How did I get here?

As regular readers of my blog will know, I have just submitted a book to a publisher.  This was based upon my doctoral thesis, but with extremely significant revisions, and I hope it will be much better for them.  The subject is Anglo-Saxon ‘private prayer’, encompassing various kinds of prayer outside of a strictly communal…

On editing a book

As I have mentioned with increasing frequency in recent posts, I am about to submit a heavily altered version of my thesis for publication with Medieval Institute Publications of Western Michigan University, and right now I am hard at work doing the final edits before I send it off.  My friend Laura Varnam has recently…

‘This land is so hard it maketh unlusty and irked!’ Mankind and motivation

Hello.  This is a post about the late medieval play called Mankind.  I appeared in HIDden Theatre‘s productions of it in November 2015 and April 2016 and had absolutely every intention of writing blogposts about the play at both those times.  Honest.  I just never quite got around to it. Today, the sixth of September,…

Thinking of Syria in Anglo-Saxon England

It was the summer of my first year as a PhD student.  I had just finished work on a chapter of my thesis, and was looking to move into another area of study; but I couldn’t really think where to go next, except that I wanted to look back to an earlier period of time and…