Michael L. Hall

Perhaps all authors acknowledge, if not muses, then at least the existence of a writing self, distinct from that other self, the person who lives in ordinary speech or memory, or in the activities of daily life.
— "Writing Lives," The Sewanee Review, Summer, 2000

My association with the University of Maryland began in 1992 when I first became a lecturer in the Honors Program. Currently I am a Senior Lecturer in University Honors. Along with my friend and colleague Peter Losin, I teach two seminars: Honors 218C, Western Intellectual Heritage: The Hero and Society, and Honors 269J, The Beat Begins: American Culture in the 1950s. In addition to teaching at Maryland, I work at a federal agency with offices in Washington, DC.

Prior to all of this I taught high school Latin at Pampa High School in Pampa, Texas, and college English at The University of Texas, The Johns Hopkins University, and Centenary College of Louisiana, where for a time I was also chairman of the Department of English. I've written essays and reviews on literature and literary history for a variety of literary journals. And many years ago I co-edited a college literature textbook originally published by HarperCollins and later by Addison, Wesley, Longman. From 1985 to 1996 I was also the poetry editor for Poet Magazine.

During much of 1998 and 1999 I administered the final round of the National Digital Library Competition sponsored by The Library of Congress and Ameritech (before it was absorbed by SBC).

For a time, I also pursued an interest in humanities computing and in teaching with electronic technology. My web profile appeared in the May/June 2000 issue of Knowledge Quest on the Web, an online version of the Journal of the American Association of School Librarians.

If this little biographical sketch has left you wanting to know more, I just happen to have a recent curriculum vitae available with further details of my professional existence, and also some examples of work in progress and my half-hearted experiment with blogging.

As for a personal life. Yes, I have one, but it's still under construction! Perhaps this photo of me playing my old Harmony guitar for colleagues will serve as a window on my road not taken! Here are more of my guitars: Guild D4-NT, Fender DG-16-12 12-string, 1997 Collector's Edition Ovation, Taylor 314, Grand Auditorium. Then there is my hotlist of interests, hobbies, current fads, passing fancies, and abiding obsessions. And here are some musical clips: The Thing about You, Broke Down, Merrimac County, Rotunda. There's also now a CD by Michael & Bill [Briggs] with much (too much?) more of the same sort of thing! Here's a photo of Bill and Michael in action in Bill's home recording studio. Note the custom designed wooden microphone boom!