I'm Retiring!
And an Update on Up From Mountains
Welcome back to Up From Mountains!
Scene 2 of Chapter 5 isn’t quite ready for publication. The research pulled me deeper than I expected, sending me down some wonderful rabbit holes, particularly regarding the jazz scene of 1950s Kingston. During that era, Jamaican musicians were genuinely world class, and doing justice to that world on the page has taken a little more time than expected.
But I do have some news worth sharing, and I’ve been looking forward to saying it.
In early June, I’m retiring! After a thirty-two-year career in teaching, I’ll be stepping away to do the things that matter most right now: writing full time, traveling with Janet, and spending time with my new grandson.
For Up From Mountains—this is also good news—the extra time will allow me to write with more focus, and I expect it to speed up both the completion and publication of the novel considerably.
Scene 2 is coming soon. Thanks, as always, for your patience and for being here.
Walk good!
— Dale





Congratulations. I’m so excited for you and hope to see more of you and Janet in the future
Enjoy! Having also just finally retired from teaching have had much more time to devote to research which I love. So you have a lot to look forward to. One thing to consider is work on your Grandpa's early migration from Lebanon which was of course part of Syria in those pre-Sykes-Picot days. Lapping up your stuff on Kingston and JA generally. Great work!