Introductions
About Me
My name is Greg Bales. 
I am an editor by trade and disposition. How I came from Arkansas to this small apartment in Iowa City, Iowa, is an uncomplicated story of scholarship, love, frustration, disappointment, epiphany, uncertainty, relief, and settlement. My partner Kathy and son Gabriel live with me, as do a dog named Newton and two cats, Jane and Mr. Bingley. Beneath us all lies a network of tunnels inhabited by tomato-fattened chipmunks.
I can be found in several places across the Internet. For several examples, here I am on Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Twitter.
What else is there to say?
- I’ve had photographs published in both the 2010 and 2011 editions of the Friends of Hickory Hill Park calendar. Also photography-related: I have been taking pictures of the lawn art in my neighborhood for two years now.
- During the summer of 2009, one of my cats was named prettiest cat in Iowa City.
- Kathy and I keep a list of books to read, but she is always a half-book ahead of me.
- Digital is a state of being into which I am always becoming.
- There are always more projects than there is time to do them in. Could I have my sleep removed, I would. Kathy thinks I’m crazy for saying that.
About This Website
Amalgamated (the Blog)
This is not my first blog. From 2003 until the spring of 2009, I wrote semi-pseudonymously as “Hermit Greg” at a blog called Hermits Rock. For a small-time miscellany, it maintained a fair readership and lively commentariat. The subjects I wrote about there included:
- Dinner
- The metaphysics of assisted reproductive technology
- Paintings, books, movies, and other artwork
- Celebrity Scientology gossip
- Labor coverage in local news
- The novels of Henry James
- University press blogs
- The joy and treachery of cats
The list goes on.
Hermits Rock was a fun blog to write for, which is why, subject-wise, this blog is similar to it. Here, however, I deemphasize polemics in favor of things professional: the pleasures and challenges of working with writers and their writing with grace, the pleasure and pain of writing. I am also exploring the value of addition in writing and thinking, which is why it’s called Amalgamated.
