10/20 More writing news and other stuff

Another article has been accepted for publication. The executive editor contacted me today for clarification on a few references, but other than that it's cool. This one won't be published until February, but it's nice to know it's accepted for sure. It's called Crime Is Easy; Shakespeare Is Hard and will appear in Issue 15 Vol I of Reclaiming Children and Youth. The article is about Agnes Wilcox, who heads Prison Performing Arts, and who I worked with in producing Hamlet at a men's maximum security prison in Missouri. It was hard work, but especially rewarding. (Besides helping out a bit with production, I got to appear as Gertrude--a real treat for me.)

I'm proud of this piece. It's not scholarly writing, but it's heartfelt and one of the references I used was my personal journal. Of course, this is pre-blog.

And today I wrote to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) asking for more information. I still plan to join them in a few years, closer to retirement, and want to know which other language I should study. They ask for Spanish, French or Russian especially, although they like any language in addition to English. I guess that even though the organization originated in France, that English is the common language among the volunteers. I wouldn't mind trying to learn French or Spanish, because I took four years of Latin in high school and any Romance Language would be easier for me.

Robbie speaks English, Thai, and Chinese--and a smattering of Japanese. Beatka speaks Polish, Danish, English, Russian, a smattering of Japanese and many other languages. She doesn't claim the others because she isn't fluent. Both she and Rob are so brilliant with languages--I'd love to still have that facility. Age makes it a little more difficult. But I'm still good with languages. We'll see. (Why is it I end so many of my blog entries with that phrase?)