Saying Farewell to 2023

As another year comes to a close, it’s important to take at least a moment to reflect.

The first week of 2023 included the Modern Language Association (MLA) convention in San Franciso. One of the highlights was a roundtable with 6 brilliant scholars discussing my book From Slave Cabins to the White House. During that same conference, another roundtable gave me the opportunity to speak about my editorial work with both Iola Leroy  and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. My edition of the latter was scheduled for June 2023 release, and a few months earlier, I placed an essay in The Washington Post to highlight the fact that Harriet Jacobs became an ancestor in March 1897. That piece was just one of several ways that 2023 was a year in which I continued my commitment to public-facing work amidst the many other responsibilities I have as a scholar.

For quite some time now, I have guest co-hosted The Karen Hunter Show approximately once per month. Karen Hunter interviewed me about From Slave Cabins to the White House in July 2022, and I have appeared consistently since then. As a result, The Karen Hunter Show became a stabilizing force in 2023 while so many parts of my life were in flux. I moved from Ohio to Massachusetts in June, so every month before (and since) has been full of disruption. Everything that felt consistent was a gift, and her show has been in that category. I have gotten to talk about all kinds of thing with Karen and her non-stop stream of fascinating guests, so it meant a lot that she made time to speak with me about Harriet Jacobs and my work on Incidents. Likewise, writing about my trip to Edenton, North Carolina (Harriet Jacobs’s birthplace) for the Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) was an unforgettable part of 2023. And yet, the editors weren’t finished! Editor-in-Chief Michelle Chihara and her team also featured my work through the LARB Book Club and the LARB Radio Hour.

I have always prioritized public-facing work, and 2023 brought formal recognition of that fact from the Women’s Media Center (WMC), which was founded in 2005 by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and Gloria Steinem. I received a Progressive Women’s Voices IMPACT Award on October 19th. This category of award acknowledges people who were trained, at some point in their careers, by the WMC. (I applied and was admitted for the organization’s training in 2012.) The notification of this award came at the height of my feeling unmoored by the cross-country move. It was a dose of incredibly well-timed good energy, and the ceremony in New York City was absolutely unforgettable. I can’t try to type the reasons why, but I’m certainly willing to tell you about in person! (Also, a few pictures below will give a sense.)

My cross-country move was for my partner’s job, not mine, so the professional opportunities it brought for me were unexpected. I took a leave of absence from Ohio State University, where I’ve been a professor of English for 18 years, and accepted the responsibilities of a visiting professor of English at Boston University. I’m pleased with how the Fall semester went as an introduction to BU undergraduates, and I look forward to teaching BU graduate students in the Spring.

Overall, 2023 showed me how much I like stability. LOL! However, it also allowed me to make myself proud of how I navigated so much change. As I face 2024, I’m counting blessings and feeling ready!

 

Just a few memories…