{"id":1916,"date":"2012-04-13T15:33:14","date_gmt":"2012-04-13T19:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1916"},"modified":"2013-10-02T12:51:31","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T16:51:31","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-december-2-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-december-2-1980\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: December 2, 1980"},"content":{"rendered":"<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"vertical-align: top; background: white; float: left;\"><a class=\"shutterset\" title=\"Letter from Hall to McNair, December 2, 1980.  Colby College Special Collections.\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/04\/Hall-McNair-19801202-001-colby.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2078 alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid gray;background: white\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/04\/Hall-McNair-19801202-001-colby.jpg\" alt=\"Hall-to-McNair-12-02-1980\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">[Click image to view]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"background: white; padding-left: 30px;\">\n<p> 2 December 1980<\/p>\n<p>Wes McNair<br \/>\nBox 43<br \/>\nNorth Sutton, NH 03260<\/p>\n<p>Dear Wes,<\/p>\n<p>Good to have your good letter.  I am delighted that<br \/>\nyou are applying for a full year off.  You are acting according<br \/>\nto the Hall principal, which is to save nothing, conserve<br \/>\nnothing, and devote every possible moment and piece of energy<br \/>\nto writing the best that you can.  When I had taught for two<br \/>\nyears in Michigan I applied for a Guggenheim because I was<br \/>\nso crazy for time to write in.  I did not get it.  I had<br \/>\nsaved $2000 from poetry readings, book reviews, etc. \u2013 and<br \/>\nwe took the year off, Andrew five and Philippa just born \u2013<br \/>\nand I have never regretted it for a moment.  So many people<br \/>\nwaste their lives doing sensible things.<\/p>\n<p>May you get it.  What is at issue?  I am assuming that<br \/>\nyou might either have a half-year at full pay or a full year<br \/>\nat half-pay, and that therefore you asking for a full year<br \/>\nat half-pay.  (That was the way it was at Michigan and the<br \/>\nway it is at many places.  Naturally enough I always took<br \/>\nthe whole year at half-pay!)<\/p>\n<p>Sorry about the bad news.  Form letters reveal that<br \/>\nGeorgia, like most places, is a lottery.  If I were editing<br \/>\nfor a big university press now, I bet you I would reject good<br \/>\nthings with form letters also!  Not that I approve of it!  But<br \/>\nwhen you get so many manuscripts in the mail, it is incredibly<br \/>\nhard to keep any judgment at all.  Of course you are right to<br \/>\nkeep it out, and under these circumstances to keep it out<br \/>\nmultiply.  Of course I continue to hope that I might sometime<br \/>\nbe able to be helpful.<\/p>\n<p>You have really been getting a lot of work done with your<br \/>\ntime off, wonderful and good for you\u2026 Also good to hold back!<\/p>\n<p>Best as ever,<\/p>\n<p>Don<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-1916\" data-postid=\"1916\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-1916 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click image to view] 2 December 1980 Wes McNair Box 43 North Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, Good to have your good letter. I am delighted that you are applying for a full year off. You are acting according to the Hall principal, which is to save nothing, conserve nothing, and devote every possible moment [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2206,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35324,596,42965,35504,42976],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1916"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8075,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1916\/revisions\/8075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}