Big News! CRW is Moving Up!

Those of you who follow me on Twitter (or who troll Inside Higher Ed carefully) already know that I am now an official part of their Blog U! College Ready Writing is the newest member. I've already (technically) been blogging for Inside Higher Ed as a contributor to the University of Venus, but now my blogging will be over at Inside Higher Ed full-time. I'll still be writing for UVenus once a month, as well as contributing longer Views pieces (which I've recently started doing). 

I'd really, really, really like to thank all of you, my loyal readers for all of your support (and traffic!) over the past two years. It is because of you that I am able to take advantage of this opportunity to grow my audience, extend the conversation, and really participate more fully in the conversations taking place about higher education. The words won't change (much), but the visibility will be more significant.

I'm still not sure about what I am going to do with this space. Obviously, I'll keep the archives here, but I'm not sure if I'm going to do simultaneous updates. If you do "follow" this blog, please adjust your Reader/RSS feed/whatever system you use to keep track of all of the various blogs you follow. I hope that you'll follow me over there and tell all of your friends. When I get back from my conference on Monday, I imagine I'll do one last post with the link to IHE, front and center. 

Here is the text from my first post over at Inside Higher Ed, which I will link to the moment it goes live: 

To my regular readers, welcome to my new home here at Inside Higher Ed. I couldn’t be more excited to be a part of the blogging community here. I appreciate that Inside Higher Ed has been at the forefront of supporting academic bloggers and encouraging academics to write in ways that aren’t typically supported by traditional higher education. Blogging has been a liberating experience, and I’m curious to see what direction this new venue takes my writing. I doubt I’ll change much in terms of style or content, but one never knows.

(I’ve already edited this piece way more than any piece that’s gone up at the “old” site, so there you go.)

For those of you who are new to my regular blog (you may know me from here as one of the University of Venus writers), I invite you to click over to the “old” (virtual) place to check out some of the archives. I write about teaching, I write about writing, I write about balancing work/life, I write generally about higher education. I teach writing off the tenure-track at a rural state university. I study literature, translation, and a whole bunch of stuff in between. I am a mother of two and a wife of an academic (not in my discipline) who is on the tenure-track. I was born in Montreal, Canada, and I’ve lived and taught in two provinces and three states.

Being invited to blog here at Inside Higher Ed feels like approbation for a lot of work and writing. Almost two years ago, I was unemployed and miserable, and I took a chance and started to blog. Because I wasn’t in an academic position (and my family situation kept me from really looking for another), I was free to take chances with my writing and reach out and make connections that I wouldn’t have made otherwise. An answer to a CFP from the University of Venus put me in contact with Mary Churchill, to whom I owe a great deal, particularly in giving me to confidence to seek out this opportunity. I’ve connected to a community of academics (and former academics), none of whom I would have met had I not started blogging.

I kept blogging when I got my current teaching position. I’ve created, through my blog and Twitter, a Personal Learning Network (or PLN) that rivals any face-to-face professional development opportunity I’ve participated in. I find support and community, and I’ve been touched by the number of people who have reached out to thank me for a post on one topic or another, from practical classroom issues to personal admissions to irreverent observations. I’m looking forward to extending that reach and that community here at Inside Higher Ed.

So, welcome to this new space. I usually update three times a week, but this week is a bit of an exception as I am going to a conference and thus won’t be able to blog until I get back on Sunday (and if you’re in Toronto, tweet me or head over to Ryerson for the conference).