This Fall’s Literary Lineup

It doesn’t seem even remotely possible that I’m thinking about and preparing for the fall semester.  It feels like just a few weeks ago I was writing about the gleaming blank whiteboard of January.  It has indeed been an incredibly full and productive year so far, with my unexpected and thrilling passing of the MA comprehensive English exam in February, the posting of my interview with MFA graduate and author Ruben Guzman on the Chapman University website in April, my reading at the John Fowles Literary Forum later that month, and solid progress on my thesis novel Time of Death and its surprising recognition at the Orange County Christian Writers Conference last spring. 

In late August, I will be a guest blogger on the American Christian Fiction Writers website, and I’m hoping to be selected to read an excerpt of my original fiction at the Big Orange Book Festival in September.  Of course, by then, my life will have become a dizzying whirlwind of overlapping academic, athletic, and professional activities. 

With company budgets to prepare, marathons to run, convention deadlines to meet, and back-to-school demands to fulfill, fall has always been the most exhilarating and hectic time of year for me.  Despite thoughtful advance planning, the stockpiling of household staples, and other preparations all designed to ensure a smooth transition into a state of happy and organized chaos, the pace of my favorite season never fails to instill trepidation – usually once I have a chance to review the syllabi for my courses vis-à-vis my other life activities and notice the inevitable myriad of converging deadlines and events.  Nonetheless, I welcome each autumn with a new pair of Asics, a fully loaded Starbucks card, a stash of toner cartridges and reams of bright white paper, and an admittedly odd anticipation of many late nights in the campus library. 

This semester’s reading list contains at least eighteen major works of Gothic fiction and American literature from 1870 to 1950 to read, analyze, and write about in the mere fifteen weeks that comprise the upcoming term.  (Check out “This Fall’s Literary Lineup” in the Archetype sidebar at the bottom right for the full list to date.  I’ll be posting excerpts from and insights about these texts in the coming months and look forward to your comments.)  Fortunately, some of these books were moved to my bedside table weeks ago; I couldn’t resist revisiting dark and chilling favorites, Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (ah, memories of Dr. O’Brien’s fascinating class on second selves and the literary doppelganger my first semester in the program), as well as getting a head start on Radcliffe’s voluminous The Mysteries of Udolpho this summer.  But with only three weeks remaining before classes resume, it’s not likely I’ll get to the works of Gertrude Stein, Henry James, Charlotte or Emily Bronte, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, or the others.  In fact, with so little time left, I think it may be best to rest my eyes, break in the new running shoes, and get ready for an all-out sprint…

 

“Take Your Choice” by John Frederick Peto, 1885