Verna Kale
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vernakale.bsky.social
Verna Kale
@vernakale.bsky.social
Associate Editor, the Hemingway Letters Project (Cambridge); editor, The Sun Also Rises (Norton Library); author, Ernest Hemingway (Reaktion). UNC ‘99; Fulbright, Germany ‘00-01; Penn State ‘05, ‘10. Llama. J!.
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It was fun as always to sit down with podcast host Mark Cirino to talk about Hemingway. This episode of the @nortonlibrary.bsky.social podcast is a spoiler-free intro to the novel that you can share with your students. tinyurl.com/4td8k6fw
Don't Try This At Home: Hemingway's First Major Novel (The Sun Also Rises, Part 1) - The Norton Library Podcast
In Part 1 of our discussion on Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, we welcome editor Verna Kale to discuss a young Hemingway's life experience leading up to writing the novel, his captivation with ...
tinyurl.com
10 months ago I braved the cold to eat some bagels at the grand opening of a new campus building that went kablooey yesterday--gossip consensus is steam in a pipe exploded. The building cracked & shifted & thankfully no one was hurt, but the $125 mil building is unusable for the foreseeable future.
The only thing standing between me and free bagels right now is a 5 minute walk in 17 degree weather. hm.
November 13, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Mostly cloudy in Centre County but I got a small peek of the aurora through the clouds. #aurora #northernlights
November 12, 2025 at 2:40 AM
Get to know your Mutuals, list 10 random things you like:

When bees sleep on my flowers
The quiet when it’s snowing
Cherry pie
Poodles
Catching a fish
Steve Martin
Small town festivals
Bass clarinet solos
David Mitchell’s character Marinus
Yard sales
November 12, 2025 at 2:35 AM
First snow of the season. Button bush has pretty spring flowers, but I like it best for its long-lasting fall foliage. #pollinators #bloomscrolling #snowday #nativeplants #pennsylvania
November 11, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Facebot just rolled out a new AI feature in the group I admin that I promptly switched off. This one is a "Quiz" bot posting the world's easiest trivia. The thing is, this happened in the LearnedLeague group. GTFO. Thanks to the member who reported the post. Have now turned that feature off too.
November 8, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Among the other good news, in my local school board race the woman who homeschooled her own kids and who supports private armed guards in schools and the dude who has no idea how public schools work except that he kind of recently attended one both got trounced by qualified candidates.
November 5, 2025 at 4:02 AM
Reposted by Verna Kale
If I was a Republican member of Congress watching the results tonight, I’d ask myself if I really wanted my legacy to be: Guy who helped an aging pedophile suspend the constitution so he could enrich himself and his friends.
November 5, 2025 at 1:47 AM
W/o any spoilers, can someone tell me if Orbital gets around to having a plot? So far we've circled the earth 3x, someone did a workout & we've named various countries the sun has shone on or not shone on. If there is a plot I will keep reading but if this is it I'll use my own orbits differently.
November 5, 2025 at 1:51 AM
OK which one of y’all was it?
I’m watching a very old Jeopardy episode with a contestant who, when she was in high school, mailed her fingernails to a lady in California who would use them as false nails for celebrities. And like… I don’t think that lady was real?
November 2, 2025 at 3:34 AM
Pretty sure this cartoon imprinted on me as a child and that’s why I became a modernist.
October 31, 2025 at 7:33 PM
It’s like when my h.s. basketball team went all the way to state and fought a good fight against Ray Allen. Still the hardest I’ve ever taken a sports loss.
Hello and welcome back to baseball, the sport where 9 men on one team must attempt to defeat Shohei Ohtani.
October 29, 2025 at 1:48 AM
One very strong but low-stakes opinion of mine is that Halloween costumes should work WITHOUT a carried prop. You need arms free for eating, drinking, carrying a tired kid, holding a dog leash, etc. At a party, parade, etc you’re going to put down your prop, so your costume still needs to work.
October 27, 2025 at 1:27 PM
It's giving Robert Frost. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood... but nothing gold can stay 😅. (And yes, Zelda is too fat for her blaze orange vest, so she wears it as a collar).
October 26, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Sure, replace the curriculum with AI. (fwiw, I was trying to find any extant correspondence between EH and Cushing on the auction market).
October 17, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Anyone else have a big dog but also an even bigger dog so you think about your big dog as a little dog?
October 15, 2025 at 12:09 PM
I was standing in this bucolic setting in line for a hayride amidst these colorful gourds when a murmur suddenly went through the (not pictured but very present) crowd. Franklin out. The chatter on the hayride was about how he’ll now get $48 million to do f—k all. #pennstate
October 12, 2025 at 9:44 PM
I made a Ralph Ingersoll and Martha Gellhorn appreciation meme.
October 9, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Meanwhile, MLB: whY d0N't KiDs WatCH baSebALL anYmOre?
Screw you, MLB, for licensing your games on a case by case basis and not including them in your own streaming package. I had to buy 5 different services to catch all of the playoff games.

But switching the Mariners game to a channel that I don’t have midway through the fourth inning? Unreal.
October 8, 2025 at 12:20 AM
It’s a girl! See alt text for how to tell. #butterfly #pollinator
October 5, 2025 at 3:44 PM
45 min later! Happy birthday!
October 5, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Sunrise at Black Moshannon. Caught 0 fish. #pennsylvania #fishing #nativeplants
October 5, 2025 at 2:52 PM
An hour or som maybe? #pollinator #butterfly
October 5, 2025 at 2:50 PM
I figure it will eclose tomorrow morning. Nice of this butterfly to schedule it for the weekend so we can watch! #pollinator #monarch
October 4, 2025 at 1:07 PM
There’s a guy from my town who many believe was wrongfully convicted. He just got released from prison today after 40+ years and within hours was taken into ICE custody. www.statecollege.com/articles/loc...
Subu Vedam Taken Into Custody by ICE Upon Release From Prison Following Dismissal of Murder Charge
The State College man who won his freedom after being incarcerated for more than 40 years on a now-overturned murder conviction was taken into custody by
www.statecollege.com
October 3, 2025 at 11:49 PM
Pippin sings for the ice cream truck. #goldenretriever #dogsofbluesky
October 1, 2025 at 10:17 PM