KevinHutchings.ca

April Update April 21st, 2008

Although it has been a while since my last post, I have not been twiddling my thumbs.  Music remains all-important (see below for details of my new project), but I must admit that it has taken a bit of a back seat to writing in the past couple of months.  Not in vain, however: I’m delighted to say that my new book–a collection of essays I’ve co-edited with Tim Fulford of Nottingham-Trent University–is now completed and in production at Cambridge University Press.  Entitled Native Americans and Anglo-American Culture 1750-1850, this book includes essays by numerous authors, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Alan Taylor.  The book is scheduled for publication in early 2009.  In March of this year I also completed an essay on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century eco-tourism at Niagara Falls, which is scheduled for publication in the October 2008 issue of the transatlantic studies journal Symbiosis. 

On the musical front, Sahra Featherstone and I are currently firming up plans to begin recording my new CD, whose working title is Stanzas for Music (named after Lord Byron’s poem of the same title).  The album will include my own musical renditions of various poems and ballads by Romantic poets like Byron and Shelley, plus a version of William Blake’s hard-hitting eighteenth-century protest song “London.”  I also hope to record my musical versions of two poems written by the Welsh poet Grahame Davies (http://www.grahamedavies.com) –who I’m honoured to call a good friend–plus four or five of my own songs.   Sahra and I will begin recording the CD in late June or early July, either in Toronto or here in Prince George.  I’ll provide updates regarding the progress of this new music project as it proceeds.  In the meantime, thanks to all three of you who actually read this blog!