The call of the mild

Before I opened my eyes this morning I could feel the presence of snow, that muffled silence suggesting that the world has been packed in soft cotton. It's just a light coating of white, but snow is a tremendous relief from the recent incessant cold rains.

And now a ray of sunshine beams into my inbox all the way from California. Some time ago--September?--a Los Angeles Times reporter called to interview me and some of my students about my California Literature class. The tone of his questions made me fear a headline like "Hicks from the Sticks Seek Gold in California," but the article has finally been published and I'm pleased to report that it's pretty good (read it here). I wish he had included more comments from my students, but the article puts my class in some pretty good company and also offers a pretty interesting reading list.

My reading list this week focuses on another sunny state. I leave for Florida two weeks from today but I've been living there in literature for quite some time, following William Bartram through the Alachua Savannah, Karen Russell through the Everglades, and Zora Neale Hurston through Eatonville. Do students in Florida and California take classes on Ohio Literature? Do they make pilgrimages to Clyde and Lorain and Columbus and Martin's Ferry during Spring Break? Do they even know why Clyde and Lorain and Columbus and Martin's Ferry are suitable destinations for literary pilgrimage? 

Probably not. I'll be sure to tell them while I'm there.