So, a lot has changed since my last post in September. To sum up:
- My husband and I moved our family from Washington to Utah! My husband’s job as a programmer went permanently remote, so as of January 2021, we can live anywhere in the US. I have always wanted to move back to my home state of Utah, and this seemed doubly important after the pandemic cut us off from visiting family. So we sold our home in Bellevue and are now under contract to buy a home in Highland, UT. It’s been a wild ride, but we’re in the home stretch and should be settled in our new place this summer.
- Homeschooling is wonderful and horrible and ending soon. Being able to school the kids anywhere was a real blessing during our move but has also been an absolute drain on my creative energy. I’ve loved teaching about science and literature, but all the planning has really kept me from doing much else. The good news is: only 10 or weeks to go. I’m excited to have a break for the summer and send the kids back to public school in the fall.
- I’ve decided to be more open about my interest in Mormon literature on this blog. At first, I was hesitant to include my religion in this blog at all. As someone once told McKay Coppins, “Mormons have no cultural cachet.” The religious right hates us because we’re not mainline Christians, the left sees us as bigoted conservatives. Obviously exceptions exist, but to admit you’re Mormon and to talk about Mormon books is to severely limit your audience in both directions. Even other Mormons often aren’t interested in Mormon lit. It would be so much easier to just focus on mainstream works. But the intersection of religion, and particularly Mormonism, and speculative fiction is kind of a big thing for me. I’ve had an abstract accepted for the SFRA Review special issue on Mormons and SF, and I haven’t been this excited to write something in a long time. I’m going to have to embrace this niche and hope someone appreciates it as much as I do.
I hope to come back to writing more frequently on this blog as my homeschool workload wraps up and the move finishes, so watch this space for more lit crit and writing process in action!
