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So… What’s an Academic Conference, Anyway?

A bison friend I made at the Western Literature Association Annual Conference in Big Sky, Montana.

If you’ve ever been an English major, you’ve probably had family members who haven’t the slightest clue what that means. And if you’re an English PhD student, this confusion increases exponentially. If you’re an English PhD, you’ve also probably had complete strangers snidely remark about your being “one of those eternal students” who “doesn’t goContinue reading “So… What’s an Academic Conference, Anyway?”

Amache, Colorado: Where I Drove, and What I Wrote For

When my mother and I visited Amache at the end of June 2016, I didn’t expect to learn anything I didn’t already know–not from the meager National Park Service signage, attempting to tell a ‘niche’ ethnic history most people wouldn’t know from Adam (Japanese Americans included).

Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them

I just finished reading Elif Batuman’s The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, on the recommendation of several of my Russian literature teachers/professors several years ago. Now that I’ve finally read it, I’d like to recommend it to everyone I know, in the hope that in the next several years,Continue reading “Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them”