In October 2019, thanks to funding from Access Copyright and the Canada Council for the Arts, I will be setting off on the research trip of my dreams, inspired by two influential women writers, as I finish work on a book I have been contemplating for going on twenty years. The women in question are Germaine de Staël and Maria Maddalena Morelli. My research will not be academic, although I do hope to uncover facts. Rather, it is going to be a creative trip. I will be walking in their footsteps, visiting their homes, engaging as profoundly as I can with their work, and speaking to the experts who have been studying them for years. What sort of book might emerge from this? Oh, I have an outline. . .but I hope I will discover surprising, unexpected things that will change that outline at least a little. In fact, I'm counting on it. Countdown is on. . .I fly to Paris in 25 days.
I'll be posting to this blog as I go. But I will also be posting about other things in the meantime. . .there are SO many, many things!
(p.s. I will be offsetting my carbon, but I haven't yet decided how best to do so.)