (played by a pitch-perfect Hugh Laurie), who reigned from 1702 to 1714, and who is now mainly associated with an elegant style of architecture and furniture. The last word in country-house period drama, with its soundtrack scored exclusively for cello, harp, and panpipes, and a controversial winner over David Fincher’s blistering, bang-up-to-date texting drama “Elimin8.” With Sir Michael Gambon, as Blenheim Palace, and a brief but scene-stealing turn from Dame Judi Dench, as a wingback chair with cabriole legs.

I’m so tempted to start casting my dissertation now. (Miranda Richardson as Martha Fowke Sansom!)

Also, remember that the Alcestis paperback giveaway on Goodreads ends March 15 — only a day or so left! I’ll post about this once more tomorrow, too.

It’s been a very busy and exciting week. Here are a few reasons why:

Can you tell that Inge's head is upside down in this photo?

That’s Inge declaring ownership of the box in which a copy of my (giant) dissertation is sitting. The diss. is with my committee members now, and we’re working on scheduling a defense in late April. There’s still work to do, of course. But: whew. That is the sound of me taking a short breather. (And doing some Killingly work, I hope!)

The book sitting on top of my dissertation draft includes my first substantial scholarly publication. It’s an edited collection entitled Masters of the Marketplace: British Women Novelists of the 1750s – my essay is about Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote. The book looks beautiful, don’t you think?

(Inge is not responsible for making this week exciting and busy — thankfully — but she and Saki have definitely helped make it more enjoyable. Except for when they decide to race around the apartment just as I’m falling asleep.)

I’ve also learned that Alcestis is a finalist for the BSFS Compton Crook Award for 2010, with results to be announced in early April.

Finally, don’t forget that the Goodreads giveaway of three paperback copies of Alcestis ends March 15th!

After I catch my breath a bit, I’ll be back with more links and perhaps more news.

It’s been forever since I’ve done a meme like this, but I’ve seen this book meme circulating and I’m brain-fried enough to need some structure for my content this evening. So!

The book I am reading: I’m about 3/4 of the way through The Ambassadors, which I’d tried once before and hadn’t gotten into. I love James, though I think I’m more comfortable with the middle period than his late style (I haven’t read The Golden Bowl or The Princess Casamassima yet, though). The Ambassadors is — well, it’s an entire book about whether one young man will choose to leave one place and go back to another, from the POV of a fifty-year-old friend of the family who overthinks everything. It makes me want to flee to Paris myself, or rather to the Paris in the book. It’s a ridiculous book, in some ways — it has essentially no plot and the majority of the action involves characters turning each other’s words around and emphasizing things when they talk — but it’s very beautiful, too. I’m really enjoying it.

The book I am writing: Killingly — my 1890s New England Gothic about a disappearing college girl and her unusual best friend. And I recently finished writing a book-length dissertation, which should count for something, I think.

The book I love most: I’ve seen a lot of people refusing to choose, and I sympathize. Today I would say Middlemarch. Tomorrow it might be Persuasion, or Portrait of a Lady, or Possession.

The last book I received as a gift: There is a wrapped book sitting downstairs waiting for me to open it on my birthday tomorrow. I’m trying to remember what book I was given most recently before this. Possibly a gluten-free cookbook from family at Christmas?

The last book I gave as a gift: Hermione Lee’s A Very Short Introduction to Biography, which is really charming and well-put-together.

The nearest book on my desk: The fantastic Memoirs of Laetitia Pilkington, A. C. Elias, Jr.’s 1997 edition from the University of Georgia Press. It’s two volumes totaling 845 pp., the second being only notes. LP is one of my dissertation subjects, and she’s probably the one I’d most want to invite over for tea. The gossip would be exquisite.

PS. Don’t forget about the Con or Bust auction entry for Alcestis — bidding ends on Sunday.

It’s been quite a year — one of the strangest and nicest in a while. Alcestis was released in February, an experience that really began for me when I returned from MLA a day or two before the new year and found my box of author’s copies awaiting me. They were so beautiful. I still can’t get over how lucky I’ve been with the design of this book and what a tremendous job Soho’s done; I’m very much looking forward to seeing the trade paperback, too.

And then I had a book launch party in February. I went to Wiscon for the first time in May, and taught a fiction workshop this summer. I’ve been on fellowship all year and I still have six more months of fellowship funding to go.

I wrote a draft of my dissertation, and I started writing Killingly, just a little bit. I revised “The Former Hero,” which I started in 2000, during my sophomore year of college — I can even remember the unfortunate college futon I was sitting on while I typed up notes from my copy of Much Ado. I think it still needs more work, but sometime I’ll get it right. Maybe in another ten years. (This interview with Michael Chabon is a good reminder that even the stubbornest projects can yield something excellent in the end, even if it’s a completely different something from what you intend.)

Tonight I’ll be outside Austin, at a house where you can actually see stars. (The house with the Nubian dairy goats, for those of you who have heard me rhapsodize about them before.) I won’t be tipsy, because I’m driving, but I expect that I will be happy. There’s a lot I want to get done in 2011, starting with finishing the final draft of my dissertation, and it may be something of a rough year. But I hope it will be a good one, too.

Happy new year to all of you.

Geoff Nunberg has a great post on Language Log today describing his response to Kathryn Sutherland’s assertions about Austen’s manuscripts and the role she suggests Gifford played in their editing. (The post is an annotated version of the piece he did for Fresh Air on the topic.) While the post starts off dramatically — “After looking over the Austen manuscripts online, I concluded that the whole business was meretricious nonsense” — Nunberg also speaks well of Sutherland’s book, and concludes with a very satisfying explanation of changing patterns of semicolon usage. All worth a read.

Margaret Donsbach from HistoricalNovels.Info interviewed me about Alcestis, which she calls “full of poetic passages.” (There’s a short review of the book at HistoricalNovels.Info, too, and Margaret will soon be reviewing it for the Heritage Key site.)

Tonight I’m going to see an adaptation of Pride & Prejudice at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, one of the best things about visiting Ashland. I’m hoping that it’ll be better than the adaptation I saw at UT this fall, which I have to admit was pretty painful. (Actors who can’t manage British accents should not try to pretend that shouting in a higher-pitched voice is a worthwhile substitute.) Yesterday, I also discovered some exciting Austen news, from Diana Peterfreund, who explains why she loves Persuasion so much, and then reveals the following:

Children’s: Young Adult

Author of the Secret Society Girl series and Rampant Diana Peterfreund’s FOR DARKNESS SHOWS THE STARS, a post-apocalyptic retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, to Kristin Daly at Balzer & Bray, in a good deal, for publication in 2011, by Deidre Knight at The Knight Agency (NA).

This actually makes a lot of sense — much of the literary criticism written about Persuasion focuses on the uncertainty and anxiety evident in Austen’s portrayal of the diminution of the landed gentry, so transposing that class anxiety into a more explicitly dangerous post-apocalyptic world should be really interesting. Looking forward to this one. Diana answers more questions about it here.

Regarding another genius, Hilary Mantel writes about the Shakespearean authorship debate, which she calls “a tale of snobbery and ignorance, of unhistorical assumptions, of myths about the writing life sometimes fuelled by bestselling authors who ought to know better.” Ouch, and nicely put.

Finally, in exciting news for dorks like me, Patton Oswalt is writing a Wash-centric comic set after the conclusion of Serenity.

This interview with Cormac McCarthy is wonderful, thorough and crotchety, and since I’m not much a short-story writer myself, I’m oddly heartened by his lack of interest in writing them, or in delving into collaborative work in Hollywood, etc.:

WSJ: But is there something compelling about the collaborative process compared to the solitary job of writing?

CM: Yes, it would compel you to avoid it at all costs.

…

WSJ: How does that ticking clock affect your work? Does it make you want to write more shorter pieces, or to cap things with a large, all-encompassing work?

CM: I’m not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.

I actually didn’t like The Road much — shocking, I know, but I still prefer Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker to just about any mainstream post-apocalyptic novel I’ve read — but I did like this interview quite a bit.

And via Sarah Johnson, I saw this report of a book deal for a new historical fiction series by an academic, set in the eighteenth century, described as:

An utterly riveting, edge-of-your-seat, series featuring an 18th century heroine, Henrietta Lightfoot: courtesan, adventuress, spy and erstwhile murderess. It had all of us here hooked. With potential to become a really popular series, this is a female Flashman who can show the chaps a thing or two, while deliciously rollocking through one of the most interesting and dashing periods in history.

I just finished Heyer’s The Grand Sophy with my undergrads — some of them adored it, some of them hated it. I think we all felt, by the end of our discussions, that the book has flaws that make it difficult for c21 female readers to enjoy without reservations. I enjoy it tremendously, myself, but those last few pages are tough to swallow. I’m guessing that the Lightfoot series won’t necessarily be much more realistic than Heyer’s books, but it would be delightful to read something as rompish as Heyer that doesn’t just flit lightly over any hint of sexuality (or turn it into a threat of violence, ahem, Georgette).

A quick followup to my recent post about hack writers: this story, from the New Yorker’s Book Bench blog, about a woman writer setting up “a small letter-writing stand in Union Square.”

She sat behind a small Lettera typewriter and a cardboard menu listing your options: you had to first chose your language (English or Spanish), type of letter (regular letter for $2, love letter for $3, illicit love letter for $5, postage included), and type of paper (blue, yellow, or onion). Some customers sat down in the chair opposite her and dictated a letter in full; most gave her a few key bullet points and let her abstract the rest. A man stopped by to discuss a business inquiry he was working on—Hofer said she would write it later and send it to him by e-mail.

Compare this to an advertisement written by Laetitia Pilkington, one of the subjects of my dissertation, about her own letter-writing abilities:

If any illiterate Divine, from Cambridge or Oxford, has a Mind to shew his Parts in a London Pulpit, let him repair to me, and he shall have a Sermon, not stolen from Barrow, Tillotson, or other eminent Preachers, as is frequently the Practice, with those who have Sense enough to do it; but Fire-new from the Mint. If any Painter has a Mind to commence Bard without Wit, and join the Sister Arts, I also will assist him. If any Author wants a Copy of commendatory Verses, to prefix to his Work, or a flattering Dedication, to a worthless Great Man; any poor Person, a Memorial or Petition, properly calculated to dissolve the Walls of Stone and Flint which inviron the Hearts of rich men, Prelates in particular; any Print-seller, Lines to put under his humorous, comic, or serious Representations; any Player an occasional Prologue or Epilogue; any Beau a handsome Billetdoux, from a fair Incognita; any old Maid, a Copy of Verses in her Praise; any Lady, of high Dress, and low Quality, such as are generally the Ladies of the Town, an amorous melting delicate Epistle; any Projector a Paragraph in Praise of his Scheme [Ed. note: LP, the original promiscuous blurber!] ; any extravagant Prodigal, a Letter of Recantation to his Honoured Father; any Minister of State, an Apology for his Conduct, which those Gentlemen frequently want; any Undertaker a Funeral Elegy; or any Stone-Cutter an Epitaph; or, in short, any Thing in the Poetical Way; shall be dispatched in the most private, easy, and genteel Manner by applying to me, and that at the most reasonable Rates.

The New Yorker blogger calls this ghostwriting, but I hope the writer setting up her stand in Union Square wouldn’t mind being called a hack, particularly if that meant she could claim literary allegiance with someone as saucy as Mrs. Pilkington.