I’ve been training for this question, I just didn’t expect it in a conversation about Halloween costumes for a toddler. #EarlyModern #AcademicSky

Pleased to see that my review of the new collection “Atrocity and Early Modern Drama” is now up on the English Studies website! It was a pleasure to engage with this volume over the summer, and it’s a collection I look forward to revisiting in my own scholarship. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Today I introduced some unsuspecting freshmen to Paradise Lost 😈

Pleased to see that my review of the new collection “Atrocity and Early Modern Drama” is now up on the English Studies website! It was a pleasure to engage with this volume over the summer, and it’s a collection I look forward to revisiting in my own scholarship. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I just repotted my new olive tree in a lovely pot, I’ve put out the autumn placemats, I’m listening to the Cubs win, and the sun is shining. Does tomorrow have to be Monday??

Today, September 9, 2025, I have finished all of the grading for my class and for my two staff training modules. This will never happen again, so I’m choosing to celebrate.

I don’t want to complete my workday expenses, I want to be free

Shared my availability with the tutors and writing fellows and then said “except this Friday, when I will be out all morning so I can take my cat to the vet.” The gasps they gusped. The horrified looks on their faces. She is getting her annual rabies vaccine, my dudes, chill.

The best part of today was when one of my writing fellows gleefully told me that he spent his summer learning how to disable every possible instance of copilot on his new laptop

The bird feeder has arrived.

I have spent the last 12 weeks telling people to enroll in the conference and yet I waited til the final 3 weeks of eligibility to do so myself: an autobiography

I was actually working on my syllabus, but now I’m researching bird feeders for Snug. #Caturday

One of the hilarious things about having a good relationship with my parents as a grown adult is that they hate all of my work nemeses

The French nun at the farmers market this morning looked me straight in the eye and said “baguette?” and, you know what, she was right

When you get mad that the new tutor training modules aren’t updated, this is literally who you’re mad at

The Theatrical Legacy of Thomas Middleton will soon be available for pre-order in PAPERBACK! Sign up for pre-order notifications on the Routledge website.

I don’t know why we think there isn’t a song of the summer when Hostile Government Takeover is right there

*kicking and screaming* Am Writing.

Offered to bake a treat for the campus maintenance team after they handled a particularly gnarly office move for me, then heard them whispering to each other later that they couldn’t wait to “put BUTTER!! On our BANANA BREAD!!!” Bless these wonderful, sweet men.

Convinced the campus library to just give me Kim F Hall’s Things of Darkness, since they’ve been told to audit more of the physical collection anyway. I hate the loss of books for the students butttttt I’m taking this as a personal win

I have so much work to do that will never get done because of email

Great people posted lots of gift links in the comments. READ IT! And thank you!

I’m actually usually pretty chill as long as I don’t think about anything that’s going on at all

E.g. Recently the CEO of Blackrock said he didn’t want finance or comp sci majors. He wanted history majors and English majors. Goldman Sachs agreed. / 3 fortune.com/2024/05/17/b...

Almost like he’s a Russian operative

Postdoctoral Research Associate in Early Modern History (University of Exeter) #postdoc #earlymodern #history @exeter.ac.uk memorients.com/news/postdoc...

USDA wants states to hand over food stamp data, to “validate the accuracy of eligibility, determination and strengthen SNAP and government program integrity” If that sounds like bs to you, let them know in the link below. So far there are less than 50 comments. And the window closes on the 23rd.

Imagine defunding PBS and thinking you’re the good guy in this situation.

Did I hit some invisible milestone or did Land’s End’s stuff get cute

The internet went down just as I got to campus this morning and if that isn’t A Sign, I don’t know what is.

Time to bid a fond farewell to #RenSoc25! I had a lovely time meeting new people, reconnecting with old friends, hearing some brilliant papers, and sharing cat photos. #SnugsMum Until next time!

Note to self while in #RenSoc25 panel 8.6: do not get into enclosed vehicles with Anna Trapnel unless you want to become a captive audience to prophecy.

At peace with the fact that my cat is more popular than I am on the conference circuit. I am just the messenger, sharing photos of her majesty.

non-affiliated friends and colleagues this is good news!

Feeling buoyed by our conversation on community, support, and burning out and buying in. Our takeaway for #RenSoc25 is to SHOW UP! That network you joined? Go to the event. Talk to the phd student. Ask what you can do to help. Lend a hand. Share the load of leadership. This is important work.

Just finishing panel 4.11 and feeling both intellectually energized and super proud. I have such smart friends! It’s such a joy to hear their work! YAY! #RenSoc25

Several people have greeted me at #RenSoc25 by asking about Snug. Guys, she’s doing so good. Look at this floof of a cat.

Pleased to have fit a summer conference into the schedule! Catch me talking with some ECR friends about community and collaboration at #RenSoc25 - roundtable 7.5.

Adding a pet page to the summer staff newsletter to improve morale and support students’ mental health

The problem with having an administrative rather than “purely academic” job is that when I have an idea, my first reaction has become “surely someone else has thought of this very basic thing and I’m just missing their work because of paywalls.”

I took a friend to get her first library card today and then we browsed in the stacks for a while and it was so wholesome and needed.

I’m still at the ambitious part of the summer where I think I can revamp all of my writing assignments for the fall. Has anyone done a commonplace book assignment for a class that IS NOT explicitly on #EarlyModern texts? I want to ask you questions! #AcademicSky

This is a startling realization, and really reinforces just how much of an administration-stoked issue this is. Per ABC, there are more troops in LA than Iraq or Syria.

In a major win for Auntie Anna, my friend’s baby has a favorite book and it is the baby book about Shakespeare.

One thing about me is that I will come to a meeting having done some research, especially when that meeting is about a new platform I’m going to have to adopt.

Filled my butter bell this week for the first time since moving and it has, once again, changed me

Not allowed to look at CFPs until I finish the actual writing I’ve already committed to

I am not exaggerating when I say that having a freezer that can handle a Costco run is one of the best things about my new apartment

Kind of thrilling to get the email that someone wants to read my thesis (!!). (Also very interesting to see what hoops the library makes people jump through to read an embargoed thesis, first time seeing it from this end.)