Bibs and Bobs

This summer I was on a Donald Hall reading jag. It was great. It’s really the first time that I truly appreciated Hall’s work as a writer. The book that was most profound for me was Life Work, which I just absorbed and frankly cherish. Hall talks about his writing practice in that book and reflects that on average he publishes one thing a week. Being the sort of obsessive goal oriented person that I am, I decided up on reading Hall’s benchmark that I would make it my own. I’m pleased to report in the last six months of 2006, after I had embraced this goal, I published 29 “things”: poems, reviews, columns, and essays. So I exceeded that goal. In total for 2006, I published 47 “things” which means I was only shy five times for the year. I love that. This is not to say, of course, that my writing is at the level of Donald Hall’s in terms of quality, but I’m plugging away at it and am recommitting myself to the same goal for 2007. Fifty-two “things” published for the year. Some of the pipeline is already in place.

Speaking of the pipeline, I keep track of everything that I publish over on my personal webpage at www.JulieREnszer.com. I just redeigned it to make navigating it easier. Check out the new buttons, new page, and let me know what you think.