Okay, so as attentive readers no doubt know by now, we’re in for some big changes around here in the coming year.

The biggest has to do with Cyrus’s temporary relocation to Abu Dhabi, where he will be on faculty (and has been, for the last year, an associate dean) at NYUAD.

What this will mean for the day-to-day workings of this blog isn’t entirely clear yet. We may have no disruption whatsoever. (Well, out of our own self-imposed disruptions from time to time.) But we won’t be teaching Writing New York in the coming spring, only the second time since 2003 that we haven’t taught the course.

Instead, we’re thinking about spreading the course over two semesters and running an open education on-line version of it. And you’ll all be invited. More on that to come in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, I threatened last week to work my vacation reading into the blog. I think this is the first vacation I’ve taken since 1994 when I don’t have a major writing deadline looming over me, and so I’ve vowed not to work while I’m out of town for the next few weeks. But I am taking Jonathan Lethem’s Chronic City with me to give it a second read, and I may every few days post some links or minor thoughts.

What I’d like to build toward is a first annual PWHNY summer book club. If I can get it together over the next couple weeks, I’ll try to line up some formal participants to help us stage a conversation about the book near the end of August. If you’ve read the book — or if you’ve been looking for an excuse to — we welcome you to participate as we go. I enjoyed the book the first time through but had to read it pretty quickly for a student book club I ran last year. I’d like to slow down and think about it a little more carefully, not least because it features allusions to both the Rolling Stones’ Some Girls and to the band Television, which makes it somewhat relevant to recent content around these parts.

Are you in?