Tips on turning your dissertation into a book

In Twitter, I noticed Matt Gold (@mkgold) shared tweets being delivered by (@fhi_duke – Franklin Humanities Institute). The tweeter was at a session about turning your dissertation into a book. The talk was by Ken Wissoker, the Editorial Director of Duke University Press (@kwissoker). I thought the info was great, and so I’m posting here the  tweets @fhi_duke delivered. Apparently Ken’s talk will be available in a podcast soon.

  • Dissertations are highly contingent, written for specific committees & institutions – for people who are obligated to read it! #1stbk
  • In a diss, your committee can say “so what you are really trying to say is…” in a book, you have to know from the get-go #1stbk
  • In a book, emplotment & pacing are important – knowing what the reader needs & why #1stbk
  • A diss needs other theorists to justify its argument; In a bk, yr reader doesn’t need to see how u parse theorists that they’ve read #1stbk
  • Thinking about audience: do you want it to be taught to u-grads? (that might dictate length) To circulate beyond your discipline? #1stbk
  • A book published 5 years from now: how will it be read? On hand-held? The need to write with some uncertainty in mind #1stbk
  • Duke Press published ~100 title/year – 30 MSs are turned down each week – but often this is a matter of FIT bet. book & press #1stbk
  • At your professional meetings, pay attention to the strongest, most prolific presses – write to editors ahead of time #1stbk
  • Book proposals: don’t start off discussing other people’s work! Make your work front & center #1stbk
  • Book proposals should include chapter summaries & a sample chapter – send BY MAIL, don’t make the editor print the copies! #1stbk
  • Be honest about where you are in the writing: whole MS, 2 chapters – an interested editor will WANT you to send something #1stbk
  • Editors sometimes send out dissertations in lieu of completed book MS to reviewers – but rarely just excerpts… #1stbk
  • Book reviewers // test screening audiences – reviewers will advise on whether arguments are convincing, what works/doesn’t #1stbk
  • Diss to #1stbk usually a 4-5 year process
  • Writing groups can be great help – w/ people who can model the audience you’re interested in reaching #1stbk

Update!: PhD submitted & now in the US for MLA and Microsoft SCS

MLAWhew!! I did it!!!!! I finally submitted my PhD!!!!!! It has been a crazy few years finishing that thesis writing up and doing all the travel and work stuff at the same time. I’ll share more about the content of my thesis, the research and writing process and lessons learned soon. I’ll also be sharing details about my thesis, and most likely post a PDF of it online once I’ve received my examiner feedback (about March). But for now, I’ll share how the last two weeks have capped off the craziness of the last few years with a massive series of events: returned home from Canada (I was at the awesome Whistler Film Festival); packed house for pick up by removalists on Monday; submitted PhD on Tuesday; did last minute packing and quiet time to acknowledge one year since my mother’s passing on Wednesday; drove to Melbourne from Sydney on Thursday; moved in on Friday; second lot of removalists on Monday; then flew to the US on Wednesday. Do not try this at home kids.

I’m now in the USA to celebrate Xmas with family in Philly, then have two conferences I’m participating in, as well as lots of catch-ups with awesome people.

On Tuesday 29th December I’m on a panel at the Modern Language Association Convention being held at the Philadelphia Marriot. For those unfamiliar with the event, it is BIG in the traditional academic world. The panel is put together by Marc Ruppel, a theorist who has been researching what is now known as ‘transmedia storytelling’ but which Marc (like me) studied long before it was well-known. I’m really looking forward to meeting Marc and Burcu in person for the first time.

Re)Framing Transmedial Narratives (7:15–8:30 p.m., Congress A, Loews, Presiding: Marc Ruppel, Univ. of Maryland, College Park)

  1. “From Narrative, Game, and Media Studies to Transmodiology,” Christy Dena, Univ. of Sydney
  2. “To See a Universe in the Spaces In Between: Migratory Cues and New Narrative Ontologies,” Marc Ruppel
  3. “Works as Sites of Struggle: Negotiating Narrative in Cross-Media Artifacts,” Burcu S. Bakioglu, Indiana Univ., Bloomington

Our submission abstracts are:

Marc Ruppel, University of Maryland College Park
To See a Universe in the Spaces In-Between: Migratory Cues and New Narrative Ontologies

As narrative continues to move beyond mono-medial storyworlds and into massive, multiply-mediated, multiply-authored fictional universes, literary structures have begun to form which attempt to link together these disparate clusters of media when their material properties do not allow for such networked operations.  Drawing upon narratology, network theory, cognitive science and user-interface design, this paper will examine what I call migratory cues, signs present in universes that work to connect the content of one media channel with that of another. Functioning much like a hyperlink metaphorized through different media, migratory cues can take the form of virtually anything, from objects to events to shared locations, or as external markers such as logos and website URLs. By locating and investigating the properties of migratory cues, we can not only witness the means through which new networks of narrative information are rapidly coalescing, but also the remarkable flexibility of narrative itself as a technology of media convergence.

Burcu S. Bakioglu, University of Indiana
Works as Sites of Struggle: Negotiating Narrative in Cross Media Works

This paper interrogates the divergent ways the materiality of the medium of cross media works affect the process of meaning-making and investigates how it influences the production of works. Works become sites of struggle because the stories that they narrate are in a state of constant negotiation between its producers/creators, the medium of the work, and the communities that these works mobilize. In a work born in media convergence, I argue, story-telling becomes a collaborative, and more important, a participatory process. Using Art of the H3ist, an Alternate Reality Game, this paper investigates the nature of performativity and collaboration in works that extend across various media and develops the model of performative narratives to refer to works that encourage and rely on such activities for the formation of its texts. 

Christy Dena, University of Sydney
From Narrative, Game & Media Studies to Transmodiology

A recognition of the multimodal nature of communication has reinvigorated narrative studies of late. This paper interrogates the methodological ramifications of a multimodal awareness: when observing the role and effects of different modes in a creative work, how can the understandings and insights of game, media and art theory be invoked? How can the understanding of non-narrative and narrative phenomena be recognised and reconfigured in a mode-agnostic approach? This paper presents some methodological frameworks for exploring this approach.

There are lots of great sessions at this event, so I look foward to hearing some interesting talks on gaming, new media narratives and meta discussions on academia in general, and also catching up and meeting colleagues.

I’ll also be at the Microsoft Research Social Computing Symposium.

For the past four years, Microsoft Research (MSR) has sponsored a symposium on social computing that has brought together academic and industry researchers, developers, writers, and influential commentators in order to open new lines of communication among previously disconnected groups. The 2010 symposium will focus on “city as platform”. We will have brief (5-10 minutes) talks by a handful of speakers on each of the topics, followed by related breakout sessions, and lots of time to interact with other attendees.

I was lucky to be flown to the event last year and this year I was invited back because I was on the team that won one of the games last year! Yep, that’s right. I’m not really invited back, just offered a place as a winner. Hehe. Luckily I’m in New York at the time so I’m attending again! It really is a great event that has such a great selection of people attend. I hold this event up as one of my favourites I’ve ever been to and so I’m really looking forward to it.

Other than that I’ll be catching up with many awesome people in Philly and New York. Can’t wait.

Hope you’re all having a great holidays. More soon.

Creative Writing & New Media and Transliteracy @ De Montfort Uni

TRGlogoA few years ago I was fotunate to be invited to participate in De Montfort University’s online Masters in Creative Writing and New Media programme. It was created by Sue Thomas and Kate Pullinger, and had wonderful aims:

The degree was designed for writers interested in experimenting with new formats and was informed by contemporary thinking on transliteracy, meaning the ability to read, write and interpret across a range of media from orality through print and film to networked environments. Creative Writing, indeed the very nature of text itself, is changing. No longer bound by print, there are many opportunities for writers to experiment with new kinds of media, different voices and experimental platforms, both independently and in collaboration with other writers or other fields and disciplines. Not only is writing evolving, but writers themselves are developing broader expectations and aspirations. Novelists are learning about the potential of hypertext and multimedia to change the ways in which a story can be told. Journalists are finding that blogs and wikis are radically affecting their relationships with their readers. Community artists are discovering powerful collaborative narratives. And the commercial world is finding new and creative ways to interact with its employees and customers in the fast-growing attention economy of the internet.

While digital media have altered the way we disseminate and gather information, readers – both online and offline – still hunger for compelling narratives. As readers, we want to be told stories; we want complex and interesting ideas and characters; we want vivid pictures in our heads. As writers we want to communicate. We need good stories well-told, whatever our choice of delivery platform. The MA in Creative Writing and New Media gave students an opportunity to focus on developing work at the cutting edge of the new technologies and provided new ways of thinking about narrative.

The course enabled postgraduate students to study and practice with a rich range of theorists and practitioners from around the world. What I loved about this course is that it focused on practice — how is new media and cross/transmedia writing different — and how they invited lecturers and mentors from around the globe to assist their students. Because the guests were from all around the globe, the guests did not fly in (that would of been a prohibitive budget for any course). Instead, we participated from wherever we were in the planet, by providing online resources for the students, and using Skype and forums to discuss. Look at the guests who participated:

Randy Adams, Paul Beasley, Ronni Bennett, Alan Bigelow, Will Buckingham, Andy Campbell, J.R. Carpenter, John Cayley, Suw Charman, Christy Dena, Jeanie Finlay, Caitlin Fisher, Carolyn Handler Miller, Chris Joseph, Jess Laccetti, Marjorie Luesebrink, Bruce Mason, Nick Montfort, Meg Pickard, Rita Raley, Alan Sondheim, Maurice Suckling, Jonathan Taylor, Christine Wilks

The course has finished now, but what is wonderful is that an archive of all the Guest Lectures given during the four years of the online MA in Creative Writing and New Media are now online for all! It was put together by CWNM graduate and digital artist Christine Wilks, and the “resource will be of value to practitioners, students and academics with an interest in transliteracy, digital fiction, digital art, e-poetry, and cross-media”. Yes!

Wohoo! Enjoy!

Now, the team are also continuing their work on ‘Transliteracy’. The Transliteracy Research Group (TRG), is a research-focussed think-tank and creative laboratory.

Transliteracy is currently defined as the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks. The Transliteracy Research Group coordinates theoretical and practice-based research into transliterate materials and behaviours.

They have a new blog at http://www.transliteracy.com, community site at http://transliteracy.ning.com/ and have a CFP out:

The first Transliteracy Conference will take place at Leicester’s new Phoenix Square Digital Media Centre on Tuesday 9 February 2010.  This one-day event offers an opportunity for academics, artists, business people and practitioners to share discoveries, ideas, and creative works that amplify and augment transliteracy research. Themes to be explored include:

  • transliteracy and libraries
  • transliteracy and the arts 
  • transliteracy in education 
  • transliteracy in communications 
  • transliteracy in the workplace 
  • transliteracy and transdisciplinarity
  • transliteracy in action – examples of transliterate works, like digital fiction, networked arts projects, or library resources.

The Call for Presentations invites 250 word abstracts. Presentations should be 10-15 minutes in duration, and can be used to show work or deliver a short paper. Deadline for Abstracts:  1 December 2009

Enjoy all of this!