Journal of Scholarly Publishing

Upon encountering this pair of books—Michelle Boyd’s Becoming the Writer You Already Are and Wayne Journell’s Becoming a Scholarly Journal Editor: Practical Advice for Editors and Tips for Authors—I thought immediately of Michelle Obama’s best-selling memoir, [End Page 488] Becoming.¹ Titles wield power. Obama’s book, as autobiography, looks backward: reading it answers a question starting with How did . . . ? Boyd’s and Journell’s offerings look forward. As a self-help narrative, Boyd’s answers a question starting with How could . . . ? And as an instructional how-to guide, Journell’s answers a question starting with How should . . . ? All three approaches are explanatory, but the latter two imply possibilities for the readers’ futures. For Boyd and Journell, becoming indicates identities that are works in progress.

The intended audiences, of course, also difer. Obama writes for anyone curious about her life. Boyd and Journell write for scholars. Boyd, who left her position as a tenured faculty member of African American studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2015 to focus full-time on her business, InkWell Academic Writing Retreats, especially imagines an even more specific audience: ‘women of color and other marginalized scholars whose struggles with writing have prompted them to internalize the bias that others have about their ability to do exemplary research’ (xi). I do not belong to such a marginalized population myself, but I can appreciate the accessible and affirming tone of Boyd’s book, written not as an instruction manual but rather as a narrative to encourage reflection, engagement, and growth.

Boyd, too, believes in the power of titles, with hers revealing the premise of her book. Becoming the Writer You Already Are empowers readers to listen to their own needs and to identify their own best practices when it comes to their writing processes—a concept Boyd treats in the singular but which I view in the plural, since different genres benefit from different approaches. Scholars, in Boyd’s view, exhibit an ‘unrelenting tendency to judge’ (13). And this tendency needs to be identified, scrutinized, and ultimately used actively, as a tool for liberation, instead of passively, as a force that blocks, hinders, or suppresses. Boyd’s book teaches readers how to cultivate ownership of their ideas, their writing, and their scholarly lives.

Across six chapters, Boyd addresses how and why scholarly writers get stuck (chapter 1), why scholarly writing is difficult in the first place (chapter 2), how understanding one’s writing process can improve fluency and satisfaction (chapters 3 and 4), and how writing processes evolve (chapters 5 and 6). ‘Figuring out our writing process is a lifelong pursuit,’ she concludes, toward the end of chapter 5 (111). Boyd grounds her presentation in the psychology of writing, herself invoking the roles of motivator, counsellor, adviser, mentor, and coach. Offering a veritable Who’s Who of the [End Page 489] genre, she cites numerous how-to books on academic writing (many of which I have previously reviewed), including excellent works by Wendy Laura Belcher, Eric Hayot, Joli Jensen, Barbara Kamler and Pat Thomson, Rowena Murray, Stephen Pyne, Paul Silvia, Helen Sword, and Sharon Zumbrunn. Several of those authors also helpfully posit the liberating lack of a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to writing. An individual’s ‘writing process and best practices...