Published!

So I just posted over at the STJ English Dept Blog about my publication experience. This was my very first publication, and boy was it intimidating. Very cool. But intimidating. Here's the story:

I have been having a slightly surreal week. When I woke up yesterday morning, I had an email in my inbox informing me that my article on The Bookend Project had gone live. This is the coolest thing I've woken up to ... maybe ever!


Last year sitting in Dr. Mentz's Introduction to the Profession class, I remember talking about publication. It seemed an impossible goal. Especially the goal of publishing twice while in school. I didn't think I'd ever be able to do this. I was sure my writing wasn't strong enough. My ideas weren't original enough. My thinking wasn't critical enough. Enter the St. John's English Dept Blog. Danielle posted a CFP for a French journal, which was looking for articles about Shakespeare and the rhetoric of violence. My seminar paper for Intro to the Profession was about Titus Andronicus (hello, violent!) and The Tempest, so I thought it wouldn't be too much trouble to skew my paper in that direction. So I wrote up an abstract and sent it in.

I absolutely could not believe it when I received an email in January that my abstract had been accepted, and the draft of my article would be due at the end of May. Working from my seminar paper and Dr. Mentz's very helpful comments, I submitted a new draft after the semester ended. My impression was that I wouldn't hear back for awhile about this draft, and in fact, I heard again in mid-September. The readers were pleased with the draft and had some recommendations for revision, which they gave me about a month to make.

To my article, I added some visual material - a photograph and two videos from performances of Titus Andronicus and The Tempest, which I directed last spring. I expanded on a few points and made some suggested corrections for tone, and back the draft went to France. As of yesterday, here is the final product.