In conjunction with the ‘Nineteenth-Century Narratives of Horror’, the North West Long Nineteenth Century Research Network organised a Meet the Editors session with key editorial members of the Gothic Studies journal: editor Dr Emily Alder and book reviews editor Dr Sorcha Ni Fhlainn. This event was very well received, and as it was online, attracted PGRs/ECRs from far and wide. After a brief welcome and introduction from our hosts, Dr Emma Liggins and Dr Sonja Lawrenson, editor Dr Emily Alder introduced the remit of the journal, outlined her role, and provided a detailed overview of the submission process for an article, offering some general tips for those new to journal article publishing along the way.
Gothic Studies publishes three issues per year working with a rolling deadline for article submission, the process from submission to acceptance to publication taking somewhere between six and twelve months. More generally, articles are usually no longer than six thousand words, sent directly to the editor and once provisionally accepted are then submitted to the peer review process. Writers are encouraged to contact the editor ahead of submission to discuss their ideas, check the style guide and peruse other articles as it is important to ensure the article topic and journal focus are aligned. There are, from time to time, calls for papers for special issues and these are also opportunities for researchers to submit their articles. Special Issues are usually guest edited, however, so articles would be initially submitted to those editors for acceptance, before entering the usual peer review process. PGRs/ECRs may wish to take an original topic from their thesis and narrow in on it with more specific detail, and here writers were advised to re-write the piece as an article for the specific journal rather than simply lift a section from the larger work. Dr Alder then suggested that anyone wishing to submit an article to Gothic Studies should contact her and subsequently send their anonymised manuscript with a title page to the editor’s specific email: gothiceditors@gmail.com.
One way for PGRs/ECRs to begin publishing with a journal is to write a book review, and
Dr Sorcha Ni Fhlainn outlined the less-intense process for book reviews. A review piece is typically no more than 1250-1500 words and although not submitted to the peer review process, are rigorously appraised by the book reviews editor prior to publication. While academic material should be reviewed objectively, and to some extent critically, Dr Ni Fhlainn requested that reviewers be mindful that these publications are the result of someone’s hard work, so the tone should not be unnecessarily negative or harsh. Those interested in writing a review for Gothic Studies should simply contact the Reviews editor indicating the book title and publisher details of the book they wish to review (you get to keep the book, by the way) and which might be valuable to their research. Increasingly, however, publishers are sending e-book versions for review, so you may not necessarily receive the title in print if you were hoping to flesh out your bookshelf. Typically, reviewers would not be asked to write more than one review simultaneously, as it is important to have time to do this and on average, the time given is between three and six months, although you may have some lee-way with this if required, so staying in touch with the reviews editor is vital if they are expecting a piece from you by an agreed deadline. Dr Ni Fhlainn indicated that she had quite a number of books awaiting review, so encouraged potential reviewers to contact her.
An interesting discussion followed, with the speakers responding to the questions posed in the online chat for the Q&A session as they appeared. Many attendees commented on the usefulness of the information provided and thanked the speakers for demystifying the article submission process. Explanations around the retention of copyright in terms of the article’s author (key for those still to submit their thesis and who may have developed part for an article) with appropriate mention of the journal reference, and of the author’s responsibility for ‘moderate-use’ of quotations within their piece were really helpful, as were reassurances about being able to publish as an independent scholar. In response to a query about where to find Special Issue calls for papers (on the journal website and through UPenn, with links supplied to attendees in the chat), Dr Sonja Lawrenson explained more about her own experience with Special Issues as she is currently co-guest editing one for Gothic Studies on the Afterlives of Melmoth the Wanderer, resulting from a recent conference she organised with her colleague. Following the success of the event, they spoke to the editor about their proposal for a special issue and are now working together to bring these papers into a journal edition. One reason for opting for a special issue rather than an edited collection was the consideration of the shorter publication lead-in time to take advantage of the timeliness of the research and event theme.
This Meet the Editors session was an excellent opportunity to benefit from the advice of senior academics in understanding expectations in the field of journal publishing and provided valuable insight for PGRs/ECRs in approaching journal article submission with Gothic Studies in particular.
Teresa Fitzpatrick
Teresa Fitzpatrick has recently been awarded her PhD from Manchester Metropolitan University, which explored the intersectionality of plants and gender in speculative fiction from 1890s to 2015 through a material ecofeminist Gothic.