Dr. Linda’s Blog – Page 2

Why We Should Talk to Strangers

September 13, 2020

A Walk in the Park A research trip took me to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, Alabama. The park across the road was the site of some of the worst acts of civil rights violence. It is now an important site of memory. Its history is retold through sculptures and other art installations throughout. It was a July morning so I decided to stroll through the park before it got too hot. I had paused to study a sculpture depicting vicious, snarling dogs when I heard a voice behind me. “Nothing has changed you know.” I turned around to see

The Best Legacies: A Love of Reading and Invitations to Imagine

September 11, 2020

Learning to Read and Imagine My mother and my older sister, Sue, instilled in me a love for reading and an appreciation of the power and pleasure found in imagination. Mom read to me a lot from picture books such as The Pokey Little Puppy—a favorite because I loved dogs so much—and others such as Little Black, a Pony, and Big Red and Little Black. My sister, Sue, four years my senior, read to me regularly. My favorite books included The Little Green Frog, Little Women, and the Little House on the Prairie series. Like most children who have someone

Covid-19 and the Contagion of Caremongering

March 19, 2020

I figure infectious disease researchers and organizations like the WHO and the CDC are more in the know than the armchair quarterbacks staking a claim in one camp or another on social media. We are living in scary times. But something pretty neat is happening too. Perhaps you’ve noticed.

Why a “Bad” Choice Can Be the Best Decision

March 18, 2020

Life’s Templates My life has never fit standard templates. So, I have always trusted my gut when making decisions. Many of my worst choices, according to most standards, became my best decisions. That’s because they rarely adhered to rules or templates about what, when, and how one should do things. When we “should” all over one another, we build traps and cages for one another. We need to stop that because the best lives are spent exploring myriad roads. That’s how we discover our passions, our gifts, and our purposes. I dropped out of high school in the 11th grade.

Wine & Words 2019 Comes to an End

January 5, 2019

Today Sara, Shannin, and I head home from our Wine & Words Writing Treat in Branson, Missouri. We’ve had a lovely and productive time since we arrived on Wednesday. Each of us tackled a range of writing and work related projects ranging from a scholarly article on “Pretty Little Liars” to freshman composition syllabuses. We “pommed” religiously, more or less, in keeping with the practice we’ve established through our Facebook writing group called Write-ins for Academics. “Pomming” is the term we use to describe our way of keeping our butts in the chair when writing. It’s a tried and true method of

Wine & Words Writing Retreat 2019

January 2, 2019

Wine and Words Writing Retreat 2019 is underway in Branson, Missouri! My friends/colleagues, Sara and Shannin, and I–English professors all–are snugly tucked away in a log cabin in the Ozarks for the next couple of days to write. What could be more delicious? We arrived around 4:30 this afternoon. Each of us came from a different direction. After unloading food, luggage, books, and computers, we poured glasses of wine and spent a couple of hours catching up. Shannin and I are colleagues at the same university; Sara defected to another university a couple of years ago. Our loss, to