Shameless Self-promotion

It's been a great few months, if I do say so myself. I've settled in to my office at home and I'm working on settling into a routine. I have to admit, I think I may have suffered a brief bout of post-masters depression and found myself in a little crisis of identity for a bit. Who am I now that I'm not an enrolled student? What am I supposed to do with all this time? The result was a frenzy of volunteer sign-up and a handful of small jobs and projects. Yet, I'm now doing a lot of really great things that I wouldn't otherwise have taken on.

I participated in a Habitat for Humanity house build in the nearby town of Three Hills. The town is about to celebrate its centennial and, in partnership with the Elks, sponsored a 100 hour build to commemorate the occasion. I spent two days at the site, first helping with the refreshments and meals, and then painting and clean-up. There were so many people helping over the 100 hours that by the time I arrived there wasn't much to do. My only real complaint, however, was I had to wear borrowed Habitat steel-toed boots. My feet have been itchy ever since!

I've also been volunteering as an English tutor and helping out with a summer reading camp at the Three Hills Library. I enjoy giving over some time to causes that make me feel useful. It's nice to put all that book learnin' to good use, by which I mean for the good of others. I'm up to about seven hours a week volunteering now, so I promised myself I had to stop taking things on.

Among all the volunteering I've started to become work busy! I'm happy to report I've found some freelance work writing for an academic press (not sure if I can name it right now) doing introductions and annotations for upcoming anthologies. I've also been helping out at the local paper, the Three Hills Capital.

On top of that, my first official publication is now released! Back in March, I was invited to contribute a chapter to a book titled Alternative Futures for Publishing sponsored by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta. It is available for free download, although be patient because it's a big file. Other contributors include my friends and colleagues Mark Leslie and Todd Anderson. I'm delighted to have worked with these and the other authors, and am indebted to Jerome Martin of Spotted Cow Press for his support. Mine is chapter four, "Look Who's Talking, Really: The Dialectic Relationship Between Author, Reader, and Publisher."

photo taken from Mark Leslie's Blog

Finally, I am beyond excited to say that I have been accepted to The Banff Centre Writing With Style residency program! I will be spending a week at the gorgeous campus in Banff where I'll be revising my thesis and turning it into the novel I know it should be. I'm so excited to be part of this inspirational and invaluable workshop, and I can't wait to tell you all about it.

Well, I guess I'd better get back to work. Those introductions won't write themselves. Thanks for reading, and don't forget dreams really do come true, if I can do it you can do it, keep your fork, a bird in the hand, and never put your hat on the bed.