What a year.
To say that 2020 was a challenging year is a bit of an understatement. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone in different ways, and the difficulties it has created and exacerbated have been felt by many, including myself. The anxieties it created has meant my output last year fell considerably, since my focus had on finishing my MA dissertation, which I eventually finished after being granted a 3-month extension. My plan is to release extracts of my dissertation once I have received my grade from it.
Since I have finished my dissertation, I am now job hunting, but I am still committed to publishing new content. My plan is to publish at least one new blog-post a month, and I have created a roadmap of content for the foreseeable future. I am going to be writing articles based on the UK A-Level syllabus for Ancient History and Classical Civilization, with aim of creating revision material in the most popular modules, this content as well as being educational and usual for A-Level students will be of interest for the general reader.
I have been doing a lot of thinking about what my blog has been for, and how it has been used. I created it with the aim of spreading accurate and interesting information about the ancient world for free, and this still stands. I want to expand what I do beyond blog-posts and into audio content, initially creating audiobooks of ancient texts that are now out of copyright and then possibly into interviews with classicists, archaeologists, and other experts in the ancient world, but that is a long way off.
Because of the costs involved in making audio content I am planning on creating a Patreon account and looking at other forms of fund raising to make it possible. Patrons would expect to see some content early and in the case of the interview series would get access to the full unedited (apart from cleaning up) interview as a bonus and an incentive.
The audiobooks in particular are important to me as I think they will become important to students and those interested in ancient world who are partially sighted, blind or severely dyslexic. Accessibility has always been important to me, and this is another way of opening up the ancient world to all. For that reason, the audiobook will initially be those most useful to A-Level and undergraduate students.
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This year saw more traffic to the site than ever, averaging over 1000 views per month. These are the Top Ten articles of 2020.
MUSINGS OF CLIO | A Blog by Jameson Minto 