Published!

Not that I should expect any of you to know this, but something finally happened which I have been waiting several years for.

As an academic, of course, I write. And occasionally, I try to publish some things. Up until recently, the only things I've had published have been book reviews (for Dispositio/n and Worldview). This coming year will be a minor banner year, since I have two articles coming out in book collections -- a piece on documentary aesthetics in Patricio Guzmán's Chile, memoria obstinada for a collection memorializing the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Allende government; and a piece excerpted from my own book on Peruvian film for a collection on "rural cinema" -- and one for the online journal for Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the musical episode.

However, one piece has been on my curriculum vitae now since 2001. I wrote the piece originally in 1995, I think, and first tried to get it published in Michigan Feminist Studies. They refused it -- not because it was bad quality, but because (so I was told by a horrified friend who was on staff there) they couldn't get past the fact that I saw the film Strange Days in a relatively positive light. Miffed, I sent the piece to a call for papers for a journal called FEMSPEC, a small journal which specialized in feminist takes on science fiction and fantasy. IT was accepted for the special issue, just in time for my being hired as a sabbatical placement when I first got to AU.

And then I waited.

And waited.

At some point, I assumed the journal folded and we were all lost in the shuffle. Needing to update my c.v. for my upcoming review this fall, I finally felt so embarrassed that this ancient piece was still in my "forthcoming" list that I thought perhaps I should take it off the c.v. I wrote to the editor one last time to ask if and when the issue would ever come out.

And then, I got this reply: "the issue came out months ago! i am so sorry that i didn't let you know, but other contributors had received an exam copy, so i assumed you did as well!"

Now, finally receiving my copy of FEMSPEC 5.1 (2004), I find my article "'This Is Not Film': Ef/Facing the Screen in Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days" in print. At last, I am a published academic. (I would like to the journal's website but this issue is apparently the only one they don't yet have online, alas, so you will all just have to take my word for it.)

Nest step: New York Times best-seller.