Editorial Work

Editorial Work

From 2017-2018, I worked as co-editor of the Unsung Masters Series issue on the poet Adelaide Crapsey. The Unsung Masters Series sheds light on important, largely unrecognized and underrepresented writers from the twentieth century by publishing volumes on these writers that include a selection of their oeuvre and several essays that reframe their life and art. The series is distributed to Pleiades subscribers and through individual sales. In this position, I operated under tight deadlines to ensure that the volume would be released at the upcoming Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Tampa, for which I have created a marketing and advertising platform. In order to meet this deadline, I established and managed the production timeline for the issue, serving as the primary point of contact for all contributors, university departments, librarians, board members, and estate managers. I was also responsible for managing the budget to keep costs low for archival research, travel, printing and postage, contributor payments, as well as reproduction rights.

As queer writer-scholar, I prioritize a diversity of perspectives in my editorial work. In my role as Reviews & Interviews Editor at Gulf Coast, one of my goals was to increase the journal’s attention to translation, non-English languages, and representations of queer identities. For issue 29.2, I coordinated a roundtable with five trans* and genderqueer writers, such as Ryka Aoki and L.G. Parker, to discuss trans* and genderqueer pedagogy and poetics. The roundtable, a first for Gulf Coast, shifted the balance of artists and topics represented in the issue. By extending the conversation to pedagogy, the roundtable ensure Gulf Coast contributed to important discussions about (mis)readings of the body. Reviews play a key role in shifting this editorial focus. Through ongoing communication with publishers, I see upcoming titles by international and historically underrepresented writers, pairing them with reviewers who will be both generous and critical in their assessment of each author’s work, like Conor Bracken’s 2017 review of Layli Long Soldier’s collection of poems, Whereas. When necessary, I train contributors and freelancers through the process of writing professional reviews that will be read on a national, and sometimes, international scale. This relationship, for which I offer guidance and support, plays a critical role in my retention of contributors and freelancers for future projects.

During my time with university-based publications and literary journals, fostering strong, close-working relationships has been vital to me editorial experience. At Callaloo, I worked with Charles Rowell on a special issue celebrating Texas writers. With Gulf Coast and Unsung Masters, I have worked closely with colleagues on budgets and production calendars, while maintaining content from roughly fifteen contributors between each online and print issue. I see editorial work as a conversation among multiple constituencies—from colleagues, to contributors, authors, and readers.