As a Detroiter who sojourned in Providence to study and the Finger Lakes to teach, moving to the Columbus Area recently has afforded me excellent opportunities to be closer to family, see even more of our beautiful country, and focus on my teaching, writing, and research. I adore travel and love that my work affords me the opportunity to experience and explore different regions of the United States.

 

Life during Covid has gotten even more complicated, but the one constant through all these translocations has been my love reading, though my favorite contemporary novelists are an eclectic bunch: Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Colson Whitehead, Paul Beatty, and Carmen Maria Machado. I also adore authors like Jesmyn Ward, Tommy Orange, Ana Menéndez, Victoria Gonzalez Peña, N. K. Jemison, and Ling Ma. Other writers whom I consider to be fabulous are: John E. Wideman, LeAnne Howe, Alice Munro, Ken Liu, and Flannery O'Connor. And, in a pinch, listening to excellent stories on podcasts like Clarkesworld and Snap Judgement is almost as fun as reading.

 

Like most people who move words around on a page for a living, however, I dearly enjoy biking, hiking, and tinkering with recipes in my time away from the desktop.

Here's one of my winter go-to's.

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In the months to come, I'm working to revise and re-submit my book manuscript to University of Michigan Press. But when I'm looking for a break, I will attempt to resist the siren call of friends, family, and food in Columbus, Cleveland, and Detroit and spend more time outdoors. My plans include the Heart of Ohio Bike Trail, Cuyahoga National Park, Hocking Hills, and (of course) the Serpent Mounds.