What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Does it harden, a bitter pill in the gut, to poison the whole bloodstream and shrivel the skin of joy?
In my case, it has waited, a coiled seed, to burst and bloom in the desert sun.
* We are moving to Texas this summer, where I will begin a PhD in English Literature at Baylor University!*
I’ll be studying modern British poetry and drama under the excellent Dr. Richard Russell and others, probably working as a research assistant, and trying to keep up some Inklings connections as relevant along the way. I’ll update this blog with more news about its future as that develops in my mind. I do intend to finish the chronological blog-through of CW’s books, and I’ll tell you about my keynote at Taylor after that happens. I still need to blog about the Inspector Lewis episode script, too.
So, it’s a difficult time here as we try to finish building Higgins’ Croft and get it ready to sell. It’s a time of grief and glory. It’s a time of endings and beginnings. It’s time to put on the cowboy boots and march into the library. Yeehaw!
The Oddest Inkling 
Many congratulations!!!
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Thanks!
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Congrats… you will LOVE Texas. I have lived and done graduate studies in various regions of the country, but Texas is the very best place to live, study, and write. And, you can’t beat the cuisine.
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Congratulations! And all good wishes and prayers – including (to adapt a characteristic Dutch one) that you be given the strength you need for all of it! (I love living in new and different places, but dread the practicalities of moving… and you’re leaving your very own self-built house: a big change all by itself, though the joy of it for another – who I hope turns up to buy it in good order!)
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Congratulations! Baylor seems to be a very good school–certainly, it has Ralph Wood in the Religion Department. (What could be better than that for a person interested in the Inklings?) (Of course,the one student I sent to Baylor–she wrote a master’s thesis on Chaucer under my direction–never finished her doctorate; but I draw no conclusions about the school from her situation.) I’ve got one graduate student from Baylor reading a paper in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature session at the South Central Modern Language Association’s conference in Dallas next fall (I’m chairing)–he’s dealing with Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s _Conditionally Human_, however, not a work by an Inkling. (I also have a person [from the University of Houston–Downtown] reading a paper on Modernist aesthetics in _The Hobbit_ next fall, strange as the topic seems.) (SCMLA also has a session on Gothic literature each year, where you might read a paper on Charles Williams’ fiction sometime, before sending it out to a journal.) Regionally, there’s the C. S. Lewis and Inklings Society, meeting next spring on the campus of Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So far as reading poems (I assume you’re still writing them) there’s a session of original poetry at SCMLA and there’s the annual literary festival in Belton TX (just down the read from Waco), tied to, but not limited to those appearing in, the current issue of _Windhover_ (you’ve published there, I know). And there are several other literary festivals in Texas,including a big one in Austin. So there are a number of things to do in the region for those who aren’t overwhelmed by class work and keeping up with previous commitments, etc.
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Sorry, that should “just down the road,” not “just down the read.”
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Congratulatuions! That sounds like an amazing opportunity!
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Congratulations you’ll be well prepared to do the work. Blessings paul blair
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I might also mention that Greg Garrett is in the English Department at Baylor, teaching film, fiction, and American literature. He’s written several novels, but his book that I’ve read (and greatly like) is a sort of popular culture discussion in a religious and/or moralistic framework, _Holy Superheroes! Exploring the Sacred in Comics, Graphic Novels, and Film_ (2005, exp. 2008). The fourth chapter is titled “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.” _Spider-Man_ as American literature?
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Fantastic! Wonderful to witness the fulfillment of a dream. Glory. Well done and blessings on this next leg of your journey!!
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When I was on the shortlist for a position Somewhere in Texas, the urbane Chairman of the Department thought it his duty to tell me that since he’d been there, he’d had Cottonmouths, Copperheads, and Coral Snakes, as well as Rattlers, in his yard, in addition to Tarantulas and scorpions – not to be scared, just prepared. Somebody else got the job, so I never found out what that was like… (I think Rattlesnakes are delicious, but I’ve never prepared one from scratch, or the avoidance of a scratch.)
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Oh my.
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Congratulations! You are bound to reach the heights!
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Sounds exciting! I didn’t realize till just looking that Waco has a metro population of 263,000. I lived on Fort Hood for 6 months and I just remember it as smaller for some reason. An hour thirty from Fort Worth, two from Austin and then there’s San Antonio for a long weekend! In the end it is probably a better gig geographically being in Waco than directly in one of the others. The authentic Mexican restaurant scene should be pretty happening there. But what about that cellars and liquor stores? This, of course, is what hipsters are for. Have a great time. We await your keen observations with great expectations.
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Congratulations!
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Every blessing upon your future endeavours.
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