Updates and News

Overdue updates, some exciting things in progress, and previews for what's next

My last post was over a month ago, which is not my goal for this space.

I’ve been beating myself up a little about my lapses in posting, but the reality is that life gets complicated. I’ve been working on some mid-life health stuff, navigating a major home renovation, dealing with the usual chaos of kids’ school starting and my own semester beginning, juggling an influx of administrative work and balancing an unusually demanding travel schedule.

Annoying Publishing Limbo

If I’m self-diagnosing, I’ve been in a bit of a mental stall since the manuscript workshop at the end of June. Without an agent or a publisher I’m hesitant to do a lot of major revisions, which is leading to a bit of mental paralysis. There may also be some perfectionism involved, since I have a number of blog drafts half-written but I haven’t felt like any of them are ready for posting. They’ll never be ready to post if I don’t actually finish them, and therein lies the rub.

I’m also working on some broader marketing and audience questions that smart people have asked about the book and the project generally, which has given me additional frustrating but important things to chew on.

I also - like all of us - have limited time and energy and that’s just life.

Despite all of that, there’s also been a lot of exciting movement on the project that doesn’t involve producing blog posts, so that’s the good news. Much like the giant pumpkin I found that had been growing unobserved for the last two months in my garden (speaking of things I’ve been neglecting…), the hope is that this background activity will turn into more frequent and more interesting posts from here on out.

Exciting Talks and Speaking Engagements

Part of the chaos of the last month was an unusually busy travel schedule. I was in Arizona in late August giving remarks on radical moderation at the State Policy Network Conference alongside Gabriel Nadales from Our America. Two weeks later I was in Philly for a pre-conference research workshop on political moderation, right before the annual American Political Science Association meeting. My fellow panelists at the Philly event were Anthony Fowler from University of Chicago, Delia Baldassarri from NYU and Jennifer McCoy from Georgia State. All of them are doing really fascinating work on polarization from different angles and each gave me some additional (never-ending) research rabbit holes to dive down when I eventually have a second to do any reading at all.

I also have upcoming travel to DC for the Mercatus Center’s Pluralism Summit through the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange and then research travel for my healthcare policy work in October and November.

The good news about all the travel is that comments and questions from audience members and fellow speakers are giving me much food for thought and ideas for future posts, revisions to the book, and even some future research projects. The bad news is that processing receipts and managing upcoming travel has become a part-time job of its own and one I’m not particularly good at. I guess tradeoffs are real everywhere and always.

Building a Moderation Network

In addition to the researchers and advocates I’ve met at recent talks, I’ve also been connecting with some folks via LinkedIn and Substack that I’m excited to introduce over the next few months.

Most recently, I connected via LinkedIn with Martin Carcasson, director of Colorado State University’s Center for Public Deliberation. We’ve been having some back-and-forth for months that just yesterday resulted in a fantastic Zoom conversation. His work training students to facilitate public deliberation on “wicked problems” is really exciting. We chatted about human nature, rejecting binary and black and white thinking and how to get people out of tribalistic thinking. There’s a lot of overlap in our interests and general approach, though I’ll admit that hanging out with all these researchers and practitioners has me thinking I need to move out of the world of theory and get my hands dirty sooner rather than later. Martin has agreed to a “blog interview” in the coming months, so I’ll have more on his research and approach to handling wicked and polarizing problems soon.

Yesterday I also had a Zoom meeting with our PPE Society working group on polarization and civil discourse. I got a break from the sound of my own voice and got to listen to some wonderful research on how to think about what makes a good democratic citizen that can give us food for thought during this election cycle.

I also have a couple marketing and strategy meetings scheduled for later this month at the Pluralism Summit where I hope to drill down into some of the questions about marketing and audience that have been plaguing my revisions. All good things!

Book Updates

While I’m still querying agents for the book (and finding the process mind-numbingly stressful and exhausting) I have made tangible progress in at least one obvious area. I’ve been working with a website designer and have a temporary landing page for a new website at www.laurenkhall.com where I’ll showcase my work on radical moderation and connect with agents, publishers, and a broader audience. The full website launches in late October. September will be busy generating content, taking photos, and thinking about strategy.

I also have an exciting related announcement that I can’t make until later in September, but stay tuned!

All in all, there’s a lot of great forward momentum even though things admittedly feel a bit fragmented right now.

I hope everyone out there reading is having a reasonably relaxing September or at least hanging in there. I’m with you in solidarity!

Until you hear from me again, let me know what you think!

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