I’m an independent scholar. Although this is a growing demographic in the parched land of academia, people still ask me what that means when they see the phrase on my conference name tag. At its simplest, it means that the money I use to buy my groceries, tea mugs, and airplane tickets to visit friends and libraries in England arrives in my bank account in exchange for work I do that is NOT researching nineteenth-century literature/history/culture. I do that research for fun, the way some people take up woodworking or mountain biking. Instead of Comic-Con, I go to Victorian studies conferences. There are as many paths to and through the wilderness of independent scholarship as there are people doing it, and mine has certainly been a meandering one, with a recent opportunity blossoming out of a dormant bulb.
A little more than ten years ago, I was looking to get out of a job where I wasn’t happy, and I put in a few months as an assistant at a publisher of linguistics books. That relatively short stint led to an ongoing professional relationship that has continued in dribs and drabs and fits and starts ever since. Sometimes maintaining that connection has meant copy editing a manuscript; sometimes it has meant reorganizing a small warehouse of books (free weightlifting!). Starting now, it means taking over as the Managing Editor. In the course of much professional soul searching in recent years, I’ve realized that it’s very important to me to be always learning something new at my job. I certainly have a lot to learn in my new role, and that’s one of many reasons I’m excited about it. Another reason is that it will enable me to continue my work as an independent scholar, so watch this space for more tales from the stacks!