Language and Place blog carnival

I'm delighted, since both language and place are preoccupations close to my heart, to have a recent piece in the new >Language >Place blog carnival whose first edition has now been published. The new carnival is the brainchild of prolific writer, editor and photo-video artist Dorothee Lang. She's German, but most often writes for web publication in English and her work has strongly appealed to me since I first discovered it. It's no coincidence, I think, that many of the web writers and artists whose work I most enjoy are bi- or multi-lingual, bi- or multi-cultural.  I need only think of some posts that moved and intrigued me just last week, from three of my long-time, very special blogger friends, Natalie, Marja-Leena and Beth, which drew deeply and beautifully on their experience of multi-cultural backgrounds and moving from one place and/or language to another.  It's all about history, layers, disjunctions and consequently heightened sensibilities. 

This is also true of many of the multi-cultural and cosmopolitan bloggers I've now discovered through their participation in the new carnival. It's a rich array of contributions, skilfully curated to bring out connections, correspondences and contrasts both obvious and less obvious. The writers' own summaries are combined here with a division into different areas of commonality. I use the word 'curated' advisedly - it's like being guided into different rooms in an exhibition. I very much enjoyed every one of them. I love this project and look forward to seeing what it may bring together and how it may expand in future.