Two wonderful things happened today: First, we received word from the CUNY Graduate Center’s Digital Initiatives program that The Van Buskirk Archive has been awarded a second round of funding. “Competition for these awards was very keen,” they wrote, “and it is a sign of the excellence of your proposal that the review committee found it deserving of an award.” A big thank you to the Matt Gold, Lisa Rhody, and the committee for this support!

Second, I met with Hildegard Hoeller today. She seemed quite astonished and delighted by the diary—an enthusiasm that bolstered my own and has renewed my sense of purpose and hopes for this project. Her advice to hue as close to the original text as possible, respecting the grammar and syntax (as we were), but also respecting Van Buskirk’s deliberate, carefully thought out and unusual uses of dashes and hyphens, spaces, tabs, underlines, etc. She also graciously volunteered to serve as our manuscript editorial advisor. Given the great idiosycrasies that come with a handwritten document, her advice will, no doubt, continue to prove invaluable. Thank you, Hildegard!