This is very late, but I just vanity Googled myself (for shame!) and found your sweet comment about my forthcoming book, The Heroine’s Bookshelf, on Haven Kimmel’s blog. I just wanted to say thank you, and that I’ll be following your blog adventures myself as someone who has recurring dreams about Smith College!

Best,

Erin Blakemore

It touched me on many levels . . .

You are remarkably gifted writer; how lucky your students are that you share your vast talents with them. And your husband and kids are lucky too…if there’s any justice in the world, someday the readers of your book(s) will be able to share that fortune as well…I’ll be one of them!

I am amazed how many people have this same dream, whether it is about high school or college. I think it is because college somehow embodies that ideal dream we had about who we are and whom we wanted to become. In moments when we are questioning our fidelity to that vision, we must go back subconsciously and finish what we started.

Emma just knocks me out. Speaking from experience, keep her away from those dairy farmers in Minnesota! On the other hand, I am pretty sure cows are fluent in Latin, which I am convinced is the language of heaven and all things holy.

Education is so important. You have expressed that so well here. And you know that Emma will major in Latin or Classical Studies. But, as Liz said, she will be able to read, write, analyze, think, create. She will live a full life. This gives me great joy to know.

My parents, and later my husband, were always supportive of the idea that education is never frivolous or a waste — and I was never pressured to study something “useful.” When I tell people I have a literature degree, someone always asks, “What are you going to do with that?” This question slays me (not least because I’m 46, for God’s sake)! I am going to read books and think about them and discuss them. I am going to write well and thoughtfully, and I will always win an argument because I can form that argument succinctly. I will make connections, understand obscure references, and laugh at hidden meanings in everything I read. I will fill my house with books, and throw the television in the basement. I will raise children for whom reading is like breathing. That’s what I am going to “do.”