Recommended Reading
Books for Academic Authors
A Handbook for Academic Authors
By Beth Luey (Cambridge UP, revised edition, 2002)
A teacher and scholar of academic publishing, Luey offers a frank and sensible guide to everything from revising the dissertation to formatting the manuscript and issues in electronic publishing. Her chapter on the variety of ways dissertations can be revised into books is particularly useful.
Luey’s edited volume, Revising Your Dissertation, Advice from Leading Editors (California UP, 2004) offers practical advice on publishing in a variety of disciplines.
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
By Anne Lamott (Random House: 1994)
Writers of diverse stripes cherish this collection of essays on the writing process. Lamott’s advice tends to combine with some very practical suggestions about approaches to drafting and revision.
Getting it Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books
By William Germano (University of Chicago Press, 2001)
As veteran of the scholarly publishing industry, Germano offers an insider’s insights into the process. While this book may be helpful to senior scholars, Germano’s advice on selecting publishers, writing proposals, surviving the review process, and understanding contracts should be especially helpful to junior faculty and graduate students. Plus, it’s a pleasure to read. Germano’s more recent book, From Dissertation to Book (Chicago UP, 2005) focuses exclusively on revising the dissertation and should be highly valuable to new professors.
How Writers Journey to Comfort and Fluency: A Psychological Adventure
By Robert Boice (Praeger, 1994).
A professor emeritus in psychology, Boice has studied how scholars write (or fail to) for decades. Author of several books and numerous journal articles, his work tracks the obstacles to research productivity and outlines strategies for producing more with less pain. This book is a detailed overview of the program he has implemented with hundreds of scholars. A quicker read is his 1990 book Professors as Writers, a Self-Help Guide to Productive Writing (New Forums Press). Boice’s advice on the writing process offers some of the wisdom and common sense of many writing teachers in an evidence-based, data-driven form that scholars find most convincing.
Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year
By James M. Lang (John Hopkins UP: 2005)
A regular contributor to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Lang chronicles his first year as an assistant professor. With frankness and humor, each chapter relates the ups and downs of one month of that year, while focusing on a particular aspect of the profession. "October" examines the challenges related to writing amid the demands of teaching, service, and family life.
Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide
Edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call (Penguin: 2007)
This collection of brief essays on various aspects of writing and publishing nonfiction grew out of Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation Conference on the topic. Contributions from well-known essayists and book authors address issues such as research, interviewing, revising structure, and the marketplace. This is an accessible and interesting collection, particularly for intellectuals who would like to reach cross-over audiences.
The Midnight Disease: the Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain
By Alice Flaherty (Houghton Mifflin, 2004)
Flaherty, a neurologist at Harvard, explores the idea that the neurology of the unusual mental illness of "hypographia" (a manic, unstoppable desire to write) offers clues to the neurological underpinnings of both writer's block and the "normal" processes of writing. Her approach doesn't exclude cultural, historical, and biographical explanations. Instead, she assumes the physiological and organic interact with all of these other factors to encourage or inhibit writing. A blend of science and autobiography, this lively book should interest writers who are curious about the vagaries of the creative process.
The Thesis and the Book: A Guide for First-Time Academic Authors
Edited by Eleanor Harmon, Ian Montagnes, Siobhan McMenemy, and Chris Bucci (University of Toronto Press, second edition, 2003). Both the first (1976) and second edition of this volume draw on articles originally published in the Journal of Scholarly Publishing. Aimed at graduate students and assistant professors, this collection of brief essays offers advice about audience, tone, and organization. Readers among the junior faculty may find chapters two and three by Robert Plant Armstrong, anthropologist and former director of Northwestern University Press, the most helpful in this collection.
Thinking Like Your Editor: How to Write Serious Nonfiction and Get It Published
By Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato (W.W. Norton, 2002)
This literary agent and editor team offers extremely practical advice on how agents work and what nonfiction editors look for in academic trade books. Written in a lively and accessible manor, they cover how to put together proposals, find literary agents and decide if they are right for your work, and help ensure your book is published well. Their emphasis on the use of narrative and story-telling techniques in serious nonfiction can be especially helpful to scholarly writers.
Writing and Publishing for Academic Authors (2nd edition)
Edited by Joseph M. Moxley and Todd Taylor (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997). This eclectic collection of essays takes up topics from free-writing to writing book reviews, journal articles, and textbooks. It also offers advice on publishing conference papers and what to consider when co-authoring or writing grant proposals.
Articles about Scholarly Writing and Publishing
"Need for a Broader Concept of Publishing in the Digital Age" Jennifer Howard Chronicle of Higher Education, August 3, 2007
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i48/48a01401.htm
"Are Editors Out of the Tenure Process?" (on report by MLA panel) Jennifer Howard Chronicle of Higher Education, January 5, 2007
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i18/18a01101.htm
"Picture Imperfect" (on Art History publishing) Jennifer Howard Chronicle of Higher Education, August 4, 2006
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i48/48a01201.htm
"Crossing Over" Eric Jager Inside Higher Education, June 29, 2005.
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/06/29/jager
"Who Needs an Agent? You Do!" Rebecca Toor Chronicle of Higher Education, June 29, 2005.
http://www.chronicle.com/weekly/v50/i28/28b00501.htm
"Why Would Anyone Write a Book on That?" David D. Perlmutter Chronicle of Higher Education, June 17, 2005.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i41/41b01001.htm
"Passive is Spoken Here" William Germano Chronicle of Higher Education, April 22, 2005.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i33/33b02001.htm
"A Tale of Two Crafts: Writing makes woodworking look so good" Lawrence Jackson Academic Exchange, A Place for Scholarly Conversation at Emory, April / May 2004.
http://www.emory.edu/ACAD_EXCHANGE/2004/aprmay/jackson.html
"Writing Crossover Books: Can scholarship sell?" Amy Benson Brown Academic Exchange, A Place for Scholarly Conversation at Emory, Dec. / Jan. 2003.
http://www.emory.edu/ACAD_EXCHANGE/2003/decjan/crossover.html
