I did it—I signed a lease on an apartment in Evanston, IL! I am definitely stepping out on faith with this move, but so far things have been falling into place. I’m trying not to tear the place up, but I’ve started packing and purging—the hallway is full of bagged books, DVDs, clothes, shoes, housewares…this is why moving is worthwhile. You realize just what’s worth bringing along as you move forward in your life. I’m letting go of the couch and the dresser my grandfather gave me when I was a kid…I’m FINALLY letting go of the essays I read in graduate school. It’s clear to me that I won’t be teaching the courses I used to teach as a Black Studies professor, so all that material can go. I doubt I’ll ever be a professor again but if I do return to campus, I’ll build new syllabi with new books. That’s the goal right now—try new things. Yesterday I did my first Facebook live reading plus workshop. It’s a lot easier when I can share my screen, and that’s what I’ll do as I develop some writing tutorials for another nonprofit. I still have a few conference calls with film studios scheduled for next week and one last library Zoom presentation. Then I can focus on packing, moving, unpacking, and writing as summer starts to wind down. I’m looking forward to sitting by the lake…and doing research in Chicago for Book 3 in my dragon series. There’s a park I plan to visit with a Garden of the Phoenix—a Japanese garden—and then I found out this week that DRAGONS IN A BAG has been nominated for the Sakura Medal in Japan’s international schools!

My latest newsletter went out on Tuesday, but I gave folks the wrong date for my PBS reading of A PLACE INSIDE OF ME. If you missed our episode, you can find it on CampTV.org or you can watch just my read-aloud here. We still haven’t gotten any trade reviews of this timely book, which is perplexing, but the responses on social media have been heartening. I have faith that this book will find its way into the right hands.