I haven’t posted in a long time. I had planned on putting my old zines up but I didn’t get to it. There are a lot of things that have come together to mean that this blog has taken the back burner. There are two big ones though, the fact that writing has basically become my job and I got a bad back injury. 

Writing: My book finally came out! I have been working on A Violent History of Benevolence: Interlocking Oppression in the Moral Economies of Social Working since 2011 with my brilliant friend Chris Chapman. It is about the history of social work, in a  very broad sense (including a lot of activism) and how it enacts and obscures systemic violence. I will write another post about it soon (haven’t done it because I am a bit self-sabotagey).

A bunch of years ago now, my health improved some and I decided to try my hand at academia. I figured, with the flexibility it provided (and that I already did research and writing for fun) it was a job I could do; so, I went into grad school. Now, I am going into year 7 of my PhD (super crunch time to finish my dissertation). It has been both difficult and ridiculous to try to co-write a book that is quite unrelated to my dissertation during my PhD. 

Basically, writing is what I do all of the time (when I am not in too much pain, anyway). The idea of sitting down to write blog articles has just been hellish. I used to write to survive – that is something that academia took from me; or, maybe I am surviving better now that I am not on social assistance and I don’t need to write in the same way.   

Back injury: Nearly four years ago now, I got a devastating back injury. The drugs that made it so I could get out of bed and walk around without screaming gave me pretty intense short-term amnesia. My recovery from all of this, and my spinal surgery, has been long and slow. I am doing a lot better but my capacity has been much reduced.

You can read a bit about that in my piece “Cracks in My Universe” in Rebellious Mourning which is edited by Cindy Milstein. I also plan to write more about this one day. I have been writing about it in my head for years and it has kind of kept me from writing anything in this blog.

I have a few things I plan to put up in short order but wanted to just sort of say “hi” again first.

Thanks to everyone who has kept checking in every once in a while. And special thanks to everyone who has supported me over the last few hard years.

~AJ