1) I recently accepted a position at Horry-Georgetown Technical College, a two-year school in Myrtle Beach, SC. I’ll be a full-time English/Composition instructor (5 classes!) and I’ll hopefully be teaching a couple of different writing-related courses. I was actually fortunate to have two competing offers for full-time positions. It was a difficult decision, but we were ready to move out of the mountains for a while (the other job would mean staying here in Boone, NC). And with a baby on the way, proximity to family and an airport was very important. HGTC has a wonderfully supportive faculty (I had nearly 15 people at my teaching demonstration on a Friday!) and I’m very excited to be joining their team of teachers.

2) I completed my MA in English with a certificate in Rhetoric & Composition at Appalachian. This semester was busy as I finished my thesis and fulfilled my language requirement all while applying furiously for full-time jobs. Sara was extremely supportive in the process–I don’t know what I would have done without her there to keep me focused, calm and relatively stress-free.

3) I’ve recently scribed a piece on Alan Moore and Steve Bissette’s early Swamp Thing comics, up now as a two-part feature on PopMatters. It’s a close look at the first story arc with Woodrue, the Floronic Man and the revisioning of Alec Holland’s transformation into Swamp Thing. The PopMatters version is a reworking of a paper I presented at an academic conference on popular culture. I’ve stripped some of the verbose, theory-riddled prose and it actually works a lot better. I should have written it like this in the first place. It’s also been a comic I’ve used in my classrooms, employing it as a way to teach writing across the curriculum as Swamp Thing invites perspectives from a range of disciplines.

4) Music reviews are still happening as well. Over at 10 Listens I’ve got a full review of chamber-pop ensemble Dark Dark Dark, a first listen of Chicago post-poppers Caw! Caw! and a lengthy look at Toronto’s Holy Fuck.