Writing My First Book: A Lesson in Situated-ness
Soon after graduating I felt pressured by my advisors to publish my dissertation as a book. I had a few articles published in journals, including peer-reviewed ones but a book felt too far away. I knew what other recent grads had discovered the hard way: a dissertation is a book-length project, but it’s not a book. My advisor attempted to help me find a publisher but that resulted in a rude rejection. I tried on my own and made contact but the opportunity slipped away.
[M]y body is visible and mobile, and a thing among things. It is not, however, just a “chunk of space” but an “intertwining of vision and movement” — Maurice Merleau-Ponty
A few years later, it wasn’t my dissertation that caught the publisher’s attention. It was an article I wrote during my first year at Georgia Tech — one of my first — that prompted an editor to email me: “I actually first encountered your work while working on our game studies list, when I came across your Urban Metaphysics paper.”
In the 2011 article, I came up with the theory of urban metaphysics, which (as an aside) isn’t mentioned in my book. This theory covered “artistic, cultural production translated from material spaces to virtual, alternate, and augmented reality game layers on top of a dystopic world.” Others were reading it and pulling quotes, too. I just wasn’t aware of it.
Listening to Rammellzee rap about equations and Gothic Futurism would eventually lead me to my thesis and STEAM education. I traveled from Atlanta to Los Angeles to see his Battle Station installation for the Art in the Streets exhibition. Another artist in the show (Futura) once showed up at my high school (when I was a student in Louisville) looking like a pop star to teach us about the art of graffiti.
My pitch to the new editor was the same one that was rejected the year I graduated (same publisher). I knew it was time and I was finally ready to take the leap. Soon after the initial phone call, the editor sent me the proposal guidelines and a sample proposal to use as the template. Three days later I sent her my proposal with two possible titles:
Technologies of Survival: Culturally Relevant Making Inside and Outside of the Classroom
and
Techno-Vernacular Creativity & Innovation: Culturally Relevant Making Inside and Outside of the Classroom
The editor went with the second one that is also in the title of my dissertation (on the left side of the colon). After that it went through a blind peer review and I got stuck on “peer”, wondering who the peers might be because I wasn’t seeing anyone writing about (or studying) what I was writing about. The reviews were positive but I had to make some significant changes before moving forward. After that I got the contract.
Once I got past the proposal and reviews I had until June 31, 2019 to submit the manuscript. It took months for blind reviewers (yes, again) to submit their responses and it was clear that the book wasn’t ready for prime time. I was ready but I needed a developmental editor to pull everything together. The publisher found a grant to pay for that, so I had to interview potential editors from a provided list. The one I chose went to work the day after Christmas and finished right as the global pandemic was hitting the U.S. During this time I was fighting imposter syndrome and I eventually won.
I finished writing the book during the pandemic and the final manuscript was submitted on in early July. I had to switch two sections (the chapter on re-appropriation is stronger) and change a few titles. The primary editor smoothed the flow of the narrative, made my arguments a little stronger, helped me reduce repetition, and rearranged my sentences for better impact. Now, I have time to reflect as the book enters the production pipeline. I will hear from the manuscript editor (So many editors!) in a few weeks.
I now encourage graduate students to seek book publication only when their dissertations actually have the makings of a book.
Truth be told, I’ve been trying to write and publish a book since high school. This was also when I dreamt of getting my PhD. I stored those dreams somewhere in my brain until the time came to dig them out and then I was ready to go. Looking back, I can see how the impulse to see a show in Los Angeles led to my discovery of hip-hop in STEAM learning. Way before that, a chance encounter with Futura in high school led to me attending college in NYC. I brought Hank Shocklee to my lab in Boston after the PhD. The results have been lessons in situated-ness, which is covered in the book.