When it comes to blogging, 2018 was not a prolific year around these parts. Work on a new nonfiction book, big professional and civic commitments, and the nine-month search for a new home out here in the woods all kept me away from my favorite forum for writing stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else.

That said, what I did write here was substantive, if I do say so myself. Have a look:

During last year’s interminable winter, I revisited a translation of a eighth-century poem, and spared the reverence.

Did you know that F. Scott Fitzgerald published stories about a medieval warlord modeled on Ernest Hemingway? I tracked down the original Redbook issues and followed Fitzgerald’s pulp-flecked path: “In the Darkest Hour” (1934), “The Count of Darkness” (1935), “The Kingdom in the Dark” (1935), and “Gods of Darkness” (1941).

Like John Denver at the PMRC hearings, I griped about the current crop of aspiring censors: different politics, same old finger-wagging prudes.

It took eleven years, but I finally posted a transcript of a 2007 speech outlining what modern writing teachers can learn from Carolingian monks.

If you’re still with me after this fallow year, thank you! Please check back in 2019; there’s always more to say.