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To Begin Again: Known Paths and New Routes of Exploration

2023; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 48; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/chq.2023.a905622

1553-1201

Joseph Sommers,

Health and Medical Research Impacts

To Begin Again: Known Paths and New Routes of Exploration Joseph Michael Sommers Introductions are in order. My name is Joe. Alongside Sonya and Mark, we are the returning editors of ChLAQ and are joined by our colleagues and newest Associate Editors, Krystal Howard and Amanda M. Greenwell, and our indefatigable Editorial Assistant, Roy Rowan. Aside from our new colleagues, we have been privileged to serve with our departing editor, Sara Day, a tireless and good-natured colleague, and, generally-speaking, an excellent human being and friend. Beginning on a somewhat uncharacteristic1 personal note amid the pages of an academic journal offers the opportunity for a moment of clarity and reflection. While composing these words, a thought wedged itself in my mind, an inconsiderate corn kernel front and center amidst an otherwise genuine smile: as editors, while we strive to present the best scholarship afforded us, we also quietly hope to encourage further publication of new thoughts and theories from new avenues and scholarly inlets who might not have considered writing for us and with us before. Increasingly, discouragingly, and especially in recent years, there has been a palpable sensation of polite circumspection from prospective writers, especially new ones or, better, ones new to the academy. Maybe it’s a fresh feeling of guardedness from those who in earlier days might have boldly proclaimed their insights from a conference panel and then later submitted a more replete version to these pages. Maybe it’s just been a hard few years for us all. Amidst the everything in that time, it feels as if one of the main inhibitors of new scholarship comes from, as Brandi Carlile’s lyrics capture, feelings that one and/or one’s writing is “broken down/not good enough,” where “it’s the words that hurt the most.” What are we without our tools, our words that give form and function to our thought? Imposter syndrome, that anxiety that chokes and throttles so many of us, a humbleness and humility mutated into something far more sinister, restrains our hands before we press “send” on a submission. It seems as if we self-edit ourselves into a paralytic silence even when we have so much to say and the authority to write it. And to that, we say, please write it. Manifest your thoughts into existence and click “Send.” [End Page 1] The editors presenting this journal to you are not new to their jobs, and one of our main duties is to present you and your good thoughts and words to everyone reading these pages. We’re grateful for that, and we would implore you to share your ideas with us so we can share them with everyone else. We have a new email address, chlaquarterly@cmich.edu, and we would very much like you to use it. Or to stop us, politely—we’re academics so, essentially, as skittish as a malnourished deer—at the next conference we share together to talk about your work. ChLAQ wants to hear from you especially if we never have before and certainly if it has been a while. I will echo a mission statement from former editor of ChLAQ, Katharine Capshaw Smith, who wrote, “This journal is yours, and [we] intend its pages to reflect the vitality, insight, and courage of your work” (1). In that vein, the editors proudly present five essays in this issue of exceedingly brave and diverse types of scholarship that investigate new footholds in children’s and young adult literature as well as find new points of ingress in which to approach it. “We Need Diverse Fanfiction Studies: On Shipping Fanfiction and CYA Literature” by Kenneth Kidd announces its intentions in its title arguing for a greater heterogeny in a comparably younger academic field in order for it to thrive as much and as well as the literature itself. Following that, Alisa Clapp-Itnyre’s essay, “Childhood Diaries of a British Girl and a British Boy, 1899–1924: Drawing Some Conclusions,” proposes more serious investigations into what she considers as an expanded definition of children’s literature—compositions by children that were never intended for publication. In “The Presence of the...