I planned to title my presentation something really creative like “Grant Writing,” since the OSU Department of English invited me to speak about grant writing — or, more specifically, to say that grant writing was a job English graduate students could be qualified for, in lieu of pursuing a career in academia (hence the series “Alt-Academic”). But I thought this title was more in line with my core message. At the end of it, a PhD student came up to tell me that I’d been “encouraging.” Mission accomplished! (Photo by Jasper den Hartigh, March 2, 2015)