Welcome to The Recovering Academic
A preview of my series and a little about me
In December, 2021, I made the most difficult decision of my life: I resigned a tenured faculty position that I’d held for 16 years and moved with my family to Pennsylvania. Two years after that, my ex and I divorced. The Recovering Academic is the story of my ongoing recovery, both from the broken reward system of academe and from two major life transitions.
Recovery takes many forms. In 2025 I’ll feature craft resources for writers, reviews and interviews, and new chapters from a book in progress, which I plan to finish by the end of this year. Read my 2024 year-end post for more details about my plans.
Paying subscribers get access to:
Craft resources for writers of all levels
Longform essays from a memoir in progress
Founding members get all this plus signed copies of my memoir and poetry collection and one 60-min coaching session (a $100 value).
Free subscribers get access to public posts and previews.
I’m incorporating giving into my plan for 2025. In Q1, I’ll donate 5% of all paid subscriptions to Out of the Cold Centre County, a low-barrier shelter and resource center in my local community. In Q2 I’ll do the same for Centre Volunteers in Medicine, a free clinic for those with no health insurance and annual income under $38K (individual) or $78K (family of four). Q3 will go to the State College Food Bank and Q4 to Centre County PAWS, a no-kill shelter focusing on adoption, education, and community assistance. PAWS holds a special place in my kids’ hearts, because we adopted our two cats, Iona and Charlotte, there last spring.
I won’t be breaking any records with these donations, but I’m playing a long game here, and I intend to share my progress as it comes.
I follow the same rule for all of these features that I do for nonfiction: my life story is only worth sharing if it serves others more than myself.
If you have never read The Recovering Academic before, here are three popular free posts.
A Hymn To Hot Sauce. Gardening is one of my healing rituals, and I share the personal story of my fermented hot sauce along with the recipe.
Does The Magic Relationship Ratio Work On Yourself? John Gottman’s rule for couples is a minimum of five affirmations for every criticism. Does the 5:1 principle work on yourself?
Why Everyone Should Keep An Authority List. Our default assumption about others is that they know valuable things that we don’t. So why is it so hard to believe the same about ourselves?
If you like what you find here, I hope you’ll consider upgrading your subscription. For a quick preview of what a paid membership unlocks, see my page The Best of The Recovering Academic or browse my longform memoir archive.
Testimonials
“Working with Josh has absolutely improved the quality of my writing. But the greatest benefit is having a thought partner. It’s so easy to treat writing as a solitary experience when writing, for me at least, is really about sharing and being in conversation." — Beth Anne Macdonald
“Joshua Doležal writes with clarity, deep knowledge, and conviction on a range of topics from literature to family life to practical options for PhD graduates beyond academia. His posts are reliably well written and full of ideas, and liable to sparkle like the surface of a summer lake under a rope swing, challenging: You next.” —
,“Josh combines the critical thinking of an academic with the heart of a writer.” —
,“Joshua may be a ‘recovering" academic,’ but he remains a scholar and teacher and a writer of deep insight and sensitivity. He offers so much on his substack.” —
,“I can’t thank Josh enough for the transformational experience I had working with him as a writing coach. His expertise, dedication, and genuine passion for the craft have been instrumental in my growth as a writer. Josh has an uncanny ability to help writers tap into their inner power. What sets Josh apart is his commitment to fostering authenticity in every writer he works with. Josh's approach to coaching is not just about teaching writing techniques (though he offers plenty of that, too); it's about nurturing the writer as a whole. He encouraged me to embrace my unique voice and style, empowering me to write with confidence and conviction.” — DJ Lee, author of Remote: Finding Home in the Bitterroots
About me
I am a writer, award-winning teacher, and writing coach with 20 years of experience in publishing and editing. My mentor was Ted Kooser, former Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize winner. My work has appeared in more than 40 magazines, including these.
My memoir Down from the Mountaintop: From Belief to Belonging was shortlisted for the 2016 William Saroyan International Prize. Debra Marquart writes, “From a mountaintop childhood of baseball, the Bible, huckleberry picking, and revival meetings, Joshua Doležal narrates his story of outmigration. Yet, even as he recounts his escape, the high rugged home lives irrevocably inside Doležal, just as it will haunt the reader after experiencing this lush, transporting, and heartfelt memoir.”
My poetry collection, Someday Johnson Creek, traces one summer as a ranger in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of north Idaho, where trail maintenance provides a touchstone for childhood, American history, and masculinity. The book takes its name from a real place and also honors Connie Saylor Johnson, who devoted more than forty years to wilderness conservation. Read why it took 20 years to publish this book.
I am also father to three fantastic kiddos, who sometimes humor me with backcountry adventures and help me plan each year’s garden. In the hours before breakfast, you can usually find me running the back roads in central Pennsylvania or pumping iron with the other early birds.
If you belong to the recovering academic community or know someone who has left academe, check out my tees and hoodies!
I write for you! If you have a question I can tackle in a future post, feedback on what I could be doing better, or comments on something you particularly enjoy, I’d love to hear from you. Just reply to any message you receive or send me a private note at dolezaljosh@gmail.com.
Josh
https://drgvloewen.substack.com/p/on-self-loathing
I am imagining you and your readers might be amused by this piece, though I am not seeking sympathy here. GVL
Nicely done!