Saluete!
I know. It’s… been a while. This post is going to be a mixture between an announcement and a life update which affects the future and direction of where I’m going with Latin.
I’ll go in reverse order, you can skip to the announcement if you’re here for the Latin content only.
Life update
I got a job as an English teacher at the school where I had taught pre-covid. It’s been such a great time for me personally, I love teaching and I especially love teaching at this school, and hopefully I can share more of that (in Latin!) with you in the future.
At first I had thought I would use my free days to Latin away but I had to realise that teaching at a place where most students come from abusive backgrounds or deal with ADHD, autism, or are generally somewhere on the neurodivergent spectrum, is really tiring (in a good way).
This is the single biggest reason why I had to take a step back with Latin. Now I was still developing Quiritibus (which is… not as successful as I was hoping it to be, but that might be its own post in the future) which made me realise a few things both about keeping a magazine running, time and energy wise, and about the Latin community, motivation and goals wise—but I definitely didn’t have the time to put out videos, for example.
(Quiritibus is still around, and if ever there will be a need for a Latin magazine, I’ll be there to give a platform to up and coming Latin writers.)
I still have a lot of ideas I want to bring to fruition. Specifically, I have more video ideas but I need better equipment for them. I’d like to use my YouTube channel to continue talking about subjects that either don’t get talked about as much in Latin or that are challenging to talk about in Latin. I also have an idea for a Latin podcast with a theme and a few episodes outlined. I personally don’t listen to podcasts a lot, but I enjoy working with audio and I know some of you prefer the format, too. Unfortunately, with all that’s been going on in my offline life, all of these ideas have to wait currently.
I am in a better situation now in many ways than I was though. While I have less time, I also have more energy, more creativity, and I smile more. Which leads to my announcement.
Announcement – Noctes pannonicae
Yes, I know I’ve worked so much on Quiritibus and that I already have an email list set up and it might seem strange that I hopped on Substack now, but hear me out.
Regarding Quiritibus, I think it’s a very general space for Latin content: from wonderful short stories to things you didn’t know about cabbages, and they’re from a number of authors.
And yes, I already have an email list (which I promptly migrated over to Substack), but Substack makes my life easier with its easy interface and recognisable format.
With these out of the way, let me announce to you NOCTES PANNONICAE, my new weekly Latin newsletter, and let me talk about the concept behind it a little.
People always tell me I should write all those stories I tell down, and I guess my original email list was about that, but I could never find a voice for telling these stories in a way where they can be kept humorous but also grounded in reality, and not becoming overly serious or shallow and ridiculous.
The idea for this newsletter, however, was sparked by Aulus Gellius, and you can read all about it in Latin here on Substack. To summarise, in English, Aulus Gellius wrote a series of books called Noctes atticae, which is one of the earliest commonplace books. He just collected things he found interesting into books that he could share with his children and with the general public. He happened to spend long nights in Attica writing, which is what gave the title of his work.
NOCTES PANNONICAE would like to follow in the footsteps of Aulus Gellius, that is, I’d like to share things I find interesting, whether it be something humorous, educational, or things that happened to me during my life that are in some way relevant. Substack allows me to send these writings in a newsletter format, but it also gives me a platform where these things can be found in one place.
The name, of course, comes from the fact that I am also usually writing these at night, but in Pannonia.
If you are interested, be sure to click on the link of this post and subscribe!
Finally… A big thank you
It makes my heart melt that after about half a year of going half invisible, there are still so many of you supporting me here on Patreon. A huge thank you to all my Patrons, thank you for your patience, thank you for sticking around, thank you for helping me have more time for Latin.
If you are not on the Discord server yet, please come, it’s where I’m most active, and I love to chat.
Gratias uobis ago, iam bene ualete!