Published!!! Developing a Writing Career?
I just received my contributor copies of Border Crossings magazine, a well-respected Canadian arts magazine distributed nationally. Last summer I had the opportunity to review an exhibition entitled Oil Spill: New Painting in Ontario at Saw Gallery, a local artist-run gallery. It was a huge challenge to write effectively about six artists in such a short review space but still weave it all into a theme - I chose to focus on how the exhibition was designed in a unique way to feature each artists’ work. Since I have been going through the publication process (drafts, reviewing, writing a bio, waiting) it has been such an exciting experience. For reasons I don’t yet fully understand, it has been a wholly rewarding and addictive feeling to see my name in print - just as the blogging experience is likewise a sense of instant publication and connection to a wider community.
I have scanned the three pages of the publication in PDF version so you can read it! Not the best scan, but the article is here in full. Border Crossings, pp. 88-90, vol. 26, no. 4, Issue 104, Winter 2007.
Since being accepted for publication in such a great magazine, I have been enthusiastic about other publication opportunities. I recently finished writing a short e-book (about 16 pages so far, it is still in the editing process) for web designer John Wiseman of Blogging Squared. It’s intended as an introduction to blogging for his clients, who are mostly small businesses. I did lots of research and it took me about 2 to 3 weeks to complete along with my normal full time job. It will be released on January 20th after it goes through several rounds of editing.
Yes, I have recently discovered that I am an unmistakable workaholic. While in school I was unavoidably juggling 20 hours a week of work and full time school, I thought that when I just had a full time job I could find more space to relax. It turns out that applying to Graduate school has been way more work than I expected, and I have been having no trouble volunteering for big projects to fill up the rest of the time. But I am willing to openly accept this part of my personality as something to work with. There is something enticing about being busy and kept on my toes, and I am looking forward to developing more freelance projects to keep up the challenge. I’ve been listening to Freelance Switch’s Freelance Radio podcast, and dreaming of the day in which I have a full-fledged office in my home where I work on either my own business as a professional freelance writer, or swimming in the depths of big ideas for research projects as I prepare for a PH.D or keep up with regular work as a Professor. For obvious reasons the podcast members I connect to the most is freelance writer Kristen Fischer - I love her attitude and find it funny when she mentions how her job is great since her manager gives her regular raises (whenever she increases her freelance rates). I like the idea of being my own manager.
So what’s next? Well I have been wanting to get more and more into exploring my research interests for graduate studies and finding ways to write about them for publication projects. As I get into the application process my interests are become more clear:
- In art history where it intersects with communication studies, my interests are hinged upon the idea of relationships - the relationship between the museum and the visitor, the relationship between the artists and the viewer, and the relationship between the artwork and the viewer. (This interest thus is connected concretely to things like performance art, artwork interactivity, museology and web 2.0).
- Analysis of animal representation in advertising, art, and news media.
- The internet and how political or activist movements (ie the animal rights movement) are using social web tools for outreach and to strengthen community (podcasting, blogging).
So I plan on getting more foundational books for animal studies - to explore that area of my interests and see how in depth they are in comparison to my main art history focus (or whether they can intersect well into my interest in visual animal representation). I have already joined the H-Animal mailing list - full of great scholars and fascinating debates which give me a much better sense of Animal Studies as a discipline.
I have also been scheming to turn some of my best undergraduate art history research papers into polished and respectable versions to submit to some great journals. I often had really fantastic ideas that may just need to be revised and updated. In particular, I am hoping to approach online journal Antennae with a paper I wrote about photography and death, namely comparing the work of two photographers who photograph dead birds. Antennae is self-named as “The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture,” and perfectly fits into my niche of animal studies where it intersects with artists and art history. All of the journal issues are available in full PDF online, and I have been fascinated with reading about interesting artworks. I like how the writing style in the journal is generally approachable, intelligent, and clear - making for engaging reading. It is the way I aspire to write as a researcher.
Since I have been using Tumblr as an immediate dumping ground for all of my web finds (and sometimes journalistic impressions), I am going to start culling some of the best from it and posting about them in here. I would like to post more frequently, to try to get rid of this feeling of Wordpress as being a very heavy and weighty procedure of writing in comparison to Tumblr’s bookmarklet ways.
Well if I ever decide to freelance I will make sure to consult with you first for tips and/or warnings. I can certainly see the downsides from here! xo, Val
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