We are almost at 2023! There is a lot to update our readers on, but for now, let me just say that, despite over two years of COVID misery, my arts organization, Hidden River has kept flowing. Yes, we've had to shut down our live events. Yes, we've dealt with slow-downs of just about everything. But I feel very proud that we have survived and are ready to rebuild. As for my own creative work, I'm nearly finished that new collection of stories. I've finished a few other book-length projects. And my co-producer and I are returning to work on the film.
Unless you've been living underground for the last several years, you know that we are living in a time of great intensity, disruption. As someone who has always been engaged in activism and in making art, I find that it is also a time that urgently calls on those tendencies within me. Sometimes, the pull is so strong that I have to unplug and reflect before it is possible to move forward in a positive way. The great danger when living in such chaotic times is that we become reactive and reactionary, acting out of places of fear or anger. It's been my experience that nothing good comes from actions that have such roots. So, as the world is going through great changes, it felt important for me, personally, to re-asses the life I was living, the priorities I set, the goals I was aiming for. I know myself better as I age. I understand that I am one of those people who wears many hats, juggling lots of activities and occupations. Some people have a more straight-path kind of life. Others have lives with many side trips and detours. I am that sojourning kind of person, exploring and working in the arts, in scholarship and education, in activism. That's been true for most of my life. But that doesn't mean that it isn't necessary at times to re-configure and re-align. It became clear to me in late summer of 2017, that this was such a time, and I had to make a very large decision, one that I had avoided for quite a long time.
After over 20 years, I decided to leave university teaching in order to focus on all my other projects that had been gasping for life, for want to sufficient attention. I wrote more extensively about this decision on my
Homeless Adjunct blog, because it was a very emotional decision. I am convinced that the choice was the right one. For the first few years, I was able to build new programs and expand activities with my arts organization, with the shooting of the documentary, with my own creative work. I began traveling more. But, of course, COVID shut a lot of my work down, slowed the work that was still alive, and created terror in all our lives.
One of the most important projects I hope to finish now that COVID is receding and we can travel again, is our documentary,
'Junct: The Trashing of Higher Ed. in America. If you are interested in the film and our other work with
'Junct Rebellion, I think following The Homeless Adjunct blog is a good idea. We'll be posting news about our activism activities there, not only for the university activism, but for our soon-to-launch projects of Guerilla U and Isidore International (more detailed information about these will be coming soon!) In short, for the time being, the projects are focused in this way: 'Junct Rebellion/The Homeless Adjunct focus on the issues of the corporatization of academia.
Guerilla U focuses on issues of K-university and offers advice for parents, counselors, students and the "stakeholders" -- meaning all those who care about high quality public education and the best possible opportunities for learning and development we can find for our youth. If you visit our site for Guerilla U, you will see that we are in process. One of the goals is to expand this site and to launch our programs, which will include consulting, workshops, articles, curriculum for students, especially those "alternative" students not served by the overly-standardized public education we suffer these days. I have begun to realize that the "alternative" student, those I have thought of originally as the artists, the unusual thinkers, the so-called "special ed" kids (who are often some of our most creative thinkers) were the ones Guerilla U would serve. They are still very much at the center of our project; but I have come to realize that most of our students need the advice and help Guerilla U will offer. Our public educational system continues to deteriorate under the strain of for-profit values, and under the incompetent hands of the likes of Betsy DeVos. Isidore International, the website for which is still in process, will focus on the opportunities we are building in creating a network of international learning centers where students can opt out of the corporatized university systems for a more independently designed learning experience. This is an enormous project, and more details will be offered on this as it unfolds.
These educational projects will be receiving more attention, now that we are entering the last months of 2022 and looking forward to 2023. I had, first, to prioritize my departure from my own university teaching, and then to focus on the existing arts programs and publishing projects at Hidden River Arts that needed immediate attention. Then, I had to focus on keeping things alive during the pandemic. So, efforts are always on-going.
The focus now is to dive into finalizing my own creative work, on a creative revival at Hidden River Arts and a re-start and redesign of programs. Hidden River has a year-round cycle of literary awards, which offer monetary prizes and publication on the Hidden River Publishing imprints. You can explore them
here, on our Hidden River Arts blog. If you are interested in our projects at Hidden River, I suggest that you follow us, so that you'll get notified when news is posted.
New titles will be launching both in the remaining months of 2022 and in 2023. Follow us at our blogs,
Hidden River Arts and
Hidden River Writers as well as at our
Hidden River website for more information about our growing catalogue of wonderful books.
Finally, what of my own creative work? Well, there is still
'Junct: The Trashing of Higher Ed. in America, the documentary I talked about above. Chris LaBree, my co-producer, and I screened a rough cut of the film in Alberta and at a few East Coast venues before the pandemic, and are hoping to have screening opportunities as we continue to work on building out the rough cut(s) and finally, to screening the final cut of the entire film. That project, and the companion book, will be taking up a lot of time in 2022 and 2023. I am hoping that my singing partner, Jean Brooks, and I can get back to
Cabaret Divas, returning to singing cabaret. We designed, wrote and performed two new cabaret shows in Philadelphia, the first called "Love Sucks. Let's Sing!" and the other called "Bawdy and Soul". A new project, to create a series of sets performing the Great American Songbook is on the table. It has been several years since the publication of my collection of short stories,
Other Likely Stories, during which time much of my creative activities were focused on the film, on returning to singing, and on writing plays. I've been working on several novels, and I'll share more about that as news becomes available. I've returned to writing short stories, and am working on a new collection called
Crossing the Line. The first story of this collection to be published was
"Do It Yourself Finishing School", which was published a few months ago by
Adelaide Literary Magazine. A second story from this new collection, "Beverly at the Fair" was published by the hard-copy journal,
Stoneboat Literary Journal. Two of the stories, "Party of One" and "A Tree on Quarry Street" were published at
Unlikely Stories. Finally -- Before the pandemic hit, I traveled with my daughter to Florence, Orvieto and Rome. This was a combined trip, for research, for making connections with other arts organizations, and for the kind of discovery that is only possible when you are on an adventure.
We stayed right at the Duomo in Florence, and celebrated the New Year with the Florentines. We then traveled by train to beautiful Orvieto, one of the ancient hill towns with Etruscan history.
And then, from Orvieto by train to Rome, where we stayed in one of our favorite areas, Campo de' Fiori, and wandered....or should I say hiked....logging in several miles each day as we moved from one of the impossibly beautiful sites to another. The big accomplishment this time was that I, with my fear of heights, climbed to the very top of the Castel Sant'Angelo.
So.....life is truly an on-going adventure. There is a lot of work to be done in order to bring all the dreams and goals and plans into being. This is especially true since we've all been hit with such a tsunami of troubles in the last several years. But there is a lot of joy, too, that can be found. First, I find happiness in truly believing in everything that I am doing, discovering new things each and every day, feeling more alive and excited each and every day about what life has in store! We've had a terrifying few years, and the precious things of life have become more clear to us all, haven't they?
Friday, June 23, 2023 at 03:07PM 
