If you know me or are even an occasional reader of this blog, you’ll know that I talk a lot about my mother, Gloria Hardman. That’s because, to borrow the title of Jason Reynolds’ excellent podcast, my mother made me. (Also, do check out his podcast.) Beyond being my mother, Gloria is an important person
I’m delighted to announce the publication of “Who Is Welcome?: Images of Multiculturalism in German Picturebooks Since 1989,” an essay I wrote with my friend Dr. Ada Bieber (of Humboldt Universität, Berlin). It appears in the latest issue of The Lion and the Unicorn (Vol. 46, No. 1) — and don’t let that January 2022 date
This song — written in 1979 — imagines war in the US. Though war is not happening in the US (at the time of this writing, anyway), war is always happening somewhere. After Russia attacked Ukraine this week, Talking Heads’ “Life During Wartime” — with its images of urban warfare, urgent insurgency, limited food — has been
Hello! I now have a new website. I’ve had a website for 25 years. And, though I did update it, I didn’t do much with the design, which remained very web 1.0. The old website looked fine for, say, 2005. So, with thanks to Megan Montague Cash and the design firm of New Boston Creative
I found myself playing “Thank You for Being a Friend” on the guitar, discovered it was quite easy to play, and decided that yes – the theme from The Golden Girls is an apt song for our Corona Era. And so: Though written by (and even a pop hit for) Andrew Gold in 1978, the abridged
Since They Might Be Giants Are my favorite band and have several songs suitable for the Corona Era, you’d think I would have performed one of their tunes for this series before now. But I haven’t. Here’s my “Happy New Year 2022” plague song – “By the Time You Get This,” from the band’s I Like
In the Before Times, I often travelled internationally. But I have not left the United States in over two years. Until last week. For the December holidays, my sister invited me to visit her, my brother-in-law, and niece in Switzerland – where they live. Since I no longer take international travel for granted, I decided to
Here are all of the Children’s Literature and Comics/Graphic Novels sessions at the 2022 MLA, held this year in person in Washington, DC! Some of the conference will also be held on-line at [insert your location here]! I plan to be there in person, which will be my very first in-person conference or invited talk
Welcome to your second pandemic Christmas (or Solstice or Hanukkah or whatever you celebrate)! Since you and I and the plague are still here, I’m doing a holiday installment of my ongoing PlagueSongs series AND sharing seven – that’s right, SEVEN! – playlists of mostly secular seasonal music. Enjoy! Let’s start with the song, written by
Because my mother is dying, I think a lot about grief. Indeed, because we’ve been in a pandemic for most of the past two years, you too might be drawn into grief with greater frequency than you typically are. In the past year, I’ve listened to countless podcasts and done a bit of grief-themed reading.
