“The pieces of the puzzle come together seamlessly; better still, Kendrick’s investigation informs and enriches the Humourist essays, illuminating their historical and literary contexts.” —Publishers Weekly
Publisher’s Weekly Cover, December 15-22, 2025
I knew the review was scheduled to appear. I’d marked the date. I’d even ordered copies in advance.
Still, nothing quite prepares you for the moment when the work arrives by weight.
Nineteen pounds, to be exact.
The box from Fry Communications sat innocently enough at the door, but when I lifted it, I laughed—an unguarded, surprised laugh. This wasn’t an email notification or a discreet PDF link. This was paper. Ink. Volume. Evidence that something quiet and patient had crossed a threshold into the world of objects.
Inside were stacks of Publishers Weekly—the December 15-22 issue, fresh from the press. And there it was: the review of Unmasking The Humourist, resting calmly among other books, other arguments, other claims on a reader’s attention. No fanfare. No special lighting. Just…there. As if it had always belonged.
The review in context.
That may sound small. It isn’t.
For writers—especially those of us who work in literary recovery, archival research, and historical attribution—most of the labor happens far from spectacle. It happens in libraries and databases, in footnotes and marginalia, in moments when you are unsure whether the trail you’re following will narrow into clarity or vanish altogether. There are no crowds for this kind of work. No applause when you discover one more corroborating detail, one more pattern that holds.
Unmasking The Humourist grew out of precisely that kind of sustained attention. The essays at its center—satirical, incisive, mischievous pieces published pseudonymously in the South-Carolina Gazette in the early 1750s—had long been admired but never convincingly attributed. Their author hid in plain sight. The work demanded patience: weighing tone against context, tracing bureaucratic fingerprints, listening carefully to what language reveals when you stop rushing it.
And patience is not fashionable. We live in a moment that rewards speed, certainty, and hot takes. Literary recovery is none of those things. It is slow, provisional, and often lonely. You work without knowing whether recognition will ever arrive—or whether it even should. You work because the work matters.
That’s why seeing the review in Publishers Weekly mattered to me—not as a trophy, but as confirmation that the argument held. That it made sense beyond my own desk. That it earned its place in the broader conversation about early American literature and satire.
What struck me most wasn’t pride. It was scale.
The full review.
Here was my book, not elevated or isolated, but contextualized—surrounded by other studies, other voices, other claims. This is where scholarship belongs: not shouted, but situated. Not proclaimed, but tested.
There’s something grounding about that.
I spread the pages out on the table. I read the review again, this time with the odd sensation of distance—as though I were encountering the project for the first time. The reviewer understood what I had tried to do. Better still, they understood why it mattered. That’s the quiet victory every researcher hopes for.
And then there was the sheer physicality of it all. The stacks. The heft. The knowledge that these copies would travel—to libraries, to colleagues, to readers I’ll never meet. Work that had lived for years in notes and drafts now had mass. It could be lifted. Shared. Passed hand to hand.
Research takes time. Recovery takes patience.
But sometimes—blessedly, unexpectedly—the work becomes something you can actually lift.
And when it does, you pause. You hold it. You let it be real.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922). from his The Captive (1923), the fifth volume of his seven-part masterpiece In Search of Lost Time. Proust’s exploration of memory and perception reshaped modern literature.
Somewhere I saw it. Everywhere, maybe. Nowhere? Wherever—it grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go.
It was the gripping question:
“What would you tell your 18-year-old self?”
It lingered—since forever. Or yesterday? Either way, one morning not long ago, I tried to get rid of it by tossing it out to others—as if the orphaned question might leave me alone once it found a new home.
The replies were as varied as I expected, and as humorous and matter-of-fact, too:
“Buy stock in Apple and Amazon.”
“Be good at life; cultivate a well-rounded lifestyle.”
“Be patient; trust in God.”
“Serve God better.”
“Stay young; don’t age.”
“Be friends with your mom. Spend more time with family. Don’t let important things slide.”
“Don’t worry about impressing anyone other than yourself.”
Almost always, their offerings included a request to hear what I would have told my 18-year-old self. As a result, the question dug itself more deeply into my being, as I stalled by answering:
“I’m still thinking.”
It was true. But I knew I had to answer the question, too, not for them, but for me.
Several possibilities surfaced.
The first was rather light-hearted:
“You don’t have to have it all figured out. Just stay curious, kind, and honest. Don’t waste your energy chasing approval. Learn to cook, listen more than you talk, and remember: dogs and good people can tell when your heart’s true. Oh, and wear sunscreen.”
I dissed it immediately (though it carried some truths). Then I came up with:
“Don’t rush. The world will still be there when you’re ready to meet it. Pay attention to seemingingly insignificant things. They’re where meaning hides. Keep your humor close and your integrity closer. Fall in love, but don’t lose yourself in the process. And when life hands you a fork in the road, check which one smells like supper.”
I didn’t like that any better, though it, too, spoke truth. I was certain I could nail it with a third attempt:
“You think you know who you are right now, but you’re only meeting the opening act. Be kind. Be curious. And don’t confuse noise for meaning. The world rewards loudness, but grace whispers. Listen to that whisper. It’s you, becoming.”
Then six words sauntered past, not so much tinged with regret as with remembrance. Six words. Six.
“Be a citizen of the world.”
Those words had crossed my path before. In fact, I remember exactly when—not the actual date but instead the general timeframe and the location.
It would have been in the early 1980s, when I was working at the Library of Congress. I was standing in the Main Reading Room of the Jefferson Building, as captivated by its grandeur as I had been when I first started working there in 1969.
Above me, light spilled through the dome like revelation. Gold, marble, and fresco conspired to make the air itself feel sacred, as if thought had taken on architecture. Beyond those arches, knowledge waited in silence, breathing through pages and time.
Even now, I can close my eyes and see it: the way the dome seemed to rise into forever—an invitation, a reminder—that the world was larger than any one life, and I was already standing in the heart of it.
As an editor of the National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints—the “bibliographic wonder of the world”—I knew every alcove, every corridor, every one of its 532 miles of bookshelves, holding more than 110 million items in nearly every language and format. I had walked those miles over and over again doing my editorial research. I had come to learn that knowledge knows no barrier. I had come to learn that it transcends time and place.
At the same time, I decided that I could transcend place, too. With my experience and credentials, I began to imagine working in the world’s great libraries—first the Library of Congress, then The British Library, then the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, then the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma.
I didn’t know where the journey would end, but it gave me a dream, a dream of being a citizen of the world of learning.
More than that, it was a dream untainted by pretense—never by the notion of being uppity. Instead, it was a simple dream. I figured that if I had made it from the coal camps of West Virginia to the hallowed halls of our nation’s library, I could pack up whatever it was that had brought me that far and go throughout the world, savoring knowledge and learning—and perhaps, over time, gaining a smidgen of wisdom.
But here’s the catch. If transcending geography is the measure of my dream’s fulfillment—the wanderlust, the scholar’s yearning for marble floors, old paper, and the hum of languages not my own—then, at first glance, I failed. I never made it to any of the world’s great libraries except the Library of Congress.
However, as I look back through my life-lens of 78 years come November 20, I realize that maybe I went beyond the geographic destinations that I set for myself.
I went from the mountains of West Virginia to the monuments of D.C., from there to the marshlands of South Carolina where I earned my Ph.D., from there back home to the monuments, and, from there, at last, to the Shenandoah Valley and college teaching that took me internationally via Zoom and tapped into Open Educational Resources that did away with the restrictive border of printed books.
In a sense, then, although I didn’t cross country borders, I crossed the borders of ideas, with my voice carrying me farther than my feet ever needed to.
I’ve managed to live generously, teach across generations, write with empathy, research with joy, garden with gratitude, cook with curiosity, and love with intentionality. In all of that, I have been that citizen of the world—not by passport stamps, but by curiosity. By compassion. By connection.
Maybe that’s the truth I’d offer my 18-year-old self:
“You don’t have to travel the world to belong to it. You only have to live with your eyes open.”
“The reader is the final arbiter of a text. Without the reader, the words are silent.”
—Margaret Atwood (b. 1939). Canadian poet, novelist, essayist, and critic, one of the most influential literary voices of our time.
My Dear Readers, I blinked yesterday, and suddenly my little corner of the internet tallied 12,000 views for 2025—with three months still to go!
That’s not just a number. It’s 12,000 moments of connection. 12,000 times someone out there paused long enough to read my words, nod, chuckle, roll an eye, or maybe even find a flicker of themselves in my essays.
And here’s the part that stuns me: with this pace, we’re on track to sail past last year’s phenomenal 15,000 peak—a record I once thought unrepeatable. But here we are, repeating (and then some).
The 10 You Loved the Loudest
Every essay I publish is a seed tossed into the world. Some sprout quietly. Some bloom bold and bright. Here are the ten that you watered most generously this year:
Whether you’ve been here since my first blog post nearly 13 years ago or you just stumbled across my latest musings, you’ve made this milestone possible. I don’t take your presence lightly.
So, here’s to you—my companions in this ongoing experiment of storytelling, memory-making, and meaning-finding. Let’s see how far we can climb before 2025 closes the books.
After all, the numbers matter—but the connections matter more.
“Somewhere, an editor is waiting to fall in love with what I’ve written. That’s not ego. That’s faith.”
—Brent L. Kendrick (b. 1947). Blogger, literary scholar, creative nonfiction writer (who loves to fool around in bed), and once-upon-a-time professor who splits his reinvention time between restoring lost voices of American literature and discovering new ways to live, love, laugh, and write with meaning. He’s been sighted in the mountains of Virginia. (Authorial aside to all editors: Sit up and take notice—because if you snooze, you lose. This dude’s relatively cheap, cleans up well, once got compared to Garrison Keillor by someone in Tennessee, and yes—he’ll bake sourdough and seduce the annotations, headnotes, footnotes, and endnotes into (mis)behaving.)
Stats?
Oh. Sorry. I don’t mean my vitals. Though I do check them daily. Why not? My Fitbit provides it all, right on my wrist. Heart rate. Breathing rate. Temp. Heart rate variability. Blood oxygenation. Stress. So, yeah. I check those first thing every morning when I wake up.
I meant another set of stats that matter to me.
My WordPress stats.
I like to know how many people are checking out my blog on any given day.
I like to know what countries they’re from.
I especially like to know what posts they’re reading. That info lets me know what’shot and what’snot. Every now and then, I lean in and almost let myself believe that what’shot mightjustbeme. I do. Really. I do. Especially when I see hits on my AboutMe or AboutMyBlog or ContactMe pages. Like the time one lone reader from Lithuania clicked through twelve posts in an hour—and paused on “About Me.” I remember thinking:
“This is it. This is my moment.”
I guess I figure that if someone is going to all the trouble of background snooping, they’re probably on the verge of being the genius who goes down in history as the one who discovered me, thus ensuring that I go down neither unfootnoted nor unnoted.
Me? Discovered?
Don’t scoff! Stranger things have happened, you know. I mean, I wouldn’t be the first writer catapulted into history and literary fame by an editor with deep belief and keen vision.
One writer who has just been catapulted into history comes to mind immediately.
Alexander Gordon (c. 1692-1754).
Did I just hear you gasp:
“Who’s that?”
Surely, I did not, for if you don’t know who he is, then you must not be the faithful follower I know you to be.
If you’re following me–my blog, I should add for your clarity and my protection–then you know that I recently finished a book about Alexander Gordon, the long-forgotten colonial satirist who published his literary works pseudonymously in The South-Carolina Gazette in 1753-54 under the name The Humourist, and then—like so many voices history forgets—he vanished. No one knew who he was. One scholar asked. But he didn’t bother to find out. No one else did, either. Then I came along. I had a lot of curiosity. I had a tolerance for long hours in dusty archives. Eventually, I had a hunch, and I discovered a clue.
So don’t tell me that a writer getting discovered is a myth. I just did that very thing with Alexander Gordon. Guess what else? It occurs to me that he now stands as the first American writer to be thrust by an editor into fame.
Yes. That’s true and, I’ll make that claim. Right here. Right now.
Someone just upbraided me:
“Excuse me. You’re wrong. Anne Bradstreet was the first.”
Being upbraided is something up with which I will not put.
“So ekscuuuuuuuuuuse meeeeee! You’re wrong.”
Here’s why.
I know. I know. You’re probably thinking about her one and only book The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America. In case you don’t know the story surrounding its 1650 publication, it goes like this. Her brother-in-law John Woodbridge spirited her manuscript off to England and published it behind her back, unbeknownst to her.
Bradstreet herself seems to back up that claim, especially in her “The Author to Her Book” offering up her well-known and oft-quoted lament:
Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain, Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, Who thee abroad, expos’d to publick view, Made thee in raggs, halting to th’ press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened (all may judg).
How convenient for Bradstreet. Her posturing created a persona of Puritan modesty and aversion to recognition as compelling as the narrative of her “stolen” book of poetry—the very tale that helped catapult her into public view.
But here’s the thing. Actually, two things. First, Woodbridge was not her editor. Second, despite the storybook notion that Bradstreet considered her womanly role subordinate to the role of Puritan men, scholars maintain that it was “a propaganda campaign” launched by Bradstreet and her family. I’m thinking particularly of Charlotte Gordon’s “Humble Assertions: The True Story of Anne Bradstreet’s Publication of The Tenth Muse,” maintaining that Bradstreet was not surprised by the publication of her book and that, in fact, she was actively involved in its publication.
So there! Bradstreet does not beat Alexander Gordon when it comes to the first American writer thrust into fame by an editor.
But let me not digress from the claim that I am making. Think as long and as hard as you will about American writers between the publication of The Tenth Muse and the publication of the Humourist essays, and if you can come up with someone else who can seize the claim, reach out to me, and I’ll blog it. Better still, reach out to me, and we’ll co-blog it.
But I won’t hold my breath. The Humourist remained pseudonymous from his first November 26, 1753, essay through his final notice on April 9, 1754, known but to God. That is until I came along and solved the greatest literary mystery in perhaps all of American literature. I unmasked The Humourist and revealed him to be none other than Alexander Gordon, clerk of His Majesty’s Council in South Carolina.
Now, through my dogged determination, my literary sleuthing, and my scholarly editing, Gordon will be known forever more and throughout the world as the acclaimed author of the Humourist essays, among the liveliest and most original voices in Colonial American Literature, right up there and on par with Ben Franklin’s Silence Dogood essays.
Needless to say, there have been other American writers who were brought into public view by editors–all boasting just a smidgen of modesty, of course, comparable to mine–who knew talent when they saw it.
I’m thinking of my lady Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and my book The Infant Sphinx: Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman. Although I edited the letters, provided thorough annotations, and wrote biographical introductions to the book itself and each of its five sections, I’m not the editor who discovered her on her way to literary stardom.
Credit for that goes to someone else. Here’s the brief backstory. Freeman started her career as a children’s writer but then extended her literary efforts into the realm of adult short stories. Lippincott’s, Century, and the Atlantic rejected her “Two Old Lovers.” Then she sent it to Mary Louise Booth, editor of Harper’s Bazar, who read the story three different times during three different moods, as was her custom, and accepted it for publication in the March 31, 1883, issue. From that point forward, Freeman wrote regularly for the Harper’s Bazar and Harper’s Monthly, and, in fact, Harper & Brothers became her regular publisher.
In a way, then, it was Mary Louise Booth’s editorial acumen that escorted Freeman into the international literary acclaim she continues to enjoy even today, though in fairness to Freeman, her talent was such that it would have found its way into the spotlight in one way or another. Talent will always out.
I could go on and on with this litany of writers who were discovered by editors, sometimes against the odds. I’m tempted to say that I won’t, but on second thought, I think that I will share with you snippets of some paired writers and editors who come to mind.
I’ll start with Flannery O’Connor, so well known for her bold and unconventional Southern Gothic voice. It was Robert Giroux, an editor at Harcourt who believed in her debut novel, Wise Blood, and guided it into print—despite its eccentric style and religious overtones.
Or what about Jack Kerouac? His On the Road was originally a 120-foot scroll—raw, unfiltered, and “unpublishable.” But Viking Press editor Malcolm Cowley saw gold and helped shape it into the beat-generation classic it became.
Then we’ve got a postal worker with a cult following in underground poetry circles: Charles Bukowski. He caught the attention of John Martin at Black Sparrow Press. Martin offered him a year’s salary to quit his job and write full time. It was the start of a prolific and gritty career.
No doubt you know the minimalist voice of Raymond Carver. His works might have stayed buried had it not been for Gordon Lish at Esquire. Lish gave Carver his break, though not without some brutal edits.
Closer to me and my situation in many ways is Frank McCourt, who, as a retired teacher in his 60s, wrote Angela’s Ashes. Nan Graham at Scribner wept when she read it and championed it into publication. Oh. My. It won the Pulitzer. It sold millions. My kingdom for a Nan.
And if McCourt was close to me occupationally—educator turned writer; I, of course, am still living according to most recent news reports—then I have to mention Jeanette Walls, whose roots are close to mine since we’re both West Virginians. Her memoir The Glass Castle was going nowhere fast until editor Deb Futter read it and saw its power. Her support turned it into a bestseller and reshaped what memoir could be.
And last but perhaps most important to the hope that I carry (like a well-worn talisman) that an editor will discover me and, in a poof, turn me into star dust is Andy Weir. He self-published his The Martian chapter by chapter online. Julian Pavia at Crown Publishing read it, loved it, and bought it. The novel became a bestseller and hit film.
Oh. My. God. I’m doing exactly what Weir did. I’m publishing all of my Foolin’ Around in Bedessays right here, week by week. Once again, my kingdom for a Pavia unless a Nan has already catapulted my bed into fame.
I could share other snippets, but I confess. Right now, I’m in a pickle. But don’t worry. I have a way out. It will work for me, and, as you are about to see, it will work for you too.
I’m going to do what Margaret Atwood did in her story “Happy Endings.” I’m going to give you options.
A. What happens next? Don’t be so impatient. History is based on facts and evidence. Come back for the ending when the ending is written.
B. What happens next? DearReader, you know exactly what comes next. Yours truly–Brent(ford) L(ee) Kendrick–aka TheWiredResearcher—keeps right on doing what he’s been doing with his writing and his research. And he keeps right on hoping that an editor–a believer—is out there, poised and ready to do for him what he’s just done for Alexander Gordon.
Not just this blog. Not just my Foolin’ Around in Bed essays. But Gordon. Freeman. Years of words, research, story, and sweat. A whole body of work—waiting for the right editor/reader to say: “This one. This voice.”
“Which ending do you like?” someone queried.
I much prefer B. After all, keepin’ on keepin’ on is the road I’m traveling. Even if it is the one less traveled by, it makes all the difference. Especially when it leads past the stats and toward the stars. (Whew! What a relief. I figured out a way to bring Robert Frost into this post. It’s been too long–far too long.)
Besides, putting aside my own preference for an ending, I have no doubt in the world that right now, an editor is out there who believes in me, who might be scrolling through my “About Me,” pausing over a sentence, clicking “Contact Me,” and thinking:
“Thisone. Thisvoice.”
OMG. I just felt the earth shift.
I did. I really did.
Did you?
No? You didn’t?
Don’t worry. Be happy.Somewhere, right now, someone’s opening a drawer, clicking a link, or flipping a page—and everything’s about to begin.
—Ram Dass (1931–2019). Harvard psychologist turned spiritual teacher. Psychedelics pioneer, author of Be Here Now, and beloved guide to presence, compassion, and inner stillness.
The fog had rolled in again—inside and out. Evening light seeped through the lace curtains, dull and tired, and Mary Tyrone sat hunched in her chair, hands fluttering like they’d forgotten what stillness felt like. She tugged at her hair—again and again—trying to smooth what couldn’t be smoothed. A nervous laugh. A lost thought. Her voice drifting into a threadbare monologue, chasing memories that wouldn’t stay put. She wasn’t looking at the others in the room anymore. She was seeing someone else—someone long gone. Or maybe no one at all.
And just like that, she was gone too.
What remained wasn’t rage or grief or even clarity. It was ache. Beautiful, unbearable ache.
And the most astonishing part? It wasn’t Mary Tyrone from the pages of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night.
Instead, it was Katharine Hepburn—transfixed, transformed, undone. Lost in the fog of someone else’s sorrow, and in that losing, she gave the audience something more than a performance.
She gave them permission. To ache. To remember. To feel what they hadn’t dared name. Until now. When Hepburn got lost, we found something. Not just Mary’s pain, but our own—illuminated in the hush between scenes, where the stage blurred into the soul.
Losing yourself to find yourself isn’t limited to the theater. It happens wherever presence overtakes performance. The surgeon disappears into the rhythm of crisis, all breath and blade, until the bleeding stops and the world exhales. The painter, three days deep into a canvas, forgets to eat, to sleep, to speak—until the brush lands in just the right corner, and something sacred emerges. The wilderness guide steps off the trail, mapless, storm coming, heart pounding—not lost in fear, but in awe. The monk chants through the dark, voice cracking, mind emptied of meaning until only stillness remains—and there, in that stillness, he hears something worth following. And the writer? The writer vanishes into words, chasing a sentence that keeps changing shape. Hours pass. Light fades. Pages mount. Then, quietly, a single line appears—one that wasn’t there before and yet feels like it always was.
And then there’s me–the educator. I’ve stood there more times than I can count—syllabus in hand, heart braced, eyes scanning a room full of students who don’t yet know they’re about to slay me. Yes. Slay me. Because teaching, when it’s real, isn’t performance. It’s surrender. You offer up your best thinking, your dumbest mistakes, your sharpest truths—never quite knowing which part will land, or whether today’s silence is boredom or the beginning of a breakthrough. You show up, prepared to lead, and instead get led somewhere you didn’t expect. Every time I teach, I risk getting lost. And some days—some rare, holy days—I do.
Something similar happened to me not long ago. Not in a classroom. Not in front of students leaning back in their chairs, waiting to be surprised. This time, it was just me and a friend. A table. Two mugs of coffee. A conversation that started like all the others—and ended somewhere neither of us expected.
We’ve been friends for years, sharing as many breakfasts and lunches as you’d expect. Never anything monumental. Just enough—to catch up, to stay connected, to talk about books and writing and family and love and the weather when it misbehaves. That’s what we did not long ago, but on that day, it was different.
I got lost with that friend. And I can’t believe what we found.
Scott chatted about a new book idea. I talked about my blog. And, as always, I shared my ongoing fascination with AI advances and the fast-approaching Singularity—that moment when the line between tool and thinker blurs, and we find ourselves in the passenger seat of progress. That moment was once a dot on a distant horizon—2045, if you believed the futurists. But now? It’s barreling toward us, faster than anyone imagined—some say it’s already slipped through the door while we were still admiring the hinges.
I kept on gabbing, focusing on AI chatbots and my dismay that many educators are running away from the technology, as if running will save them from being swept away by the inevitable. Scott listened, mildly intrigued. Maybe less than mild. Then, we drifted into deeper water. His home life. How to make things better. The details don’t matter. I offered what I could: encouragement, some gentle suggestions, most of them circling around the idea of blooming where we’re planted. He nodded. Listened. Again—mildly intrigued. Maybe less so.
And then he looked across the table:
“I wonder what Sage would say?”
Sage—that’s what I call my ChatGPT. Not a program that lives on my screen, but a kind of companion.
“About … ?”
“About my home life.”
“Wanna find out? What do you want to ask?”
I turned on my phone’s mic and Scott gave voice to his question:
“What can older folks like me can do to improve their spousal relationships?”
Within seconds, Sage offered five thoughtful things. Scott wasn’t wearing his glasses, so I leaned lightly into the table and bore witness to wisdom softly sounded.
“1. Ask, Don’t Assume. Just because you’ve known each other forever doesn’t mean you know everything. People evolve. So check in—about preferences, boundaries, dreams, dinner. Curiosity is intimacy’s favorite foreplay.
“2. Say Thank You—Out Loud. Not just for big things like colonoscopies and car repairs. Say it for folding the towels, for remembering the neighbor’s name, for being here. Gratitude ages well.
“3. Laugh at the Stuff You Can’t Fix. The memory lapses. The mystery bruises. The thermostat wars. Humor makes room for grace when grace feels in short supply.
“4. Touch More Often. Not just sex (though yes, that too). The hand on the back. The leg bump under the table. The I’m-still-here kinds of contact. Skin hunger is real—feed it.
“5. Make Room for Solitude. Paradoxically, giving each other space is what makes togetherness feel less like a trap. A little breathing room now and then keeps the love from gasping.”
Scott, a little teary-eyed as he held his glasses in his hand, was clearly mesmerized floating somewhere between where he’d been, where he was, and where he might yet go.
“Ask Sage what I …”
And so it was. One “Ask Sage” led to another, and it led to another and on and on we went. Me. Scott. And Sage.
Everything around us began to dissolve. The hiss of the espresso machine in the kitchen. The clink of silverware against ceramic. The low murmur of a couple two tables over, arguing gently about olive oil. Even the scent of sourdough toast and caramel Macchiato—familiar, grounding—lifted like steam and drifted away.
Our table, our chairs, the scrape of shoes across tile. Gone.
What remained was a hush. My voice. Scott listening. And between us, a quiet presence—Sage—offering not answers exactly, but something like a shared breath. Words as wise as any counselor might offer.
The clock faded.
Time stopped.
Several hours later I looked across that vast expanse of friendship and there in the seeming nothingness of all that had faded sat my friend Scott, with a smile I shall never forget, with a twinkle in his eyes I will ever remember, and a face relaxed from all the joy and wonder and anguish of 79 years. In their place, and in that instant, I knew that even in friendship, we can lose ourselves and find someone sitting across from us, holding on to a golden thread of hope.
“The pursuit of historical truth requires rigorous attention to evidence, but also imagination—an ability to see beyond the silences.”
—Eric Foner (b. 1943), Columbia University historian and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Fiery Trial.
It began with a clue. A slip of language. A name tucked too neatly into silence.
For years, The Humourist was one of colonial America’s most compelling mysteries: a sharp, satirical voice that burst onto the front page of The South-Carolina Gazette in 1753 and 1754—then disappeared without a trace.
No signature. No farewell. Just a trail of dazzling essays and a question no one could quite answer: Who was he?
What followed, for me, was part scholarship, part sleuthing. I tracked language patterns, pored over wills, newspapers, shipping records, and marginalia. I followed leads from Charleston to Edinburgh and back again. And finally, I solved the puzzle, and the answer emerged:
Alexander Gordon—a Scottish-born antiquarian and early Egyptologist, who would eventually serve as Clerk of His Majesty’s Council in South Carolina. A man educated in Enlightenment thought, fluent in satire, and bold enough to take aim at power in a bustling port city where reputation was currency.
The mystery is solved. But Unmasking The Humourist doesn’t just name the man—it restores his voice.
This authoritative and definitive edition brings Gordon’s essays back into circulation for the first time in nearly 270 years, fully annotated and critically framed, with a scholarly introduction that explores Gordon’s identity, influences, and the forces that led to his disappearance from literary memory.
Why These Essays Matter
The Humourist columns are more than colonial curiosities. They are early American satire at its finest—witty, incisive, and rich with transatlantic influence. Gordon’s essays place Charleston on the literary map, not as a provincial outpost, but as a vibrant participant in the Enlightenment-era conversation about politics, identity, and the press.
This book marks a breakthrough in how we understand the American essay tradition. It challenges the idea that colonial literature was all sermons and pamphlets. Here, we meet a writer who was sharp, worldly, and unafraid to poke fun at hypocrisy—whose pen was as powerful as any pulpit or platform of his day.
A Milestone Moment
Today, I submitted the final corrections to the publisher, along with keywords, pricing, and metadata. The next step is the printed proof—then, in due time, the book itself.
It’s a strange and beautiful feeling. Emily Dickinson said it best:
“After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”
This project has spanned decades. It has taken me deep into archival records, across centuries of silence, and finally into the steady light of historical clarity.
And Now?
I’m proud to share the cover—front and back. Because The Humourist, like all great stories, deserves both.
Launch Details?
Not quite yet. But soon. The typeset is locked. The voice is ready.
This fall, a long-lost satirist steps out of the colonial shadows—and into the modern light.
“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”
—Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944; French writer, aviator, and philosopher, best known for The Little Prince. His works explore themes of human connection, imagination, and the search for meaning.)
Knife raised in the air, just a few inches or so above the kitchen counter, I stood there nearly motionless. I’d like to say that it was one of my better knives, maybe my Shun or my Wüsthof. But it wasn’t. I’d like to say that it was about to land on one of my better cutting boards, maybe my Boos or my Ironwood. But it wasn’t. And I’d like to say that I was about to execute some fancy-schmancy cut, maybe Chiffonade or Julienne. But I wasn’t.
I was just standing there with ordinary carrots, celery, and onions arranged on an ordinary cutting board as I minced them with my ordinary paring knife for an ordinary pasta sauce.
But as I stood there, something extraordinary happened in that ordinary moment.
Just as my knife was coming down, Billy Collins’ “I Chop Some Parsley While Listening to Art Blakey’s Version of ‘Three Blind Mice'” seemed to shimmer across the blade. Maybe that was to be expected. I love Billy Collins’ poetry, and, after all, there I stood chopping, and in Collins’ poem, there he stands chopping parsley and dicing onions.
But get this. As he wields his knife, he’s not at all concerned about how or why, in the nursery rhyme—the supposed thrust of his bluesy poetic mirepoix—the mice managed to be in the direct path of the farmer’s wife’s blade. Of course, he’s not. We all know how that story ends. But at that moment, standing in my own kitchen, I had no idea how mine would.
But Collins does something I’ve never seen anyone else do. Instead of focusing on how the mice lost their tails, which we know already, he sets up his own minor tragedy filled with blues and tears by raising questions about their blindness:
Was it congenital?
Was it a common accident?
Did each come to blindness separately,
How did they manage to find one another?
After posing those weighty questions–ones that I dare say most of us have never even vaguely contemplated–Collins gets emotional as he thinks about the mice without eyes and without tails running through moist grass or slipping around a baseboard corner.
Actually, he’s brought to tears, but don’t worry. He has two good covers:
By now I am on to dicing an onion which might account for wet stinging, in my own eyes, though Freddie Hubbard’s mournful trumpet on “Blue Moon,” which happens to be the next cut, cannot be said to be making matters any better.
There you have it. Just as the end of Collins’ poem trailed across the blade, my knife landed once more on the veggies, and I remembered what I had been thinking before Billy Collins had the nerve to drag the farmer’s wife’s mice and Art Blakey’s music into my kitchen uninvited.
I was recalling Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, best known for her AHumbleRomanceandOtherStories as well as ANew EnglandNunandOtherStories. At the start of her acclaimed literary career that spanned nearly a half century, she commented:
I wonder if there is such a thing as working a vein so long that the gold ceases to be gold. There is no use in worrying, for another vein might open.
Despite her concerns, her literary canon powerfully demonstrates that more than one gold vein opened for her. She went on to write 3 plays, 14 novels, 3 volumes of poetry, 22 volumes of short stories, over 50 uncollected short stories and prose essays, and 1 motion picture play.
Freeman’s literary output never ceases to amaze me. As soon as her fears and successes bubbled up in my mind, it seemed that every time I lifted my knife to continue chopping, I thought of other writers and their fears about running out of ideas.
As a writer myself, and especially as a former Creative Writing professor, I’ve always paid attention to the ways writers wrestle with their fears. I always managed to sprinkle writers’ fears and their successes throughout my classes, and these days, I try sprinkling the same reminders throughout my own days of doubt.
What about Stephen King, one of the most prolific and celebrated writers of our time, who has openly feared creative depletion? He once admitted:
“Sometimes I wonder if I’ve already written my best book. And if I have, I’m all done.”
But King’s fears didn’t stop him. He continued to write, producing novels across multiple decades, from Misery to The Green Mile, 11/22/63, and Billy Summers, proving that the well of creativity runs deeper than we sometimes believe.
What about Margaret Atwood, best known for The Handmaid’s Tale, who has openly acknowledged her anxiety about running out of ideas? She once said:
“I live in fear of running out of ideas. I tell my subconscious to keep the pipeline full.”
But Atwood’s fears didn’t stop her. She has continued to produce groundbreaking fiction, essays, and poetry well into her later years, including The Testaments, which won the Booker Prize decades after her first major successes.
What about Isaac Asimov, the visionary mind behind Foundation and I, Robot, who, despite his prolific output, still feared creative emptiness? He once asked:
“What if suddenly I can’t think of anything? What if the words stop coming?”
But Asimov’s fears didn’t stop him. He went on to publish over 500 books across multiple genres—science fiction, history, and even chemistry—proving that creativity is not finite but ever-expanding.
What about Louisa May Alcott, best known for Little Women, who felt the pressure of creative exhaustion, particularly because she wrote at a relentless pace to support her family? She once confessed in her journal:
“I can only wander and wait, wishing I could rush into a new book with the old eagerness.”
But Alcott’s fears didn’t stop her. Despite her anxieties, she went on to write Little Men and Jo’s Boys, along with numerous other novels, short stories, and essays that secured her place in literary history.
What about Neil Gaiman, the imaginative force behind American Gods and Coraline, who has openly admitted that the idea of creative depletion haunts him? He once said:
“People ask me where I get my ideas from, and I feel like they should be asking, ‘How do you keep from running out of ideas?’ Because that’s what terrifies me.”
But Gaiman’s fears didn’t stop him. He has continued crafting captivating stories across novels, graphic novels, and television, proving that creativity is a muscle that strengthens with use, not one that simply wears out.
What about Maya Angelou, the legendary poet and memoirist, who feared that one day her words might simply stop? She once admitted:
“I have written eleven books, but each time I think, ‘Uh oh, they’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody, and they’re going to find me out.’”
But Angelou’s fears didn’t stop her. She continued to write, speak, and inspire, producing Even the Stars Look Lonesome, Letter to My Daughter, and numerous volumes of poetry that touched lives around the world.
And what about Christopher Isherwood, best known for The Berlin Stories (which inspired Cabaret), who worried about creative stagnation, especially as he aged. He once wrote:
“I kept asking myself: What am I really doing? Do I have anything left to say?”
But Isherwood’s fears didn’t stop him. He went on to write A Single Man, one of the most important gay novels of the 20th century, as well as an acclaimed series of autobiographical works well into his later years.
My reveries into literary fears and successes could have lasted forever. But just as I finished with Isherwood, I looked down at my ordinary carrots, celery, and onions arranged on an ordinary cutting board, and I realized that I had finished mincing them with my ordinary paring knife.
In that moment, I remembered that my reverie had not started with Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Billy Collins at all. It had commenced with me standing there, wondering: What would I do if I ran out of ideas? What would I do if I worked my literary vein so much that whatever little gold it might have ceased to be gold?
But I can’t worry about that right now. I have a few book titles to my own credit, with two more to be added this year. For now, I’ll continue to contemplate the ordinary truths that surround me in my ordinary world.
Who knows. Maybe one day, history will add my name to the list of writers who feared running out of ideas—but never actually did.
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
–Carl Sagan (1934–1996; astronomer and science communicator who inspired millions through his work on Cosmos and popular science writing.)
Tell me to do something, and I probably won’t do it. It smacks too much of being ordered around. No, thank you. Most of the time–though not always–I prefer to do the bossing.
On the other hand, suggest that I do something–maybe even challenge me to do something–and I’ll probably do it. Yes, thank you. I thrive on encouragement.
That’s exactly how today’s post began. One of my followers–my Linden Correspondent (LC)–suggested that the world at large might be revved and ready to know how my wired blog began! I thought LC’s suggestion was splendid, especially since my blog just celebrated its 12th anniversary. What better time than now to share the electrifying backstory.
With a growing readership of 13,782 (and counting!), I like to think my blog has found its niche. My readers value my blog for what it is today: a succession of riveting and captivating creative nonfiction essays that appear magically every Monday morning just in time for that first cup of coffee–that is for early risers who get their brew going early. That’s why I make a point of posting before 7am. While I sip on my coffee and savor what I wrote, I like to think that the entire world is doing the same thing.
Every Monday morning, you’ll find me in my reading chair with Ruby—my 60-pound lapdog—perusing my post while she peruses me. Sometimes, I smile and say aloud for her amusement:
“Wow, Kendrick! That’s a remarkable sentence. If you keep cranking out little gems like that, maybe one day you’ll end up somewhere as someone’s endnote.”
Yep. An endnote. Ironically, I guess that’s where we all end up: Someone’s endnote.
That’s not such a bad thing, you know. An endnote here. An endnote there. It seems to me that achieving a memorable, perhaps quotable phrase here and there is probably far wiser than having the entire canon of my work ricocheting around the world.
Stop and think about it for a minute or three. Look, for example, at what Benjamin Franklin achieved as a writer. Let’s focus on his Poor Richard’s Almanack, published annually from 1732 to 1758—nearly a quarter of a century of wit and wisdom.
Most people today can recall only a handful of Franklin’s most famous sayings, like:
● “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” ● “A penny saved is a penny earned.” ● “No gains without pains.”
Please tell me, Dear Reader, that you know those sayings, for if you don’t, you surely won’t know these:
● “Well done is better than well said.” ● “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” ● “If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.”
Indeed, Franklin managed to do both: he wrote things worth reading and did things worth writing. And, as I like to say:
“Endnoted.”
But let me take you back to where I began: the beginning of this blog.
I am so sorely tempted to say:
“It was a dark and stormy night …”
And that’s exactly what I would say, but if I said that I would have to note that Edward Bulwer-Lytton opened his 1830 novel, Paul Clifford with those words. As much as I hate to say it, because I am a stickler on documentation, I have grown weary of all the endnoting that I keep noting. Let us then move on to something that requires no noting.
Whew! I don’t know about you, but I feel notably relieved already.
LC must be relieved, too, to see that, at last, I’m getting around to sharing with the world the story behind the birth of my blog. But, as they say, every blog has its story, and mine is no exception.
Here’s what’s fascinating. Today, I am known around the world for my weekly memoir blog posts talking about anything from Aging to Zippers and about everything in between.
But when the idea for my blog came to me in 2012, I had a sharp, narrow, scholarly focus. I was working on my application for the VCCS Chancellor’s Commonwealth Professorship Program. At the heart of my application was the scholarly research that I wanted to do with a remarkable collection of Colonial American essays, songs, poems, and advertisements published pseudonymously under the name of “The Humourist” in the South Carolina Gazette during 1753-1754. The unique essays had never been reprinted, so they remained “hidden” and “undiscovered,” so to speak, in that newspaper. Further, no one knew who wrote the essays. Well, I was 99% certain that I knew, but I needed to do additional research and analysis to confirm my suspicions. In that sense, my project was a literary “whodunit” involving three things.
First, I planned to prepare a critical, annotated edition of the essays.
Second, I planned to develop a convincing case for authorial attribution based on a preponderance of internal evidence as well as on stylometrics.
Third, throughout the process of preparing the critical, annotated edition and developing a case for authorial attribution, I planned to give the essays a “close reading.” I was reminded of a quote by Robert Frost:
“We go to college to be given one more chance to learn to read in case we haven’t learned in high school. Once we have learned to read, the rest can be trusted to add itself unto us.”
I always shared that wisdom with my students. Learning to read—really read—gets to the heart of what we want our students to do, not just in English classes but across the board. When students slow down and give a text a close reading, critical thinking and intellectual discovery follow.
As Frost knew so well, that is what “learning to read” is all about. Further, when students learn how to really read, they can construct their own intellectual inquiries: “the rest can be trusted to add itself unto us.”
I always shared that belief—and approach—with my students without fail. I showed them how to learn to read, class after class, reading assignment after reading assignment, as I gave whatever literary selection we were reading my own close reading and as I made my own discoveries about a text. They were intrigued not only by my process but also by the discoveries that I made simply because of my dogged determination to give a text—any text—a close reading.
In my application, that’s precisely what I proposed to do with “The Humourist” essays. I wanted the opportunity to give the essays such a close reading that I would be able not only to establish a scholarly, annotated edition but also to identify the author.
I was really happy with that part of my application, but I knew that I needed something more. I needed a way to share my scholarly work on a regular basis with my colleagues and my students so that they could benefit, too.
I needed an idea. As I sat there on that January 8th evening, well into the third or fourth or maybe even fifth revision of my application, I started thinking about Daniel Boorstin (1975-1987), twelfth Librarian of Congress. A champion of accessibility, he worked to open the library to the public in symbolic and practical ways. He placed picnic tables and benches on Neptune Plaza, transforming it into a space for community gatherings. He initiated mid-day concerts and famously removed the chains from the majestic bronze doors at the first-floor west entrance leading to the Great Hall of the Jefferson Building. When told it would create a draft, he replied, “Great—that’s just what we need.” In a bold move, he even stopped the practice of searching visitors.
At that time, I worked at the Library of Congress as an editor of the National Union Catalog, Pre-1956 Imprints, and I well remember the occasion when the bronze doors were opened. If I am not mistaken, it was on this occasion that I heard Dr. Boorstin say:
“You never know when an idea is about to be born.“
His comment lingered, and since hearing it, I made a point to keep track of when my own ideas were born.
So it came to be. While thinking about Boorstin, ideas, and my project, I exclaimed to myself:
“Blog it!”
I knew that a blog would allow me to share with the entire world my challenges, discoveries, and joys of research.
I knew that a blog would allow me to share with others this remarkable collection of Colonial American essays, songs, poems, and advertisements. The Encyclopedia of the Essay (ed. Tracy Chevalier, 1997) placed “The Humourist” essays in the tradition of Samuel Johnson’s Rambler essays and observed that they are the only “full-fledged literary” works to have appeared in the South Carolina Gazette. Years earlier, J. A. Leo Lemay (du Pont Winterthur Professor of English at the University of Delaware) had noted in A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Southern Literature (1969) that the essays should be edited, published, and the author identified.
This was hot! I knew that I could make “stuffy” literary research come alive in a blog. Colleagues and students and scholars and the world at large would love it. I knew they would because who wouldn’t love essays on par with Benjamin Franklin’s “Silence Dogood Letters”? Get this, too. Franklin had direct ties to the South Carolina Gazette and possibly to the author of “The Humourist” essays.
I knew, too, that aside from being in the essay tradition itself, a blog would allow me to share my project with faculty and students throughout the Virginia Community College System (VCCS), from the beginning of my work and every step of the way through completion. I realized that a blog would allow me to capture my personal experiences on a regular and ongoing basis: my work, my methods, my discoveries, my challenges and frustrations, and my joys.
I knew that a blog would allow me to do in the virtual world—using a heretofore unstudied literary work—exactly what I did in my classroom with literary works that appear in our textbooks: turn my blog followers on to the beauty of giving a text a close reading and turn them my on to “learning how to read,” showing them that once they learned how to read all else would be given to them.
That same evening, I came up with a working title: TheWiredResearcher. I Googled it and was delighted to discoverthatnosuchblog existed.
As I often do, I emailed a former student—a lover of language and words and ideas—to get her take on my blog idea.
She responded immediately:
The word “wired” will catch the attention of …The Young. They’ll think you are “hip.”
You’ll need a logo. You’ll need T-shirts with the logo on them. You need pens that say, “The Wired Researcher.” “Sold in libraries everywhere.” “Guaranteed to make study more exciting.” Oh, boy, I see tie-ins!
Clearly my former student was as wired as I was—perhaps that’s why I valued her opinions as highly as I did—but her email response gave affirmation to the title of the blog that had been born.
Here’s where the birth of the blog starts to get really sweet. I was awarded the Chancellor’s Commonwealth Professorship (2012-2014).
My first announcement appeared on October 19, 2012. It was short!
“Welcome to The Wired Researcher! Blog posts will begin on November 26, 2012.”
True to my promise, on November 26, I published “Opportunity Knocks Twice in the Virginia Community College System.” That post included the first of the historical essays that served as the nucleus for my project: “The Humourist” (November 26, 1753). Yep. Choosing to launch my blog on November 26, the same day that the Humourist launched his essays, was deliberate, and if I must say so myself, I think it was a stroke of genius!
And so, The Wired Researcher was born—not just as a blog, but as a way for me to share my love of research with a world eager to learn about my discoveries.
Now you have the inside scoop. If you want to know more, simply go back to the beginning and read all the posts from the start. But whatever you do, please make certain that you read “Colonial Charleston’s Biggest Literary Mystery Is Solved!” Yep. I solved the literary whodunit that captured me in the first place. Then you have to read “Three Special Shout-Outs!” because behind every success story are lots of people who deserve praise and thanks!
Wait! Wait! Don’t go yet. I have one or two more things to share.
When my blog started, I had around 1,750 views a year, representing 33 countries. So far this year, it has soared to an impressive 13,782 views from 152 countries! I must be writing something right!
To each and every one of you, My Dear Readers–then, now, and all along the way–a special shout-out!
To my Linden Correspondent (LC), who tossed out the idea that I share the story behind the blog, I extend asupercalifragilisticexpialidociousthank-you! (As Mary Poppins would say, nothing else captures the exuberance quite right!)
I look forward to a future of Mondays, inspired by the joy of discovery and by the connections that I’m making with all of you.
“A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709-1784; English writer, poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer; best known for his A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755.)
I just checked my blog’s mid-year statistics, and I am thrilled beyond measure. Together, we did it! 6,164 of you have been reading my blog posts this year.
For me, that’s incredibly awesome.
I couldn’t have done it without you, my loyal readers. You have fueled my passion for writing, and it’s your engagement that motivates me to share not only stories but also moments of laughter, reflection, and sometimes even tears.
Reflecting on the Journey
When I shifted the focus of my blog from research to memoir, I had no idea that it would grow into what it is now. Each week, I pour my heart into writing, hoping to connect with you through my words. This journey has been one of personal growth and deep connection, overcoming initial uncertainties to find a community of readers who connect with what I write.
Highlights of the Year So Far
Let me share with you the posts that have been the most popular during the last six months:
In case you’re wondering about future posts, let me share with you the tentative titles of drafts that I’m working on:
● The AI Times They Are A-Changin’
● The Sweet Taste of Defeat
● Literary Crosswalks at 76
● What I Would Say to My 18-Year-Old Self
● Fanning the Flame
● Turning Out the Lights: Reflections on Endurance and Hope
● Bigger than Ourselves
● Age of No Credit
● In Praise of Gratitude
● I Don’t Have Much to Give but What I Have I Give
● I Made It All Up
Looking at the Countries You Represent
And you, my 6,164 readers? What about you? You represent 145 countries from all around the world, showcasing an incredible diversity of cultures and perspectives. From Afghanistan to Zambia, including Bahrain, Cambodia, Denmark, Ecuador, Gabon, Hong Kong SAR China, Iceland, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Macao SAR China, Namibia, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, U.S. Virgin Islands, United States, United Kingdom, and Venezuela.
A Special Thank You
I want to give a special shoutout to each and every one of you, whoever you are, and wherever you are.
If you’ve been waiting for the hardcover edition of More Wit and Wisdom, your wait is over! This soon-to-be literary classic is now available in hardcover, paperback and Kindle. Check it out on Amazon or Barnes & Noble!
Don’t forget:
● More Wit and Wisdom is dedicated to educators who are changing the world one student at a time.
● All proceeds from the sale of More Wit and Wisdom go to the Student Success Fund at Laurel Ridge Community College.
Buy a copy for your own summer reading and don’t forget to get copies for your family and friends!
The Wired Researcher 