the nuts and bolts of publishing

How do you plan a journal issue?

e d i t o r s'  n o t e

b a c k g r o u n d s

e a r l y  i n t e r e s t s

s u p p o r t

j o u r n a l s

n u t s  &  b o l t s

r e c e n t
  &  f o r t h c o m i n g

l o c a t i n g  s u b j e c t s

c o u r t s h i p

q u e s t i o n i n g
  &  c o l l a b o r a t i n g

t r a n s c r i p t s
  &  e d i t i n g

e t h i c s  &  v o i c e

g e n r e  &  m e t h o d

r h e t o r i c
  &  c o m p o s i t i o n

c o m m u n i t y

Wade Mahon: We won’t do it for every issue, but I think we’d like to do a thematic issue maybe once a year or so, because those really made a big difference in the number and quality of submissions that we’ve received. Because we’re not a College English or a CCC, or something like that, we don’t have to sort through 400 submissions a year, so our challenge tends to be more on the other end of the spectrum, which I think is the case for a lot of smaller journals. I think having a special topic focus really encourages people to submit their articles.

Eric Schroeder: Writing on the Edge comes out twice a year and we try to do an interview with a writing teacher and one with a writer. 

In your interview work, have you worked with different media?

We were the first journal ever to publish a hypertext-—that is, a hypertext disk with the journal (Spring 1991). Apple Computer donated floppy disks. We had what were then some of the really famous people in the field writing hypertext for us as part of a special issue. We had a lot of fun actually doing that. It’s one of the few issues of WOE that we sold out. There just aren’t any back issues available. People really loved that.