Thesis deadline in three months from today - feeling excited but also kinda mortified???

Edgar seems (almost) as pleased as me to see this thesis in print for the first time! Still some way to go but big milestone ✨🥂

”Active, informed, iron-willed wonder is a skill, not a gift: you have to work at it. And you cannot remain in awe of that which is familiar, so the only way to maintain wonder is to learn: learn, and keep learning.”

Beyond excited for this! I’ll be sharing some of my findings on the emergence and historical development of children’s urban fantasy ✨

Had the sweetest interaction on Instagram today - took a chance and asked an author for a ‘research copy’ of a text since the book is really hard to get hold of in Sweden, and he offered to send me the whole series! 🥹 and he seemed super excited about my dissertation in general 🫶🏻

A “hoax.”

I have experienced a curious mix of feelings while having a significant portion of my life’s work in books and the art of my friends distorted and vandalized by post-literate fascists for the last few years. The feelings right now are uniquely awful.

www.ed.gov/about/news/p...

How many times is it acceptable to write ‘outwith’ in a doctoral dissertation? 😅 It’s mostly a little nod to my time living in Scotland, but, also, ‘within and outwith’ just sound so satisfying together??

As promised, my essay on Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn.

It's a long one and was great fun to write, not to mention thoroughly energizing. And it's got me really excited to take a closer look at the rest of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series.

Huge shout out to @timothysmiller.bsky.social.

I put A Series of Unfortunate Events on the reading list for the first time this semester and I must say it was a banger to teach. Worked super well as a lens through which to look at trends and changes in the publishing industry around the millennium. And the students all seemed very engaged ✨

I’m surprised at the level of resistance I felt towards going back to work today - even though I’m really pumped about writing on my introduction and prepping the last few children’s lit classes of the semester, all I seem to want to do is procrastinate??😴

(re-)reading this gem over the holidays as I’m about to revisit my chapter on layered urban histories after new years — also a way to access a much-missed Scotland ✨

Since Looking for Alaska has become the second-most banned book in America, let's talk about THAT scene.
youtu.be/nuyaO-rFGjk

Today’s home office set up! Edgar making sure this thesis will actually be written #PhDlife