When I retired a few years ago, Wendy Bishop
urged me to write a mystery novel. I’m not a mystery fan but I thought
it would be an interesting retirement project, although I had planned
to write a novel based on my grandmother’s 1892 diary. After reading
hundreds of mysteries and guidebooks, I finished Shakespeare's
Secrets,
which I filed away as a successful attempt to write a mystery, but I
wasn’t interested in pursuing that genre further. I’m now writing a
female Bildungsroman, the genre of my previous scholarship, set in
Venice, the city Hans and I love and visit every year. After I finish
it, I’m determined to return to my original plan of writing about my
grandmother.
I am now
living in Vermont most of the year, although returning to Florida for
some weeks in the Spring (mud season up north). I have a regular gig
teaching American Studies at Smith College during the fall semesters
and am continuing to write a book on cultural transmission, Secret
Histories. My article, "Whittling on Dynamite: The Difference
Bert Williams Makes," recently appeared in Listen Again: A
Momentary History of Pop Music (ed. Eric Weisbard, Durham:
Duke University Press, 2007, pp. 7-25).
A year ago, when I
retired, I resolved to give myself a year to breathe and watch the
light change. Though that may sound a little torpid, the practice of
that resolution included travel to Alaska and Hawaii, working out at
the Y with a personal trainer, building a web site, and seeing a new
novel, Assisted Living, through publication with
Spinsters Ink. I still have a few graduate students finishing up their
degrees. For them I hold sporadic office hours at the Black Dog Café. I
recently began writing my seventh novel, Anna Howe.
You can find me at sheilaortiztaylor.com
Dr. Bruce Bickley, Griffith T. Pugh Professor of English, Emeritus, officially retired in 2004 but continues to teach on a part-time basis. He teaches a course in line editing fall, spring, and summer for English's Graduate Certificate in Publishing and Editing. He also teaches literature and writing courses for undergraduate majors when the department needs a little extra help. Additionally, he regularly teaches six-week literature courses for The Academy, a program for senior citizens (and avid readers!) sponsored by the FSU Pepper Center.
Karen will work for Academic and Professional Program Services until her full retirement in three years. In the meantime, she and Bruce are enjoying following their four children's careers and are taking time for travel and home renovation projects.
Bruce can be reached at bbickley@fsu.edu
I tend to be a solitary person, so it's fine for me to be more so now. I finally feel myself to be a guest more than a host [in my life]…and it's much more pleasant than I expected. After thirty-five years of teaching, I was surprised to find I don't miss it. I'm enjoying the solitude and the extra time more than I thought I would. The first thing I do when I wake up is run. I go to the gym. I play golf. I eat what I want, watch CNN-I have no trouble filling the time on any given day! I enjoy the routine, although I've taken a trip already-to Rio de Janeiro with my son, which was interesting. It wasn't as glamorous as I'd imagined.
Retirement
is not any less arduous than teaching, but it is more focused. It's
been good to find out that I was not lying all those years: when I'm
not teaching, I do write more. My eighth novel, Devil's Play,
will be out from Harcourt fall of 2008. My play Parts of
Speech has been in development in Orlando, first with the
Women Playwright's Initiative, and since then with the troupe that read
it for them. I have completed a memoir of my son Tim, and it is out in
the world looking for a home. Next project, in my mind and for one
reason and another on hold for ten years now, is a musical adaptation
of Barry Unsworth's novel Morality Play. Peter and
I are in the process of moving (bit by bit) to a home in the Wisconsin
woods. At least, we'll try it. The poor housing market may have a
silver lining for us: we're not selling our house in Tallahassee yet.
Who knows if we'll be back?