Last month, I submitted my book manuscript, a biography of H. P. Lovecraft and his New York City period, to my publisher, capping nearly two years of imaginative immersion and intensive writing. Now, I’m waiting for the peer reviewers’ critiques, a nerve-racking experience familiar to anyone who has worked with an academic journal or press. All that considered, I’m ready to return to my desk. I love reading and writing in the autumn.
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With the emergence of a worrisome new COVID-19 variant, nightmarish climate forecasts, and the full embrace of unscientific and undemocratic thinking by a substantive percentage of the American voting public, this Christmas season feels more emotionally challenging than last year. “Normal” life resembles a distant memory more than an object just in sight.
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Quiet solitude is the natural environment for most writers. However, the grinding isolation and stress of the ongoing pandemic tests everyone’s psychological mettle. Then came the Capitol insurrection last month. The future remains, at best, unsettled. Most days, frightening.
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Last weekend, I traveled to the Hudson River Valley to begin production on a short film documentary. The view of the Hudson River from the train never fails to thrill and inspire me. This waterway and region holds such a mythic space in American arts and letters. In a small way, this film project initiated me into this rich heritage.
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The seemingly never-ending COVID-19 pandemic has shredded municipal budgets and tax bases. A regular cycle of news stories darkly speculate as to the health of the American city. Essential services–mass transit, public parks, schools–seem imperiled. The current presidential administration and its conservative allies delight at the situation. At best, the future of our cites seem uncertain. At worst, grim. Continue reading
Another Town on the Hudson 