Summer Notes

Haven't blogged much any more, but the good news is that overall my writing has picked up again.

So, this will just be a quick note to my millions of loyal fans to update you on my status (seriously, does anyone read this?)

First off, I'm thrilled to finally announce that my reappointment at Northwestern has been approved, so I'll be back teaching Film and Media Studies for another year in the Radio/Television/Film Department. In the fall, I'm doing the massive intro lecture course and another Disney class. I'm so grateful to be back to the only place that has valued and respected me over the years.

As for writing: I have an article coming out this summer in Jump Cut. I'll pass along the link for that when its available. Its the centerpiece of Haunted Nerves, so I'm especially proud of it, and am glad it'll get some early circulation for the project (the only other material from it I've published is here, which has held up well enough over the years to give me confidence I'm on the right track). I'll have more to say about that when it debuts.

Speaking of Haunted Nerves, I finished the last chapter recently and am now struggling to get through the introduction. I can't decide if I have too much or too little still to go. We'll see--the most consistent criticism of my writing is that its repetitive, and so that's really getting to be a mental blockage for me these days.

Also, I just finished an essay on Detroit documentaries that I'm really proud of and shipped it off (fingers crossed). It didn't take long to write in retrospect, but I think that's because its one of those essays that had been all mapped out in my head, and it was just a matter of taking the time to put it all down on paper.

I'm proud of both Detroit-themed projects I've completed over the years (the other is "Islands of Detroit" from 2008). I'm trying to decide if I'll pursue a book project down that road.

What I do now for sure is that once Haunted Nerves is off to publishers, I will be definitely, finally, taking on that damn Hawaii project that I've been postponing for years. It was originally the follow up to my Disney book, but I got sidetracked with digital cinema stuff in my teaching. But I like how Haunted Nerves turned out, though its much less ambitious than I originally assumed . . . .

peace.