July 2006

Gone Crazy, Back Later?

As I worked on this issue, I was reminded of all those stories of women writers who wrote with children at their feet. Kate Chopin, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Didn't one of the Bronte's apparently write while a nanny? I don't have time to look it up. I remember reading an essay by Toni Morrison about how she wrote her first novel with a child on her lap. I remember reading these things back before I had a family and marveling at their fortitude. I was a very active "second mom" aunt, so I knew from firsthand experience (or so I thought) how hard it could be.

I was browsing the Chronicle of Higher Education's website recently and came across a forum discussion by grad students about whether the final stages of the PhD program is a good time to have kids. Some members of the discussion were for it, some against, some railed at how inappropriate the discussion was (considering your career at the same time you think of your children? how horrible!) I could have offered my perspective. But I was too busy to create an account, log in, post, respond. Etc.

Busy. That's my operative word nowadays. Last year in June I had my first (and last) babies-- twins, a boy & a girl. That's their 1 year picture over there to the right. I'm a proud mama, so you have to endure the photo. I am also a scholar who knows that there really is no such thing as a scholar who is separate from their private life, who can contemplate universal truths in an ivory tower garret while the serving wenches bring hot tea with milk. (At least, not as far as I've seen, and doubtfully ever for women). I myself freely mix the autobiographical elements of my life with my work, always have, always will. So I'm not embarrassed to say being a scholar & a mom is a lot harder than I thought it would be. But I'm doing it.

Just before the due date last summer, knowing that my life would soon be crazy, I arranged for guest editors for this, my other "baby." I have some great issues lined up for the future, but those guest editors have had some problems of their own in getting their issue ready. The guest editor I thought I had lined up for Winter never contacted me, and I just didn't have the time to contact her.

I held onto the book reviews from the winter issue planning to post them with the fabulous summer guest edited issue. That issue fell through-- so now I have something like 40 book reviews which have languished in my "to do" folder. I've been thinking about when to post them. I've been editing the final stages of my dissertation (goddess mote it be!) And all the while, the luxury I have of a babysitter in the other room who I trust, and who is kind and loving to my children. (Who cannot work for me for the next five weeks due to her own school schedule & a back injury! High drama!) Because of that luxury, I wonder about those stories of Stowe writing with children at her feet. Did she have a nanny? A cook? An older daughter who cared for her younger siblings? Because if she didn't, I do NOT know how she did it.

So this summer's issue is, if we're all lucky, the last one to be neglected sorely by me. Plans are in the works for my dissertation to really be done by September, my defense taken in October, my PhD finally here by Winter graduation. I hope that it all goes smoothly; indications right now are that it will, but there's still hard work ahead. This website is an important part of my scholarly process, and something which I hope we can build in prestige as the years go by. It's just a rough patch, and we're maybe over the biggest hump.

So bear with me while I work out the problems that come when you're teaching babies what their nose is at the same time you're trying to be the scholar you've always been. If ever I understood the battle to be a woman writer, it is now that I have to snatch five minutes here and there to do this work. While babies are sleeping and I'm typing away I know that luxury is a thing of the past. The days I would fuss over perfecting every image, making each comma perfect, reformatting the colors & spending long hours debating ideas via listserv discussions and message boards are temporarily over.

But here it is, warts and all, the Summer '06 Book Reviews Issue!! I plan to add the links to amazon.com that make us into an interactive website as I can, but for now, here is the content, at least.

I thank gratefully the writers who put hard work into making this content for us, and apologize that it took me so long to get it posted. Thank you thank you thank you. See you in January for a hopefully much more put together issue.