Sunday at the Corner Table - 1

Retrospectives are written after long careers. But sometimes recent events seem like such a whirlwind that a retrospective might feel appropriate. The last few months have felt like that, particularly the two months since I closed the bookstore.

First, thank you for your interest. Interest is more precious today than it has ever been, in a world where we are bombarded with the trivial and the terrible, and desensitized to both. Sometimes I feel like your interest might be something like when we watch a trainwreck to see how it plays out, but the less-cynical me is grateful people care. I know many of you do.

One big change is I'm returning to teaching this fall. I started teaching college English in 2010, after a decade in special education followed by substitute teaching. I loved being a teacher, but had done too much of the same thing and burned out. The bookstore was a respite, and now I see it was only that— and at the same time, not a respite at all. But I learned I value my time more than money, and my new position with Olympic College (in Bremerton, if you're not local) is four condensed weeks each quarter. That leaves time for the rest.

And the rest has been only marginally restful. July saw the launch of two book events with the generous participation of writers who represented the span of a writing career. These two large events spawned a litany of smaller ones, mostly in the form of connections and clarification, both inside and out. Aside from the decision to teach again, there has been the decision not only to write, but to put the writing "out there" in front of the gate keepers. There has also been thought about what I'll do during the spaces between, letting some titles I've accumulated slip off and others become smaller. Those are the internal changes. The external has been a new world of people behind the books I had been selling: authors of course, but also agents, publishers, publicists and others, which led to a significant change.

I've returned to podcasting. I had a short stint several years ago, a podcast for indie authors, that didn't hold my interest (or an audience's either, for that matter). I started recording the new podcast late July and the first episode launched August 12, my dad's birthday. Episode 6 launched this morning, and the rhythm will be Sunday mornings from now on. Within a few weeks of the idea, I had about 20 recording sessions scheduled. A Newbery Honor author, New York Times bestsellers, a 5x Emmy nominee, and upcoming episodes that include a 4x platinum songwriter, a Tony Award winner, a successful feature-film composer turned writer. I'll stop there and ask you to find Life on Words wherever you follow podcasts or hear all the episodes at lifeonwords.com.

I've also started a literary journal. The idea to write a magazine first visited when I was a child. It has appeared several times since, but I had never acted on it. Now I've launched Inkhorn Review, online quarterly and in print annually. Reading the submissions so far has been an honor and a humbling experience. My own writing will go elsewhere, and the podcast is somehow another shape of the same idea, but this scratches other itches. I'll explain that another day.

So that this retrospective doesn't turn into a catalog, I'll explain everything with a quote from Winston Churchill: "To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." I won't claim that I'm perfect, but since change has been a constant in my life, you'll know I must at least be better than I was.