I created my first blog in 2006. At the time, I was a graduate student on an adventure. My boyfriend and I, both History grad students at the University of Wisconsin, moved to Selma, Alabama, for one semester. For the next few months, I interned at the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute and ate an impossible amount of pulled pork. I also started a blog, Lone Star in Selma.
A decade later, I’m not sure that I agree with some of the things I wrote on that blog. I’ve never taken those posts down, though, because they remind me of a transformative time in my life. Not only did I experience the beauty and drama of Selma, I also developed as a writer. My writing experience was limited to seminar papers until that point, but the blog forced me to write regularly for an audience (that, to be honest, mostly consisted of my friends and family). By the time I returned to Madison that summer to start my dissertation, I felt like a writer.
I start this new blog at a different point in life. The boyfriend who helped me drive to Alabama is now my husband, and we’re both professors at the University of Arizona. The dissertation I started writing in the summer of 2006 became my first book. With Houston Bound in print, I’m faced with the daunting task of starting a new project. This blog, I hope, will help me down that journey.
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