Reading Until Dawn Update

Some exciting things have been happening with Reading Until Dawn over the past week (at least I think they’re exciting) as I’ve made some changes and tried to get this bird off the ground.

First off, Reading Until Dawn has evolved forms, from “journal” to open-ended “anthology.” Though this is basically just a semantic switch, it means at least two things: a) there will be no issues–although as volume warrants (yes, that’s optimism you smell), the essays may be split into volumes–and thus b) no hard deadlines. Instead, because we’re not dealing with a publisher and don’t have costs to keep down, submissions will be read, accepted, and published on an ongoing basis. For me, that’s part of the excitement of publishing something like this online: not only can it be more dynamic and open-ended than print publishing, but it has the potential (potentially) to reach a larger, more diverse audience.

Due to the foibles of human nature, however, this lack of deadlines may present certain difficulties, as in a decreased number of submissions. Hence the following–a soft deadline and an incentive:

1) The soft deadline: I’ll be publishing new essays at the end of each month. This means that papers submitted within the first two weeks of the month will likely be published at the end of that same month (pending, of course, the paper’s acceptance and any major revisions or editing that may need to be done prior to publication). Any papers received within the last two weeks of the month will be published at the end of the next month. (Make sense?)

2) The incentive: Stephen Carter has graciously offered to publish a few of the best Reading Until Dawn essays in the June issue of Sunstone, a substantial part of which will be devoted to exploring Mormon approaches to the Twilight phenomenon. Of course, this means he’ll need drafts before June–at least by April.

So take advantage of Reading Until Dawn‘s window into Sunstone–get those essays in early and you may well have the rewarding opportunity to be published in the world of “real” print.

Second, I’ve launched Reading Until Dawn: The Blog as a forum through which I can offer updates, take care of housekeeping issues, and develop what I hope will become an extensive webliography of resources on Stephenie Meyer and her work–a useful tool for those interested in further study of the phenomenon. (It will be much easier, I think, to do this using a blog forum than trying to do it on the OJS site, which doesn’t allow for discussion of any kind, save via email–not exactly the way I want to approach this.)

(By the way, I need your help creating this resource. If you know of any links to interesting info on Meyer–online or in print–submit them to me on the blog’s “Webliography” page [more info on what we’re looking for is posted there].)

So from now on, rather than offering updates of this sort on AMV, I’ll be doing the updating there, with occasional links posted here to remind you to check out updates on the blog. (Or you could sign up for the RSS feed and keep reminded and up-to-date that way!)

Third, with regard to the submission process: I don’t particularly care for the way OJS has set things up (too time consuming on the editing end, at least in terms of this project), so instead of submitting papers through the journal site, just email them to me at readinguntildawn [at] gmail [dot] com. That will make things a bit easier and less stressful for me.

Finally, I’d appreciate any exposure you can give Reading Until Dawn in your personal networks: link to the site/blog; pass it along by word of mouth, etc. (I know some of you have been doing just that. A hearty thanks!) We need all the help we can get to get this off the ground, and I feel like it’s a worthwhile enough scholarly enterprise to give it at least a flying leap. Whatever you can do to promote it is appreciated.

While that’s all I have for now, there may be a few other things posted on the blog that might paint a more complete picture of the direction we’re going with Reading Until Dawn. If you have any comments, questions, feedback, or Meyer links for the webliography, let me know here (in the comments to this post), here, here, or here.

I look forward to seeing those essays (on any and all aspects of Stephenie Meyer and her work, including the recent film) roll my way!