When All Seemed Lost

In January 2000, just a few months after meeting Suzanne Churchill at the inaugural Modernist Studies Association conference, I sent her an email wondering if anyone had recently published a collection of essays on little magazines and modernism. Thus began my long, intellectually-fulfilling collaboration with Suzanne, whose work at the intersection of periodical studies and modernist studies continues to shape this exciting field. And I have American Periodicalsto thank for helping to sustain our collaboration at a critical juncture.

After some initial hemming and hawing, Suzanne and I set to work collecting essays for the book. We had no idea what we were in for. After four years of usually thankless toil involving myriad emails, dozens of potential contributors, two university presses, a handful of (too often) grumpy outside readers, plus a whole lot of nail biting and heartache, it seemed as though our book was dead in the water. We could not find a publisher. With excellent and often field-shaping contributions from some of the most notable scholars of little magazines, Suzanne and I knew we had a significant publication on our hands, but we could not find a home for our apparently unwanted collection. It was at this moment of despair, over what seemed like years of wasted work, that American Periodicalssaved our skins—not to mention my own chance at tenure. Following a suggestion from a sympathetic acquisitions editor, we contacted Susan Williams, Steven Fink, and Jared Gardner, then the co-editors at American Periodicals, about the possibility of producing a special issue of the journal devoted to modernist little magazines. They agreed to look at a selection of essays from the larger collection, and, within a few months (lightning speed for academic publishing!), we were all working together to produce volume 15, no. 1 of American Periodicals, a special issue devoted to little magazines and modernism.

Having the opportunity to publish essays from the larger project was instrumental in a number of ways. Because we had to tailor our introduction and our contributors’ essays to the word count limits and the more specific, American focus of the journal, a number of us had a chance to polish further our work and construct tighter, more careful arguments. I know that my own essay, “‘Life is Real and Life is Earnest’: Mike Gold, Claude McKay, and the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven,” benefited greatly from further scrutiny and refinement. Not only were many of the individual selections strengthened, but the special issue also gave us some leverage with other presses. Because we could demonstrate scholarly interest in our project, we were able to go into contract with Ashgate and—finally—see the whole book in print as Little Magazines and Modernism: New Approaches(2007).

Thus, American Periodicalsgave us hope at a moment when all seemed to be lost. Susan, Steven, and Jared took a chance on us at a time when, speaking personally, I was becoming rather nervous about my career—and was also wondering which pizza delivery sign would look best on the roof of my car. I suspect that a number of fellow contributors to this twenty-fifth anniversary issue have similar tales to tell about how American Periodicalshas encouraged emergent scholars and scholarly practices to flourish in its pages, and I am happy to add my voice to this grateful chorus.