CFP: Celebrating WPA, 1979–2019: Forty Years of Research, Collaboration, and Community

The editors of WPA: Writing Program Administration seek proposals for a variety of historical works to be included in a special issue of the journal to appear in summer 2019. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of WPA as a peer-reviewed publication and celebrate this journal’s evolutionary and revolutionary contributions to the field of writing program administration, we encourage proposals for the following:

• Bibliographic essays examining important topics addressed in the journal over its 40–year history such as assessment, basic writing, labor, professional development, etc. (c. 2,000 words)
• Interviews with influential scholars about their work appearing in the journal (c. 2,000 words)
• Historical sketches, journal maps, etc. (c. 3,000 words)
• Article retrospectives (c. 2,000 words)
• Other projects related to the history of the journal (2,000–3,000 words).

Proposals should identify the topic, focus, and genre of the proposed work and briefly describe the author’s proposed research process. Authors proposing an interview should secure the scholar’s consent in advance of the proposal. Proposals should contain no more than 350 words, exclusive of the bibliography. Please submit proposals to wpaeditors@gmail.com, and include the subject heading “special issue” in your email.

• Bibliographic essays should focus on a single topic addressed in the journal over its 40–year history, demonstrating the evolution of the field’s thinking on the topic and providing historical context as appropriate. These essays should aim to be more insightful than exhaustive in their bibliographic approach.
• Interviews with influential scholars should provide a brief biographical sketch overviewing the scholar’s career and overviewing their publications in the journal. Questions to the scholar should focus on a few publications in the journal and may include discussions of the publication process of these works where appropriate.
• Historical sketches or journal maps should focus on a five– or ten–year period in the journal’s history, outlining the different topics covered in the journal and providing the historical context for those pieces. Sketches or journal maps may go beyond an examination of journal articles to analyze other features of the journal, including the author’s guides, editor’s introductions, symposia, bibliographies, and book reviews.
• Article retrospectives should be proposed by the authors of any WPA article published between five and forty years ago. Authors are asked to reflect on the ideas advanced in their work and discuss how their thinking, or that of the field, has evolved in the interim. Authors may wish to reflect on the reception of their work or its long-term impact, and they may choose to discuss both the original context for the article and the ways that context—whether personal, institutional, disciplinary, or socio-political—has changed.

Publication Timeline

Deadline for proposals:                    October 1, 2018

Acceptances sent:                           October 15, 2018

Completed manuscripts due:            January 1, 2019

Manuscripts returned to authors:      February 1, 2019

Revised works due:                          March 1, 2019