End-of-summer writing strategies for scholars


Eek, August is here! Fear not, fellow interdisciplinary scholars. If you’re staring at the calendar and getting anxious about the waning writing time, know you are not alone. This month’s Ideas on Fire newsletter has resources for making progress on your summer writing and publishing goals no matter where you are in the process.

August is a wonderful opportunity to revisit your summer goals, evaluate your work spaces and writing routine, and make some concrete decisions that ensure you rock this final month of summer and go into fall excited and confident. Here’s how scholars can make the most of the last month of summer.

Even if you end the summer with unfinished writing, you can put that material to use in the coming months. Check out this simple end-of-summer writing self-assessment that allows you to evaluate your summer writing with generosity and honesty. It also helps you turn the unfinished material into concrete tasks you can accomplish in short blocks during the fall and winter months.

With many grant applications due in September, a lot of scholars are putting the final touches on funding requests to support 2024–2025 research. We have a great resource on how to budget for editing and indexing to make sure you have the support you need to meet your publishing goals.

As you assess your summer publishing progress and make plans for fall, I recommend centering flexibility and sustainability. Here’s how to create a flexible journal publishing plan that can adapt to changing situations and meet your needs regardless of circumstance.

If you’re wrapping up summer teaching, there’s still time to ensure a rewarding learning experience for everyone involved. Here are some tips for designing and concluding summer courses that leave a lasting impression for students.

Finally, for those of you submitting your tenure application this month, check out these tips on preparing your tenure file.

I hope you have a wonderful August!

— Cathy Hannabach, Ideas on Fire founder and CEO

P.S. Our September back-to-school newsletter edition is in the works and it’s a good one! If you know any colleagues who would benefit from fall writing, teaching, and publishing resources, be sure to tell them to sign up here to get the newsletter when it goes out.

Fall publishing support

Prepare for a successful fall semester with our editing and indexing services.

The interdisciplinary, global Ideas on Fire team can help you go from draft to published.

Promoting your book at conferences

Best practices for promoting your book at conferences, with tips on partnering with publishers, using social media, and networking.

Co-teaching strategies that work

Co-teaching strategies for in-person and online courses that draw on each faculty member’s strengths while supporting students.

🎙️ Imagine Otherwise

Natalie Zervou on Dance in the Age of Austerity

The latest episode of Imagine Otherwise features Cathy Hannabach’s interview with dance studies scholar and Ideas on Fire author Natalie Zervou about Greek dance worlds in the wake of the Greek financial crisis.

Natalie is the author of Performing the Greek Crisis: Navigating National Identity in the Age of Austerity, which was recently published by the University of Michigan Press on behalf of the Dance Studies Association and indexed by Ideas on Fire.

📚 New books!

Fascinating new interdisciplinary titles by ​#IoFAuthors​. Grab your copies at our Bookshop storefront to support these scholars, Ideas on Fire, and your local bookstore.

Unsettled Labors

Migrant Caregivers in Palestine/Israel

Rachel H. Brown

Duke University Press

Explores the role of migrant laborers in Israel's elder care industry in the context of occupation, globalization, and settler colonialism.

Sin Padres, Ni Papeles

The Life and Labor of Unaccompanied Youth in the US

Stephanie Canizales

University of California Press

An inspiring study of the feminist movement for domestic worker rights in Indonesia.

Open Admissions

The Poetics and Pedagogy of Toni Cade Bambara, June Jordan, Audre Lorde, and Adrienne Rich in the Era of Free College

Danica Savonick

Duke University Press

The untold story of the radical pedagogies of 4 canonical feminist scholars at the City University of New York.

Bottoms Up

Queer Mexicanness and Latinx Performance

Xiomara Verenice Cervantes-Gómez

NYU Press

A vibrant queer of color read of the imbrications of sexual and political power and ethics in the making of Mexican and Latinx identities.

Deepwater Alchemy

Extractive Mediation and the Taming of the Seafloor

Lisa Yin Han

University of Minnesota Press

Traces how oceanic media represents the sea bed and its role in mediating climate change and extractivism.

Real Food, Real Facts

Processed Food and the Politics of Knowledge

Charlotte Biltekoff

University of California Press

How scientific authority shapes consumer critiques of processed food as well as industry responses.

Transpacific Undisciplined

Lily Wong, Christopher B. Patterson, and Chien-ting Lin

University of Washington Press

A transnational, trans-genre, boundary-breaking exploration of interdisciplinary movements across the Pacific.

The Politics of Collecting

Race and the Aestheticization of Property

Eunsong Kim

Duke University Press

A staunch critique of the racial and sexual politics of US museum and art collecting.

Spark new worlds with your writing

Take the stress out of publishing and see why so many interdisciplinary scholars trust Ideas on Fire to edit and index their books and articles.

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Ideas on Fire

We are an academic publishing and consulting agency helping progressive, interdisciplinary scholars write and publish awesome texts, enliven public conversations, and create more just worlds.

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