Jamieson Ridenhour

Yesterday I was on Prairie Public Radio’s Hear It Now program, talking about Charles Dickens. I answered some questions about Dickens’ life and read from A Christmas Carol and Our Mutual Friend. The occasion was promoting the Christmas Carol reading I’ll be doing at the public library on Dec. 16th. The interview went very well, despite my lingering cough, and despite my interviewer being in Fargo while I was in Bismarck. The show is available here. It’s the show for November 28th. You can listen to it in streaming audio directly from the site, or download it and listen at your leisure.

Today I gave a lecture at UMary on Victorian London and the Urban Gothic as part of the Faculty Excellence series. It was pretty well attended and I got some positive feedback afterwards from various faculty and students. I focused on chapter three of my book, and tried not to think about the fact that my publisher and I have reached an impasse on expansions.

Gwyn’s new endeavor continues to move forward. She today officially got financial sponsorship from the Community Foundation, and her board of directors looks nearly set. She’s putting the finishing touches on the first solicitation packet before beginning to actively fundraise. The Arlis Saxon Eco-Kids Project is up and running. Hoo-ray.

…was lovely. Margee and Deaver drove up from Spearfish on Wednesday night and stayed through Saturday afternoon. Food was consumed, drink was quaffed, games were played, movies were watched, walks were…walked, I guess. Everybody had much warm friendly fun. I was suffering from a hacking cough that punctuated any attempts at speech with a brutal barking, but hopefully that only bothered me. Here we are about to tuck in:

Gwyn took the picture, but you can see her about-to-be-leapt-upon plate in the foreground.

We were thankful, as we should be at this time of year. This semester has been really good for us. Ian’s school has become a good thing, after two years of not so much, I’m about to take a new (or expanded) position at UMary and am happy about that, and we’ve strengthened several acquaintances into real friendships.

Best of all, the small grant project that Gwyn and I started at Prairie Rose School this year has snowballed (through Gwyn’s guidance and vision) and looks likely to become a full-fledged non-profit foundation. Gwyn has put together a nascent board, secured non-profit status (which in ND is different than the also-necessary 501[c][3]), and gotten the Community Foundation to act as preliminary financial sponsor. She’s starting on the fundraising soon, and it looks like she may be able to quit the library and run the Arlis Saxon Eco-Kids Project as primary employment. This is all exciting stuff, and I’ll have more details once it solidifies. There will almost certainly be a web site that I can send you to as well.

Good stuff. I’m gearing up for my reading/performance of A Christmas Carol on December 16th, starting with a radio interview for publicity tomorrow at 3pm. It looks like the Tribune will also be running a story. I’m quite nervous, actually, something I haven’t been in a while as far as public speaking goes. This reading will be unlike anything I’ve done for an audience before. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I hope things are going well for you, who-and-where-ever you are.