the annual year-end post

And then I wrote: Not a lot, really. One major article published, "The Year's Work in Tolkien Studies 2009," co-authored with Merlin DeTardo, in the journal Tolkien Studies. This will be the last in a series of eight (one covering two years) for me, as I've been promoted to co-editor of the journal, but while that's already meant a lot of work, none of it is yet visible. One review, one article, and one short contribution in Mythprint, though I have three other reviews in press there. I also have a short piece in press in a festschrift honoring Tom Shippey, which is actually reprinted from a Tolkien fanzine appearance four years ago, but I don't know when the book is coming out, and the publisher has not announced it on its website.

On the other hand, I've had 27 pieces published on San Francisco Classical Voice, more than two per month: one major article (a report on the Stanford "Reactions to the Record" symposium), a concerts preview survey, 12 orchestra reviews, 9 chamber music and solo recital reviews, and 4 CD reviews. So that's been keeping me busy. The furthest I got from home this year was the California Symphony in Walnut Creek. Speaking of travel ...

And then I went: Not very far. Just two plane trips, both brief and to the point, and three overnight car expeditions, one of them just to Berkeley for Mythcon, because commuting would have been impractical. Total list of cities stayed in away from home:

Seattle, WA
Sacramento, CA
Greensburg, PA
Berkeley, CA
Pismo Beach, CA
Glendora, CA

The trip to PA was possibly the only one I've ever taken (since I could read, anyway) without the personal company of a single map, as I was entirely in other people's hands and I'd been basically everywhere I was going before. The trip to Southern California involved driving on back roads and to obscure places I'd never been in a lifetime of regularly driving there, and consequently employed many maps. The overnight in Sacramento was for my most personally unusual and unprecedented activity of the year, viewing the annular eclipse in Redding. The remaining two trips were for Potlatch and Mythcon, further than which my SFnal convention attendance is unlikely to extend in the future, either.