Welcome to Anjoli Roy

Among the many changes Biography and the Center for Biographical Research have been undergoing this year, by far the most welcome has been the appointment of Anjoli Roy as the journal’s new Managing Editor. Anjoli comes to us with more than eleven years of experience in publishing. From 2005 to 2008 she served as Associate Editor at the Feminist Press and as the Managing Editor of Women’s Studies Quarterly (WSQ). She has also worked as an editor for the University of Iowa Press, the International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs (ICAP), the Center on the Family, Korean Studies, and Mānoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing. Her stint as a copy editor at Biography in 2009–2010 gave her a grounding in our journal’s house style and production procedures. In addition, Anjoli has been involved in literary publishing as an editor with Kahuaomānoa Press, as a coeditor of the online journal Vice-Versa: Creative Works and Comments, and as Editor in Chief of Hawai‘i Review. Anjoli’s expertise has been recognized by prestigious awards for publications for which she was primarily responsible: the 2007 Phoenix Award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals for WSQ and a 2015 Best in Show Award at the National College Media Convention for issue 81 of Hawai‘i Review.

An accomplished writer in her own right, Anjoli has published creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry in various literary journals, including Hippocampus Magazine, Kweli, Slink Chunk Press, and Spiral Orb. In 2015, her poem “Sandesh” was featured as Kore Press’s Poem of the Week. She turns a finely tuned ear to her duties as an editor, and her sensitivity to individual styles and scrupulous attention to detail allows her to bring out the best in the work of other writers.

The Managing Editor of Biography also supports the activities of the Center for Biographical Research, and Anjoli has stepped into this role with aplomb, coordinating and publicizing the Center’s weekly Brown Bag lecture series and working closely with our current Graduate Assistant—the multi-talented Sam Ikehara—to enhance the Center’s online presence and social media outreach. Since October she has also been supporting the myriad tasks arising from the Center’s imminent move from our dilapidated yet beloved Henke Hall to another building on the UHM campus. Anjoli’s indomitable cheerfulness has made this relocation feel more like an adventure than a catastrophe, and she infuses everything she is doing for Biography and the Center with the same equanimity and optimism. We can’t think of anyone better suited for the job, and we welcome her with warmth and gratitude.