Changes Coming to My Blog

Posted byKendall DunkelbergPosted inTechnologyTags:, , ,

Recently, I realized that I’ve been blogging for over a decade, since July 2009 to be precise. In that time, my blog and my readership has grown quite a bit, but the blog’s format has remained unchanged. In that time, I’ve also published two books of poetry and a textbook, and I’ve started an MFA program, yet the focus of this site has remained the blog, since my blog posts are the first things you see. For awhile, I’ve wanted to change things around, but I discovered only recently that this is fairly easy to do in WordPress. It will, however, take a little planning and a little work to set it all up once I make the switch. So what am I doing to get ready.

  1. I want to have a static page as the site’s landing page, so I have to create that page. Since I have yet to decide on a new theme, and I know that theme won’t have the same layout, I’m not planning on adding a lot of content to that page until I make that switch, but I may write some of the content I want to include—or at least plan what I want to write. I’m also looking for a good cover image, and I’ll plan what I want to go where on that page so it helps visitors navigate to my many interests.
  2. I will also need a page for my blog, since I do plan to keep posting on a semi-regular basis. So I created a Blog page, which will be where I move all of that content.
  3. Fortunately, WordPress makes that easy. I will go into Settings and then Reading, where I can switch over to “A Static Page” under “Your homepage displays.” Once I do that, I can choose my new homepage as my home and choose “Blog” for the page where my blog posts will reside.
  4. I’ll make that switch, then I’ll select a new theme and start building out the site.
  5. For a little while, things may look a little clumsy until I get my pages to work the way I want them to, but I’m excited to spend some time sprucing up my site and shifting the focus from the blog to my books, writing, the MFA, etc.

Look for these changes to start happening in the next few days, as soon as I’m done planning for the new theme and home page. By the way, I could have chosen one of my existing pages as the new home page, but I felt it would be better to add a new main page and keep a page dedicated to my books, my bio, and my calendar. I may add pages or restructure them as I move forward, but I wanted the main page to be one that gives an overview and helps visitors navigate to the parts of the site that interest them most.

Published by Kendall Dunkelberg

I am a poet, translator, and professor of literature and creative writing at Mississippi University for Women, where I direct the Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing, the undergraduate concentration in creative writing, and the Eudora Welty Writers' Symposium. I am Chair of the Department of Languages, Literature, and Philosophy, and I have published four collections of poetry, Tree Fall with Birdsong, Barrier Island Suite, Time Capsules, and Landscapes and Architectures, as well as a collection of translations of the Belgian poet Paul Snoek, Hercules, Richelieu, and Nostradamus, and the textbook A Writer's Craft: Multi-Genre Creative Writing. I was born and raised in Osage, Iowa, and have lived for over thirty years in Columbus, Mississippi, where my wife Kim and I let wildflowers grow in our yard to the delight of spring polinators and only some of our neighbors.

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  1. Pingback: How I Became an Instagram Poet – Kendall Dunkelberg

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