Hello, Kim Fielding here and I’m in denial. The tomato trucks are thick on Highway 99, the almond farmers are bringing in their harvest equipment, and I’m getting notices of meetings I will have to attend. All of this means that the fall semester is nearly upon us. And I could really, really use more summer.

Not because I want more warm weather; I’ve had plenty of that. I’m fairly sure the last time we had a high temp that wasn’t in the 90s or 100s was back in June. And fires are raging all over my state (California), endangering people, destroying property, and making the air quality miserable. I’m looking forward to cooler temps and even some rain, although I likely have almost two months to wait for that.

My hesitance to acknowledge the fall semester also isn’t because I’m dreading teaching. I’m teaching some fun classes this fall, and I have some great students. Even the one who informed me last year that he really liked me as a professor because I was like a “cool grandma.” Augh. My colleagues are mostly wonderful too—an interesting and eccentric group of people. The 16 full-time faculty members in my department come from five different continents (and Texas!) and span a wide variety of backgrounds, interests, and viewpoints.

And I have some really wonderful things to look forward to within the upcoming academic year. Later this month, I’m heading to a conference in Sarajevo, which is a fascinating city. In the spring I’m on sabbatical, which means time for research plus trips to Salon Livre Paris and Leipzigger Buchmesse (I’m currently negotiating with my husband on a possible trip to Amsterdam as well; he just bought a Tesla, which gives me a superior negotiating position).

So… good stuff to come, right? Then why bemoan the end of summer? Because Time. A return to the classroom (and meetings and office hours and taxiing the younger daughter to and from school) means less time for everything else. Such as the two novels I’m working on right now and the three future novels in my writing queue. Such as writing up the results of some really interesting research my colleagues and I have done on student attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. There’s that tottering stack of books I want to read and the closets crying out for weeding and organization. There are the ten zillion appointments needed for me and the family: hair, eyes, doctor, dentist, orthodontist, etc.

In early June, the summer stretches before me with endless promise. A week into August, reality sets in and I humbly acknowledge the limits of mortality.

I wish the summer was another month longer. I wish I had Hermione’s time-turner. I wish I had an app that would do all my sleeping for me so I could be awake 24/7. I wish I would finally learn that the summer isn’t eternal.

How about you? Regardless of whether your life is organized by the academic calendar, are you looking forward to the change in seasons? Or are you in denial like me?

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Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.

After having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, Kim calls the boring part of California home. She lives there with her husband, her two daughters, and her day job as a university professor, but escapes as often as possible via car, train, plane, or boat. This may explain why her characters often seem to be in transit as well. She dreams of traveling and writing full-time.

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