About a month ago, I set a personal deadline for my work on the biography of Isaac Bonewits. This is the result of that challenge to myself.
Assuming that you don’t remember and don’t want to relive the past by clicking on the above links: I set myself a goal of getting four new interviews before the end of August. If I couldn’t do that, then I would not be going to Pantheacon in 2015, and would seriously consider giving up on the entire project.
My goal was four. I got eleven: Margot Adler, Michael Scharding, Leaf McGowan, Elspeth, Nybor, Domi O’Brien, Peter Coughlin, Arlynde d’Loughlan, Arthur Lipp-Bonewits, Bernadette Montana, and Tom and Joy Williams. I also had a two-hour interview with “Doc” Bonewits, but since that was a follow-up I’m not including it on my “official” list.
In addition, I reached out to Ellen Evert Hopman, Diana Paxson, Joan Carruth, Carolyn Clark, Sean Harbough, and Orien Laplante. I haven’t followed up on those contacts due to my coming down with a troublesome summer cold; I’ll try reaching out to them again in September.
So I not only met my goal, I blew it out of the water! Excelsior!
However, I’m not going to Panetheacon, at least not to do research for the biography.
The reasons are many: I simply don’t have the resources to manage the trip. Even if I did, it’s not clear that I would learn enough new information to justify the time, money, and potential health issues I might face.
In the meantime, I’ve managed to locate other resources that, at least in part, give me some of the background material that I’d thought I could only get by going to Pantheacon. I wrote about some of what I learned in my previous blog post.
I may one day go to Pantheacon. If I’m ever able to manage it, it will be to attend the largest Neopagan convention in the United States, not to write the biography.