Dearest friends and readers,

I have a story to tell with a (temporary) happy ending. After another year and an exceptionally depressing academic job market, I’ve been offered a full-time two-year position here at Allegheny College. I feel lucky and relieved and so thrilled to continue teaching creative writing workshops. It’s true that I’ll complain to anyone who will listen about the snow here in Meadville (there’s too much of it), but Allegheny is a special school filled with supportive faculty and many eager, talented students. I’m already looking forward to a busy fall semester, plus two new classes I’ll be designing over the summer (one of them a sci-fi lit class !!! ).

Of course, my experiences with the market aren’t over, and in time, I’ll once again start rolling the boulder back up the hill. Word to the wise: nobody is their best self while going through an academic job search. The process is impersonal and demoralizing and masochistic and anxiety-inducing, and to my academic friends who are still searching or will begin searching in the years to come, you are all brilliant and deserve better than this meat grinder.

In the meantime, I’m thankful for the chance to keep teaching young people and instilling in them the love of writing and fiction. More updates to come this spring as I prep for my new classes.

stay strange,

JJ