Here now; where next?

October in Gambier. Autumn of a good year. It began with four months at sea, voyaging around the world, as a faculty member on the University of Virginia's Semester At Sea program. In September, Pamela and I returned, for about the ninth time, to Altaussee, a small Austrian village in the lake country south of Salzburg. It offers mountains, glaciers, pine forests, lakes, cake, walks, operetta, smoked trout, local brandies, fresh crusty bread, a chance to use my New Jersey German and...uh...more cake. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we'll be returning to Singapore and Malacca .Readers will notice that we keep going back to places we love. That seems to be the pattern. And the pattern continues in Gambier where, in addition to working on yet another novel, I will be teaching two Introduction to Fiction Writing Seminars next semester.