Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

Does the internet really need another blog? Probably not. And yet here I am.

Initially, I wasn’t planning to have a blog on this site; I simply wanted to build a space on the web where I could share a bit about my education and interests as well as link to pieces I had written. If people Googled me, in other words, there would be one place where they could learn something about me and my work. That was the idea.

But as I thought about it more, I realized that I might find having a blog of my own worthwhile. Not so I’d have a place to praise the new shoes I just bought* or complain about people who talk too loudly on their cell phones while riding the train, nor because I want to share details about my life with everyone who stumbles across this website. I’m far too private a person to feel comfortable writing about myself, and I don’t expect that to change. But I do have a lot of interests that I rarely get the opportunity to write about elsewhere: higher education, publishing and digital media, feminism, baseball, travel, knitting, cities, books, trains, pop culture. Everything I’ve ever published (as far as I can recall) has to do with China … and while talking about China is a huge part of my life, I finally decided that it might be nice to have a venue where I could post about other topics on a semi-regular basis.

And so, here we are. Real posts will begin tomorrow. Welcome.

*For those who are curious about the shoes: Mara Mary Jane pumps from Naturalizer, and they’re amazingly comfortable. I wore them around New York for nine hours yesterday and never once regretted it.