Aaron Colton
@acolton.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of English, Director of College Writing at Pomona College. On writer's block in American fiction: https://uipress.uiowa.edu/books/writing-through-writers-block
My friend and former colleague—the very off-social-media Hannah Markley—has an excellent monograph coming out soon! Preorder!
Morbid Cravings: Appetite and Addiction in the Nineteenth Century
Via literary analysis, traces the twinned rise of eating disorders and drug addiction in nineteenth-century British culture, as a product of, response to, and driver of colonial expansion.
ohiostatepress.org
A new issue of VP is live, featuring @emmadavenport.bsky.social prize-winning essay on Toru Dutt! Issue contents previewed in the image & alt-text, + a reminder abt the upcoming submission deadline for the journal’s annual early career essay prize. Please share far and wide! muse.jhu.edu/issue/57126
![Issue 63.2 of Victorian Poetry is live! The full issue is open access. Its contents are as follows:
EMMA DAVENPORT, "Crediting Toru Dutt's Poetic Labor: 'Our Casuarina Tree' and Paradise Lost -- winner of VP's inaugural early career essay prize
MONICA DAVID, "'Your Harlot Roofs': Women, Individualism, and the Towers of Idylls of the King"
JAMES QUINNELL, "'The Burden of the Strain': Self and World in the Poetry of Emily Brontë and Gerard Manley Hopkins"
ELIZABETH K. HELSINGER, "Writing Toward and Against Death: Tennyson and the Rossettis"
BENJAMIN O'DELL, "Verse Novel" -- a Poetry's Parts keyword essay
In other news, Victorian Poetry invites submissions for its 2026 Early Career Prize, which recognizes exemplary essays by untenured scholars of all ranks and affiliations (including NTT and graduate student colleagues). Conferred on an annual basis, the prize carries an award of $500 and publication in Victorian Poetry. Strong essays that do not win the award may also be considered for publication as recommended by the prize committee. Submissions are due 3 August 2026. Scholars wishing to be considered should submit anonymized MS Word essays and brief CVs to victorianpoetryjournal [at] gmail [dot] com with "Early Career Essay Prize" in the subject line. Prior to submission, consult our guidelines for authors. Essays conceived and / or written with the assistance of generative AI are ineligible for the prize.
Winning articles will be selected according to three criteria: (1) significance of contribution; (2) excellence of research, interpretation, and method; and (3) efficacy of presentation. The journal continues to expand its purview to a wider compass of archives and approaches. We welcome work that capaciously (re)interprets the field's originary contexts and reconsiders Victorian poetry (broadly construed) in new, innovative, cross-disciplinary, theoretical, and / or experimental ways.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:7wjnxcnrdzx6s4zgv4fyajgp/bafkreifudkgyzgggjxm5t7tykygton66hc6i3aegeur2olq3ty4wdh3ug4)
I think alongside assigning books for students to read, we should also show them how great it is to be a reader.
This is the longest story I have ever written. It is also the most meaningful. It will go out in The Small Bow's newsletter tomorrow. You can read it here now: www.thesmallbow.com/p/consider-t...
Consider the Sister
Amy Wallace has spent two decades guarding the human her brother was—against a world that prefers David Foster Wallace as a puzzle.
thesmallbow.com
Now that I've signed the contract, excited to share my first book "Embedded Pedagogies: Digital Humanities Teaching and the Infrastructure of Change" is forthcoming with @openbookpublish.bsky.social! Much more info about it on the publisher site here. www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.116...
Embedded Pedagogies Digital Humanities Teaching and the Infrastructure of Change
This volume offers a timely and incisive exploration of teaching in an era of institutional instability and political pressure.
openbookpublishers.com
New from New American Canon www.instagram.com/p/DXrmrK3jfI...
University of Iowa Press on Instagram: "🎸 Happy pub day to Tim Gray’s EASY: A HARD LOOK AT SOFT ROCK 🎸 “‘Soft Rock,’ they call it; low-key stuff with wide appeal.” So stated a 1971 Chicago Tribune ar...
uiowapress on April 28, 2026: "🎸 Happy pub day to Tim Gray’s EASY: A HARD LOOK AT SOFT ROCK 🎸 “‘Soft Rock,’ they call it; low-key stuff with wide appeal.” So stated a 1971 Chicago Tribune article on ...
instagram.com
The gospel singer Mavis Staples‘s recent albums affirm “the importance, even necessity, of putting trust in the people around you,” writes Sophie Abramowitz. “No ‘I’ gets by alone.”
She Knows a Place | Sophie Abramowitz
There’s a recording I hold close, Joan Armatrading’s “Woncha Come on Home.” When the song was released in 1977, it was common for music producers to
nybooks.com
Listen I read a lot, and a lot of it is dull as hell, and I’ll tell you one thing I’ve learned: tedious writing is almost always a product of the writer conveying, rather than discovering. When a writer is discovering, or sharing discovery, no editor on earth can scrub out the vividity & joy.
Sharing some professional news: In a few months, I’ll be joining @pomonacollege.bsky.social as an Assistant Prof of English and the Director of College Writing. My plan is to continue blinking in disbelief for the foreseeable future
Abstracts are due today for POETRY'S PROGRAM ERA INSTITUTIONS--a seminar at ASAP/17 in Madison this October. A heavy line-up is shaping up--join us! @asapartsnow.bsky.social
Nick Sturm@nicksturm.bsky.social · 7mo agoLast chance, friends interested in academic novels & administration (and even have worked in it, as directors of study or associate chairs or program heads or whatever you people call yourselves) & might want to be on a roundtable. Got some submissions, looking to round things out, let me know.
New essay about some creeps, contemporary and canonical, in the history of the novel. I'm thinking about the nexus of the romance plot, commercial surveillance, and "the desire of the other." DM me for a PDF!
The Creep’s Dilemma: The Novel in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism | PMLA | Cambridge Core
The Creep’s Dilemma: The Novel in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Volume 140 Issue 5
cambridge.org
It was a treat to talk with @andeamarzocchi.bsky.social about writer's block in literary fiction on @smallgoodpodcast.bsky.social Listen here: www.spreaker.com/episode/writ...
Writing Through Writer's Block (With Aaron Colton) - A Small, Good Thing
spreaker.com
New episode out today (you really don’t want to miss this one)! What can fictional representations of blocked short story writers teach us about writer’s block and what causes it? Listen to this episode with @acolton.bsky.social to find out! Listen here: www.spreaker.com/episode/writ...
Seasons are such a scam. Hoodie weather for 345 days a year is what I want
Zach Pickens@zepickens.bsky.social · 8mo agoBuT nOw YoU gEt SeAsOnS!
Was lucky to have @manshel.bsky.social's article on high-school English on hand in today's seminar on Percival Everett. The mock novel in Erasure is described as "the kind of book they will be reading in high schools thirty years from now"—the students spent a whole class unpacking that line!
@modernlanguage.bsky.social CFP: session sponsored by Association of Departments of English on academic novels and administration call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/02/... #MLA2027 #CFP #AcademicNovel #CampusNovel #Administration #DepartmentChair #Leadership #CriticalUniversityStudies
Much as GoFundMe is no replacement for national health care, ten thousand individual newsletters by really excellent writers is no replacement for their institutional employment.
I LOVE @thesundaylongread.bsky.social and frequently peruse for new stories to teach. Such a fun surprise to see my Doomsday Clock piece in this week’s edition!
The Sunday Long Read@thesundaylongread.bsky.social · 9mo agoDon't miss this week's SLR featuring @tribecalledlex.bsky.social, @emilystrasser.bsky.social, @jesusrodriguez.work & more mailchi.mp/sundaylongre...
Blistering piece on ed tech in @economist.com. ‘Although ed-tech companies tout huge learning gains, independent research has made clear that technology rarely boosts learning in schools—and often impairs it.’ economist.com/united-state...
Ed tech is profitable. It is also mostly useless
Independent research identifies few learning gains
economist.com
How rad it was to be on KSQD (K-Squid!) talking with @pkreports.bsky.social about writer's block in fiction and practice. Podcast below!
Writing Through Writer’s Block with author, educator Aaron Colton
Podcast Episode · Talk of the Bay from KSQD · 01/10/2026 · 53m
podcasts.apple.com
The Emory Writing Program Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship application is now open! 3/3 teaching in first-year writing with opportunities to design/instruct upper-level classes in rhet/comp. Renewable up to three years. All PhDs with experience/interest in writing are welcome to apply—share widely!
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
apply.interfolio.com
I don’t know, books do this pretty well without having to fine tune them for outputs.
