Where Did Odin Go?

After seven months of diligent publishing, things have been a bit quiet.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Life is a series of unexpected journeys. Tolkien was absolutely right when he wrote about setting off down the path beyond your front door: every day brings the unanticipated, the unknown. How we choose to view the unexpected creates the life we experience.

For most of 2023, I’ve been fighting some chronic health battles. I’ve also been doing a Master’s in Library and Information Science degree, running Round Table Writers, writing my fiction and my articles for Medium… and applying to jobs.

As of this last week, the search for jobs has paid off. I am now the new Editor-in-Chief for a peer-reviewed academic journal, and I’m a library specialist in a public library! Wow. Talk about unexpected.

Public librarianship isn’t the end-goal of my career, but it’s a really exciting step toward the future I’m building for myself. I believe that libraries are one of the most important social institutions in the United States, in part because they are one of the last socialist institutions. Right next to public schools and… the military? Yikes. Yeah, let’s focus on libraries again, please.

Libraries exist to serve their communities — all members of their communities. Color, creed, political background… none of these things matter an inch: you’re welcome in the public library. That is grand.

So, for the next period of my life, I’ll be diving into public librarianship alongside my library science degree, which really is the perfect match. Being the EIC for an academic journal is the icing on the cake.

What that does mean, unfortunately, is that I have had to take careful stock of where my energy is spent.

I’m not stopping my writing: there will be more articles from me, on everything from films and television series, to my favorite books, to politics and deep-dives into interesting technology. But, none of what I write will be on the same regular schedule that my readers here have been used to. Most of my free writing time will be spent working on my own fiction, and building up Round Table Writers.

That said, if you want to see specific articles covered by me, you can request those…