Linda Rader Overman & PhD at almost 60...a work in progress

A writing afternoon, working on my PhD spent at the Oviatt Library at CSUN was made all the more interesting with a bomb scare. Thankfully it was at the north end of campus and thankfully it was all over within a couple of hours. Meanwhile, hard at work with my colleague Nicole Warwick working on her PhD also, we did not quit until the library closed at 5:00 p.m. So where did we go . . . up to our office in Sierra Tower to continue writing. Now that is dogged determination in a rainstorm no less.

Linda Rader Overman & PhD at almost 60...a work in progress

An afternoon writing w/ fellow PhD colleagues at the Camarillo library was hours well spent!

Linda Rader Overman at author gathering at Lyon Books & Shasta College

 
Heather Lyon owner of Lyon Books in Chico, CA. and Linda Rader Overman holding Letters Between Us celebrating an author event night on Nov. 19, 2009!
 
A wonderful gathering of readers, authors, and those who honor the spoken word at Lyon Books. Many thanks to Heather Lyon and her wonderful staff who supported us and provided great snacks.

Thanks Jay & Jody!!
 
Prof. Kiara Koenig's Shasta College classroom with creative writing and literature students arriving for an author talk by Linda Rader Overman, author of the novel Letters Between Us, and Zu Vincent, author of A Lucky Place.

Linda Rader Overman appearing @ CSUN

Tuesday 12/1/09 1130AM
Prof. Eve Caram's Contemporary Literature
English 300
CSUN
Education Bldg 1127
18111 Nordhoff Street,
Northridge, CA 91330


Tuesday 12/1/09 2PM
Prof. Tina Love's Writing About Literature
English 355
CSUN
Sierra Hall 207
18111 Nordhoff Street,
Northridge, CA 91330

Linda Rader Overman appearing Lyon Books & Shasta College

I will be signing copies of Letters Between Us at
11/19, Thursday from 6-8 P
Lyon Books
121 W. 5th Street
Chico, CA 95928
(530) 891-33381


Classroom Visit
Pro. Kiara Koenig's English 31: Intro Creative Writing
11/20, Friday from 12-3 P, Room 811
Shasta College
11555 Old Oregon Trail
Redding, CA 96003
(530) 242-7500

PhD Linda Rader Overman minds her cloud on Wordle -

To what extent does the act of ekphrastic narrative render the form of fictional memoir into a visual to verbal act of de-familiarizing re-memory?

Wordle - Linda Rader Overman: ""

Linda Rader Overman & PhD at almost 60...really!

It's the middle of a July afternoon. In Lancaster it's in the low 60's. I am listening to the graduate school director at University of Cumbria, Lancaster, in the UK describe the PhD process, and I wonder...what am I doing here?

I'm 58. Sixty sounds closer than I want it to. A child of the sixties is how I always think of myself. My novel Letters Between Us, published last fall, was in part a testament to living during that chaotic and free-love wielding generation, but also a testament to surviving the drugs, the sex and the rock 'n roll so prevalent in that time. Yet now at almost 60, I've begun a PhD in Creative Arts.

Classes are held in the summer over a two week period at UC Cumbria, Lancaster campus.
The degree is ultimately awarded by Lancaster University about an hour by train north of the city of Manchester.

It's raining. It rains a lot here. The rain is more of a light shower. It's not cold, just wet. Everyone wears summer clothes. I brought rain boots. I never wear them, mainly I wear flip flops to class. I carry my brolly (code is umbrella for those of us from America) constantly, a purse sized one that is no bigger than a brush. It allows for instantaneous opening and closing in a quick downpour or drizzle that lasts less than five or ten minutes, consistently.

I share a flat (a dorm) with three other bright and dynamic women. Two of them live in the UK and attend courses more regularly through the year. Both frighten me with their brilliance. My nearby roommate teaches with me at CSUN. Jacqui is completing her final year of a three year required attendance. I am just beginning. She has consented to hold my hand through this first trip of mine. She originates from South Africa and understands the system here. Jacqui celebrates her recent accomplishment in this UK system of Phd studies: a successful Transfer from MPhil to full blown PhD candidate. I am still considered probationary. I haven't been on probation since I was 17 and a juvenile delinquent.

I chose this PhD path...why was it again ...I wonder as the class comes to an end on July 17, 2009 at 3:15 p.m. I am among some of the best and brightest here. Students seeking PhD's in Medical Imaging Sciences, History, Geography, Education, Business Marketing, Contemporary Literature, and them there's me...Creative Writing.

I skip the class that covers the ethics of data collection for Subject Human Research. But they call it something else here, and my brain hurts so much I can't recall what that is. I skip the class to collapse in my twin bed and try to sleep just to feel some measure of rest and reassurance that I am doing the right thing. My God, I'll be closing in on 65 by the time I complete this doctorate. If I complete this doctorate . . .

I have to do it...I tell myself this all the way home on the plane even though my brain hurts from all the academic discourse forced upon it over this jam packed two weeks of three courses a day and constant discussion with my colleagues treading this same journey.

They are all so incredibly smart. Again I wonder ... what I have done as I sip my last airplane provided cup of hot tea.

Two months hence, I have done little work on this PhD...those three initials that will now rule my life every moment for the next five or six or seven years create an odd fit in my head. Balancing other aspects of my life intercede, teaching and prepping for fall courses at CSUN. Grading papers, remodeling a bathroom, buying a mountain vacation home (a surprise from my husband), supporting my two adult children emotionally and otherwise, facilitating care for an elderly relative, among other daily demands of being human exact their much needed time.

I am supposed to send two more chapters of my novel to my advisory team by October.

Does just thinking about it or feeling guilty about not working on it yet, count as doing something?