Delight in Community

Looking back on 2014, I want to thank you, my wonderful readers and contributors, for such a lively and enjoyable year on A Writer’s Retreat! I didn’t expect blogging to be fun–but the sense of community you bring to it makes it so.

Toward the end of December WordPress creates an annual overview of activity on my blog. Some highlights: “A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 8,000 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.” Not sure about that particular comparison, but the numbers are nice! And “The busiest day of the year was December 23rd with 118 views. The most popular post that day was ‘Q&A with Paul Strohm, author of Chaucer’s Tale: 1386 and the Road to Canterbury.’ ” Very satisfying.

But that post was only the 4^th most read post for the year. For the second year in a row,
#1 was a post from July 2010, shortly after I started the blog: Lincoln green and Robin Hood.
#2, my interview with Michael Evans, The Mythic Eleanor of Aquitaine, celebrating his new book, Inventing Eleanor: The Medieval and Post-Medieval Image of Eleanor of Aquitaine.
#3 was The Beguines of Medieval Paris, a guest post by the author of that book, Tanya Stabler Miller.
#4 the Q&A with Paul Strohm,
and #5 was Background on The King’s Mistress, also from July 2010.
Hm, the second month of my blog was rather stellar!

The blog has been viewed by readers in 79 countries, the greatest numbers from the US, UK, and Italy.

Looking forward, I have already approached several guest bloggers, and hope to host even more than last year. My mission is to spread the word about what scholars in the fields I mine for information and inspiration are up to, primarily in women’s history, but not exclusively.

And what else? What you would like to read about here regarding writing,  medieval history, folklore, literature, women? My goal is to complete two crime novels this year, so I can’t promise I’ll get to everything you suggest, but I’d love to see your ideas!