Who You Know

Applying for jobs can be a rather time-consuming and tedious process. At times, it can also be kind of soul-sucking. I recently spent the better part of the day completing all of the requirements for an online application, only to later find out that the job was never really open. Apparently, they already had someone lined up for the position, but they had to advertise it in order to create the appearance that they were considering other candidates. 

This is not the first time that I have experienced this exact same thing, either, and that's just what I know of. Over the past few years, I've applied for over a hundred assistant professorship positions, most of which were out-of-state. Cumulatively, I was granted one telephone interview for a teaching job in one of my lesser areas of expertise, which, understandably, I did not get. However, there were also dozens of positions for which I really believed that I was a perfect fit, at least in my mind. As such, I can't help but wonder how many of these jobs were advertised simply to maintain the illusion of fairness and meritocracy. I'm sure that I'll never know. 

I don't mean to sound cynical, as I do understand the reality of the situation, at least to some extent. In my penultimate year of graduate school, I took a seminar that basically spelled out the job market in academia. I suspect that if they offered this class at the beginning of the program, far more people would have dropped out. One not-so-fun fact that I gleaned from this course is that for every tenure-track position that I apply for, there are likely between one hundred and three hundred other perfectly qualified candidates, some of whom almost certainly "know somebody." 

Admittedly, at the school where I had been teaching before the pandemic, I never even applied for that position. Somebody knew somebody who knew somebody who mentioned my name. After the interview, I was in. Compare that with all of these other jobs that I had applied for, each of which required its own distinct two-page cover letter, often with an accompanying statement of interest, inclusion, and/or expertise. Applying to these positions is typically an all-day process, sometimes more. It is also mentally and psychologically exhausting.  

For what it's worth, I've also probably sent out over three hundred query letters for my screenplays and books over the years, only to find out that in most cases, they won't even open the envelope or email without a referral. Outside of contests, very little of my creative work has ever been read by anyone in its respective industry. I suspect that this is largely because I live in the middle of nowhere and don't know anybody in the right places. That's what I tell myself, anyway.

I don't mean to complain. Rather, I'm just sharing my experience in case it may have any value to anyone else. I may very well return to applying for teaching jobs now that the pandemic is drawing to a close, and I'll probably go back to sending out queries for the novel that I wrote last year, but I am also pursuing other avenues and trajectories... so if anybody out there happens to need a skilled writer, teacher and advanced scholar of media and culture who cooks extraordinarily well and plays about a dozen instruments by ear, please let me know. 

I long to do something worthwhile.

New Album

I made another album of original music. That makes six in the past four years. You can listen to it in its entirety here. 

Petrichor will soon be available wherever you get your music (if it's not already).

On a (Rock and) Roll

This past week might have been my most prolific ever in terms of songwriting. Seriously. I wrote and recorded four songs in seven days. As far as I can tell, they're pretty good, too. I'll keep working on all of them, but for one week, hot damn. 

I now have eight new songs. A few more and I'll have another album. I usually aim for right around forty-five minutes, just in case somebody ever wanted to record it to one side of a ninety-minute cassette tape. Plus if I ever want to get vinyl pressed, there's a practical limit with that, too, which is right around that same basic marker. 

You can hear the latest versions of these songs at my ReverbNation page. (The embedded links will take you there.) The songs that I wrote this week are:

Dandelion Wine (If Only...)

Rat Race

Petals in the Grass 

Light Pollution

Thanks for listening.

Another Song

I wrote a new song yesterday and recorded it today, then I posted it to my ReverbNation page. You can listen to it here. It's basically about the memories left behind when a person is gone. 

Within a span of twenty-four hours, this song went from not existing to being available to stream on the other side of the planet. That kind of amazes me. 

I hope you like it, and if you happen to need healing, I hope it helps.

Songs on Spotify

I haven't really posted too much on here lately, as much of my writing time has been dedicated to other projects, including my music blog, where I have been adding new material almost daily. 

A couple of my songs have really taken off on Spotify in recent weeks, and since I don't really use social media, my blog is kind of the only way that I communicate directly with listeners and fans. 

Hop over to my music site for more.