I know what you're saying: "But Jess, you're a grad student; you read and write all the time. What's weird about that?"
Yes, I do these things (almost) every day. And yet, even with years of practice, I have yet to unlock the mysteries of written language. It is still unclear to me why some marks made on paper will come to life in our minds while others will not. But I am working on it, and I have been arguing with Jean-Paul Sartre a lot about it this week. But that is a story for another time.
Right now, I am pleased to announce that my first academic publication is expected to be released this June. Professor Rosemary Peters of Louisiana State University invited me to write a chapter for the volume Criminal Papers: Reading Crime in the French Nineteenth Century, and she had the foresight to include my piece in a section of the book titled "Reading Weird." Some things are just meant to be. Or, sometimes our weird reputations precede us. Or, sometimes, although we practice reading and writing every day (almost), we nonetheless continue to read in unconventional ways.
So three cheers for reading and writing weirdly. And three more cheers for the excellent Rosemary, who made this book possible. And yet three more cheers for all the contributors to the book, with whom I am delighted to share paper, ink, and hardback bindings. May we all read and write on...
