I like the idea of giving learning and knowledge openness, partly because many of the institutions of higher learning have become compromised by greed, avarice, and the influences of conservative money. I reject the idea that what is available to us in printed form is being funneled through profit-motive. I would like to see a future in which dedicated scholarship finds validation from more sources. We could label this postmodern, nonessentialist and many other terms. The basis is that there are many paradoxes to what is called knowing. Many who have Dr. before their name, and Ph.D. after it, may not be dedicated to truth. Academia can become rigid and uncritical; it can desert humanity, become narrowed and stripped down so that health and interests of many people and other living creatures are not reflected in it. Spiritual aspects of life and learning are set aside. Power in the current cultural setting influences the direction of the knowledge base in ways that disallow many voices.

The term rural is from Old French rural (14c.), from Latin ruralis “of the countryside,” from rus (genitive ruris) “open land, country,” from reue- (1) “to open; space.”

While I worked on a Ph.D. for nearly eight years at the start of this 21st century, my daughter homeschooled for her high school years. Her chosen scholarship was broad and eclectic: the world scene – 9/11, invasion of Iraq, Katrina – drew her inexorably toward world culture and politics. She joined discussion forums in Europe to get a point of view outside of the prevalent American ones. She taught herself German in order to follow online culture and conversation in Germany. She read literature voraciously, sometimes in French.

My daughter taught me that an open space in a supportive environment can be the best way to keep the flame, the passion, for learning alive. 

Some of the essences of my fantasy fiction center in what is unseen and what, in the unseen, is healing, full of love, and at times accessible.

The answer to turning the infrastructures of our world civilizations around in time for sweet Gaia to survive lies in turning our attitude inside out and outside in. 

I would like Rural Scholar Press to represent only values that feed and sustain goodness.