Sunday night miscellany

I've been busy. The semester is winding down, which means my students are writing research papers and I'm preparing to grade them. I'm also making preparations to head to VCCA for a couple of weeks, although I'm really less prepared than I've ever been. I guess I'm going to get there and work as hard as I can trying to get my novel into shape to send to my agent after the first of the year. Maybe I don't need much planning for that.

I've also been trying to get caught up and ahead on my Prime Number Magazine work. I've taken care of much of the contracting for the fiction through the issue that will go up in January and have also done the layout for the update that will go live this week. And I'm caught up with reading submissions of fiction (so please send us more!).

The big project around the house, which I guess I won't finish before I leave, is reorganizing the bookshelves. Just fiction, for now, but that's a huge task. Because of space constraints, I had allowed two separate alphabetical collections to grow (the second starting when I got some new, free-standing shelves but didn't take the time to integrate the new books with the collection in the built-ins). On top of that there were piles in my office and the guest room. No more. Integrating, shifting, relocating. I'm feeling good about that.

Northwestern is in a bowl game for the third straight year. It's the TicketCity Bowl in Dallas on January 1. Not exactly the Rose Bowl, but it's still important for the program, and maybe we've got a chance to win it.

The Summer/Fall season at the American Shakespeare Center wrapped up last week. There were some great shows--the highlight being Henry IV Part 2. Now we've moved on to the holiday season, with three shows (usually they do just two) PLUS previews of the Touring Company's Spring Season. I may miss the previews, since I'll see those shows in the Spring, but I'd like to see the holiday shows. So Friday night I went to Ginna Hoben's The Twelve Dates of Christmas. Ginna wrote and stars in the one woman show--very funny and very well done. They're also doing A Christmas Carol (with John Harrell again as Scrooge) and Santaland Diaries (with Rick Blunt), but I'll have to catch those when I get back if I can. I definitely want to--Harrell is a terrific actor and Blunt is hilarious.