Tis the CCCC-son

It seems like forever since I've landed a favorable time slot for my C's presentation. Last year I presented Saturday afternoon, and it was ten minutes past the starting time for our panel before our first audience member showed up. In fact, only two of the three panelists even showed. (Ok, three actual presenters showed, but Lee and I were presenting together, so in terms of our time alotted, we counted as one person). Of course, there are advantages to that, too: there was no pressure, and we ended up having a very pleasant, personal conversation with our fellow presenter and those people who did drop by the session. Still, it's nice to have an audience.

This year, though, I'll be right in the thick of things. I've been placed in the H 14 session, which takes place Friday from 11:00 to 12:15. That's no guarantee that the room will be packed, but it certainly makes it easier for anybody who might be interested in the panel to attend.

And that's another thing: I'm actually on a panel that promises to be coherent. Submitting an individual proposal, as I have done a few times, means you risk being lumped together with presenters whose topics and arguments just don't work well with yours. We all recognize those panels on the program, and I suspect we generally avoid them. I do, at least, unless I have a friend presenting or there's that one presentation that I just can't miss. But this year things seem different. Since I don't know yet who the other presenters are or what they'll be talking about, all I have to go on are my proposal and the title of the panel, but they are, for once, perfectly aligned. I suppose one or both of the other panelists may feel differently right about now. But with "the politics of the personal" right there in the name of the panel, it seems unlikely that the other presentations will be too far from mine. (I already replied to my invitation and can unfortunately no longer retrieve the exact title of the panel; it's something like "Anger, Defensiveness, and the Politics of the Personal: Problems with Composition Theory.")

All that to say that I'm more excited about this year's C's than I've been in a long time. Oh, yeah--it also doesn't hurt that, a) I feel I have something really important to say, b) I've already written the paper on which I'll base the presentation, and c) it will be Lee's and my first trip to New Orleans since we adopted a one-day-old Olivia (she was born just across the river in Gretna--more on this later, perhaps).

So, congratulations to everybody who will be on the program, and laissez les bons temps rouler!